This new development of nationalism (the "racial" stage, as we may call it) was at first confined to the older centres of European civilization, but with the spread of Western ideas it presently appeared in the most unexpected quarters. Its advent in the Balkans, for example, quickly engendered those fanatical propagandas, "Pan-Hellenism," "Pan-Serbism," etc., which turned that unhappy region first into a bear-garden and latterly into a witches' sabbath. Meanwhile, by the closing decades of the nineteenth century, the first phase of nationalism had patently passed into Asia. The "Young-Turk" and "Young-Egyptian" movements, and the "Nationalist" stirrings in regions so far remote from each other as Algeria, Persia, and India, were unmistakable signs that Asia was gripped by the initial throes of nationalist self-consciousness. Furthermore, with the opening years of the twentieth century, numerous symptoms proclaimed the fact that in Asia, as in the Balkans, the second or "racial" stage of nationalism had begun. These years saw the definite emergence of far-flung "Pan-" movements: "Pan-Turanism," "Pan-Arabism," and (most amazing of apparent paradoxes) "Pan-Islamic Nationalism." I Let us now trace the genesis and growth of nationalism in the Near and Middle East, devoting the present chapter to nationalist developments in the Moslem world with the exception of India. India requires special treatment, because there nationalist activity has been mainly the work of the non-Moslem Hindu element. Indian nationalism has followed a course differing distinctly from that of Islam, and will therefore be considered in the following chapter. Before it received the Western impact of the nineteenth century, the Islamic world was virtually devoid of self-conscious nationalism. There were, to be sure, strong local and tribal loyalties. There was intense dynastic sentiment like the Turks' devotion to their "Padishas," the Ottoman sultans. There was also marked pride of race such as the Arabs' conviction that they were the "Chosen People." Here, obviously, were potential nationalist elements. But these elements were as yet dispersed and unco-ordinated. They were not yet fused into the new synthesis of self-conscious nationalism. The only Moslem people which could be said to possess anything like true nationalist feeling were the Persians, with their traditional devotion to their plateau-land of "Iran." The various peoples of the Moslem world had thus, at most, a rudimentary, inchoate nationalist consciousness: a dull, inert unitary spirit; capable of development, perhaps, but as yet scarcely perceptible even to outsiders and certainly unperceived by themselves.