This dismemberment, impudently effected by England, is not likely to turn to her advantage. Of course, owing to the treaty, British hegemony for the present extends over Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Kurdistan, and is likely to prevail over the international régime foreshadowed by the same treaty; but the organisation which Great Britain wants thus to enforce on the East, if ever it is effective, seems most precarious. For, even without mentioning Turkey, which does not seem likely to submit to this scheme, and where the Nationalist movement is in open rebellion, or Armenia, whose frontiers have not been fixed yet, the condition of Kurdistan, which England coveted and had even at one moment openly laid claim to, is still uncertain; the Emir Feisal, who is indebted to her for his power, is attempting to get out of her hand; finally, by putting Persia under her tutelage, she has roused the national feeling there too, and broken of her own accord the chain she intended to forge all round India, after driving Germany out of Asia Minor and capturing all the routes to her Asiatic possessions. Now it is questionable whether Great Britain—in spite of the skill with which her administration has bent itself to the ways of the very various peoples and the liberal spirit she has certainly evinced in the organisation of the Dominions belonging to the British Empire, the largest empire that has ever existed—will be powerful enough to maintain her sovereignty over so many peoples, each of which is proud of its own race and history, and to organise all these countries according to her wish. As to France, she is gradually losing the moral prestige she once enjoyed in the East, for the advantages she has just gained can only injure her, and also injure the prestige she still enjoys in other Moslem countries; whereas, by pursuing another policy, she might have expected that the German defeat would restore and heighten her prestige.