There has often been talk of an organization of Panislâm under the direction of Abdulhamîd, but this is without foundation. In 1897, in connexion with some foul, secretly circulated, pamphlets, which the most intimate counsellors of the Sultan in vying for his favour had let loose against each other, I tried to describe the atmosphere around the despot,[1] and when, in 1908, I witnessed the first two months of the revolution in Constantinople, I found a complete justification of my description.[2] That gang of shallow intriguers was little qualified to lead a serious international movement. They exploited the connexions established with certain Mohammedans of consequence in non-Turkish territory to increase their own advantage and prestige, without being of any real use in the resuscitation of the dead Caliphate. The establishment of a few Turkish consulates in Mohammedan countries under European rule also failed of its aim. They usually forgot to pay the consuls their salaries; the consuls did not even know the languages of the populations amongst whom they lived, and took no pains to learn them. Their mostly very “advanced” manner of living did not serve to heighten respect for the man who sent them. It is a fact that Panislâm cannot work with any program except with the worn-out, flagrantly impracticable, program of world-conquest by Islâm; and this has lost its hold on all sensible adherents of Islâm; whereas, among the stupid multitude, which may still be tempted by the idea of war against all _kâfirs_, it can stir up only confusion and unrest. At most it may cause local disturbances; but it can never in any sense have a constructive influence. Probably without intention, some European statesmen and writers have given a certain support to the Panislamic idea by their consideration, based on an absolute misunderstanding, of the Caliphate as a kind of Mohammedan papacy. Most of all did this conception find adherents in England at the time when that country was still considered to be the protector of the Turk against danger threatened by Russia. It was thought useful to make the British-Indian Moslim believe that the British Government was on terms of intimate friendship with the head of their church. Turkish statesmen made clever use of this error. Of course they could not admit before their European friends the real theory of the Caliphate with its mission of uniting all the faithful under its banner in order to make war on all _kâfirs_. They rejoiced all the more to see that these had formed about that institution a conception which, to be sure, was false, but for that very reason plausible to non-Mohammedans. They took good care not to correct it, for they were satisfied with being able, before their co-religionists, to point to the fact that even among the great non-Mohammedan powers the claim of the Ottomans to the Caliphate was recognized.