their
fellow believers and brothers-in-arms merely to submit to the domination
of a European nation, no matter what form the latter's suzerainty may
assume.... It is no use for M. Millerand to say: 'We have never thought
of trespassing in any respect upon the independence of these people.' No
one is deceived by such statements as that. The armistice was signed in
accordance with the conditions proclaimed by Mr. Wilson, but as soon as
Germany and its allies were helpless, the promises of the armistice were
trodden underfoot, as well as the Fourteen Points. Such a violation of
the promises of complete independence, so prodigally made to the Arabs
on so many occasions, has resulted in re-uniting closer than ever the
Arabs and the Turks. It has taken but a few months to restore that
intimacy.... It is probable that France, by maintaining an army of
150,000 men in Syria, and by spending billions of francs, will be able
to subdue the Syrian Arabs. But that will not finish the task. The
interior of that country borders upon other lands inhabited by Arabs,
Kurds, and Turks, and by the immense desert. In starting a conflict with
4,000,000 Syrians, France will be making enemies of 15,000,000 Arabs in
the Levant, most of whom are armed tribes, without including the other
Mohammedan peoples, who are speedily acquiring solidarity and
organization under the blows that are being dealt them by the Entente.
If you believe I am exaggerating, all you have to do is to investigate
the facts yourself. But what good will it do to confirm the truth too
late, and after floods of blood have flowed?"[188]

In fact, signs of Turco-Arab co-operation became everywhere apparent. To
be sure, this co-operation was not openly avowed either by Mustapha
Kemal or by the deposed King Feisal who, fleeing to Italy, continued his
diplomatic manoeuvres. But Arabs fought beside Turks against the
French in Cilicia; Turks and Kurds joined the Syrian Arabs in their
continual local risings; while Kemal's hand was clearly apparent in the
rebellion against the British in Mesopotamia.

This Arab _entente_ was not the whole of Mustapha Kemal's foreign
policy. He was also reaching out north-eastward to the Tartars of
Transcaucasia and the Turkomans of Persian Azerbaidjan. The Caucasus was
by this time the scene of a highly complicated struggle between Moslem
Tartars and Turkomans, Christian Armenians and Georgians, and various
Russian factions, which was fast reducing t