These indications must be interpreted as moves in the Nationalist trouble against the British in India, and not as a recognition of the importance of the Turks in the Mohammedan world. The whole Turkish race in Asia Minor numbers less than one-tenth of the Moslems of India! While the Indian Moslems are backing the Turks they are also interested in gauging the strength of Arabic opposition to Great Britain, and have accepted the Arabic determination to remain from now on free from Turkish domination. Angora was ignored at the April Lucknow Conference, on the question of the administration of Mohammedan Holy Lands and regulations for the Mecca pilgrimage. There was no reference to Constantinople or Angora, and it was decided to send a deputation to the rulers of Hedjaz and Irak, for the purpose of anti-British agitation. If it is difficult to see how the Turkish Nationalist movement is going to control the Mohammedan world, it is still more difficult to accept the idea that there is such a movement as pan-Turanianism, of which the Nationalists make so much. In the days of its glory, the Ottoman Empire included the Caucasus and the entire coast of the Black Sea. The Ottoman Turks were masters of a part of the Turanian race and neighbors of the Turanians of Central Asia. During the latter part of the World War, and for a brief moment in the early part of 1921, the Ottoman Turks partly restored the old contacts. But these were broken again by the Bolshevists, who have proved themselves in Asia tenacious inheritors of traditional Russian foreign policy. Half a century ago the Ottoman Turks lost to Russia the last of the Turanian regions in the Caucasus. In 1921 they were compelled again to relinquish the dream of leading the Turanians. The Ottoman Turks are incapable of coping with the Russians, whatever form of government Russia may have. A pan-Turanian movement, deriving its inspiration from Turkey and giving power to Turkey, does not need to be reckoned with as a probability in world politics. The strength of the Turkish Nationalists is in the geographical position of their country, from the outlet of the Black Sea to the sources of the Mesopotamian rivers, where Russia and Great Britain fear they will some day meet in a struggle for the control of India, and from which France, Italy, and Germany are determined not to be excluded. If we realize this, we shall see that governmental backing of oil, mining, railway, and port concessions have a political as well as a commercial motive. Fear is the incentive to greed. The success that has attended the Turkish Nationalist movement is due to the recognition of this fact by Mustafa Kemal Pasha and his associates; their own political future--and the importance of the New Turkey--will depend upon their ability to make good use of it. CHAPTER XXIII THE ENTENTE POWERS AND THE QUESTION OF THE STRAITS