east of the canal at the five points where attacks would possess some likelihood of successful conclusion.

It was the end of January, 1915, before the Turkish army, marching in easy stages across the desert reached the vicinity of the canal. Their German mentors had constructed for them elaborate carriages with the wheels of enormous width to carry the artillery and the heavy supplies across the soft sands. Also, in preparation of a crossing of the canal, the Turks brought a supply of ready-assembled pontoon bridges, running on wheels and similar to those used by the German army in Europe, except that they were much lighter.

In the transport of all this material the Turks were dependent upon camels, suited as are no other animals for work in the desert. In thousands, they had been collected at Hadj, the cooperation of the Arab Bedouins being specially valuable in this work. The consideration of these events in the campaign which begins in February, 1915, will be found in Volume III of this work.[Back to Contents]

CHAPTER III

FAILURE OF "HOLY WAR" PROPAGANDA

One of the most interesting of the various phases of the war, so far as the participation of Turkey was concerned, was the religious development. Countless pages of learned speculation had been written for years before the struggle in an attempt to forecast the outcome of exactly the conditions that had arisen. It must be said at once that in the first six months of the war reality failed to live up to prophecy. The cataclysm that was expected by many to involve the revolt of millions and a vast change in the political color of much of the earth's surface did not appear. Any change that took place operated so quietly and on so comparatively small a scale that it was lost to view beside the greater interest of the struggle on the battle fields of France and Poland.

It is desirable, however, that the situation be examined. Abbas II, Khedive of Egypt, had early in the war openly shown his lack of sympathy with the British in Egypt. By his actions he left no doubt regarding his attitude. He not only vehemently expressed his adherence to Constantinople but left Cairo, and journeyed to Turkey, safe from British official pressure or persuasion. Whereupon the British Government called upon him to return, threatened him with deposition, and finally took that extreme step, setting up another in his place on December 18, 1914.

Furthermore, the day before, Great Britain declared Egypt a British protectorate independent of Constantinople. In this action Great Britain relied not upon any legal right to take such action, but merely upon the right of actual possession. Since Great Britain had taken over the government of Egypt in 1883, she had acknowledged the sultan's rights of suzerainty and had countenanced the payment to that ruler of certain considerable yearly sums from the Egyptian exchequer.

Indeed, Great Britain was in Egypt merely by virtue of an international understanding and on a definite agreement to release her control of the country when certain conditions of political and financial stability had been restored. The other nations had, willingly, or unwillingly, become resigned to her possession of this strategically important land. Great Britain a decade before the war, at the beginning of that rapprochement with France which led up to the Entente and which had so many fateful consequences for the whole world, sought to legalize her position in Egypt—at least so far as the other great north African power was concerned. A bargain was struck with France by which the English occupation of Egypt for an indefinite period was recognized in exchange for a free hand in Morocco. Great Britain could now urge that the coming of war, and especially the entry of Turkey into the struggle, placed her administration in Egypt in a position impossible to maintain. In theory she was, so long as she acknowledged the suzerainty of the sultan, in the country merely on that ruler's sufferance. She admitted his ultimate authority and especially the loyalty and duty of the Egyptian army and khedive to him. Strictly she could make no move to prevent an armed occupation of the country by the sultan's troops nor could she call upon the khedive and his cabinet to repudiate Constantinople's sway. To put an end to this condition of affairs was the most legitimate reason for England's action.

Although the native Egyptian is in religion allied to the Turk, his religious fervor was not great enough to induce him to rise against British control. Among the better educated of the Egyptians and especially among those who had traveled, there was a strong "Nationalist" movement. At times, even in the period of peace, this movement had threatened to make matters extremely unpleasant for the British rulers. For some years before the war, German and Turkish agents had been working among these ardent Egyptian patriots, encouraging and advising them, and when war with Turkey came England was seriously alarmed. Using the country as a central base for her Turkish, Persian, and Balkan operations, Great Britain imported thousands upon thousands of troops into Egypt. Just how many hundreds of thousands of armed men passed in and out of the country from first to last only the records of the British war office would show, but it can be said that England never had a force of less than 90,000 trained men in Egypt at any one time.

Any chance of effective action that the Egyptian nationalists might have had was neutralized by the indifference and lack of interest in the vast body of their countrymen. There were more than 10,000,000 Mohammedans in Egypt, but only a small minority of them, under the most promising of circumstances, could have been counted upon to pay the least heed to the call of Constantinople. The Egyptian fellah is anything but a fighter. Lazy, unlearned, unambitious, he is content to accept his daily lot, perhaps conscious that the British rule has brought a certain amount of comparative prosperity even to him.

On the other hand, there were in Egypt something like 600,000 nomads, a very large proportion of whom could be depended upon to follow the lead of Constantinople. The males of these wild tribespeople were remarkable fighters, subject to no control, hating the English sway, and so independent of roads and transport that they could keep busy an even larger force of less mobile troops. Their chief weakness was their lack of cohesion and the impossibility of any concerted action on their part.

This, then, was the native situation in Egypt. In other parts of the world, where Great Britain maintained sway over large numbers of Mohammedans, the situation was equally complicated. With the issue of a call for a Holy War by the Sheik-ul-Islam, the religious ruler of the Mohammedan world, many well-informed observers looked for a large measure of trouble in India. So many were the elements of dissatisfaction, and even open revolt, in India that it was believed the Sheik-ul-Islam's call would be the match applied to the powder magazine.

The attitude of the various Indian potentates was uncertain. Some of them were known to be only outwardly loyal to the British authority. The now famous incident at the visit of King George to India, some years before the war, when one of the richest and most important of the native princes refused to bend the knee, was indicative of very widespread dissatisfaction. Innumerable cases of individual and even concerted violence against British rule immediately preceded the war, and several of these were openly encouraged by native princes.