The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1917-03-18
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES.
New York Tribune.n

relegaton of the Osmanli Turk to a place outside
the walls of the Mohammendan world.
BY taking Bagdad the British have amply and
with reasonable prompttude retrieved the prestige
lost in the whole near east by the surrender at
kut- ell Amara year ago. This surrender
coupled with the failure at Gallipoli seriously, II
only momentarily. endangered British prestige from
Egypt to Siam. 1t was the kind of failure that
could not be permitted to stand and its effect east
Of Suez could be compared only to that of the
| Rumanian collapse in Europe.
year ago the Russians had taken Erzerum and
were pressing west through Armenia and south
west through Persia. There moment when
il seemed possible that the threefold allied thrust
of the allies might fuse into single drive across
the upper waters of the Euphrates and the Tigris
and that the Turk would be pushed out of Meso-
potama and threatened, If not attacked, in Syria
The British failure ended this possibility. After
| taking Erzingan and Trebizond Russian operations
came to dead halt. and presently the Turks be-
gan to advance in Persia. Now the Russians
again reported to be moving west out of Hamadan
in Persia and the position of the Turks facing
them will become exceedingly difficult British
pursuit from Bagdad reaches their communica-
tons
So much for the immediate military effect.
Granted that the British army is capable of fur
Their effort after it's recent exhausting campaign
it probable that the Turks will be driven
| road. which has been completed At Mosul the
British will be able to join hands with the Russians.
advancing from Erzerum westward upon Diarbekr
and kharpnt is also conceivable. Such cam
raign would inevitably compel a Turkish retire
ment out of most of Syria. and this retirement may
be appreciably FASTENED by the pressure be-
ing exerted by British army coming out Of
Egypt and already reported at the gates of
Jerusalem
nI,f No c,il;to icf
| ing Of the new turn in the war. If you draw a
line from the Gulf of Aexandretta the Mediter-
ranean straight east to the Tigris river you will.
| roughly speaking indicate the northern frontier of
| the Arab Mohammedans like the Turks. the
Arabs have never reconciled themselves to the
premacy of the Osmanli; the traditions of the great
days Of the Prophet and his who carried
| the Green Banner from Bagdad to the Loire have
survived and the decline of Islam in the world
mains for the Arab a consequence of Turkish u
premacy.
/ For many years there has been growing restless
ness among the Arabs. Syria. which is Arab by
population, the verge of revolt when the
Young Turks overthrow Abdul Hamid. and it was
long the Syrian dream to create autonomous
Syria. Away to the SOUTH about Mecca, there
have been interminable Arab revolts. and now the
last Of these has driven the Turk out of the Hol!
City, and thus deprived him of the possession of the
center Of Islam, which of his chief claims
to power
| The failure of the Turkish expedition against
Egypt, the fall of Bagdad, the invasion of Pales
tne-these circumstances which must combine
, to shake Turkish power. Add to this the grea
misery and suffering that the war has brought t.
Syria and to Mesopotama and the appropriately o.
the German, and it is plain that there is in sigh
sufficient basis for a revolt of the whole Araf
population, from the Amanus mountains to tn
Yemen and from the Mediterranean to the Tigris
, No will forecast the immediate outbreak o
such storm, but its coming must be regarde,
as one Of the most probable consequences of tn
7 fall of Bagdad.
e The alliance between the Turk and the German
!. was designed by the Germans to the frs
step in the assertion of Germanc supremacy il
Islam. Long before the war the kaiser had gon
Il to the near east and had sought to build up
legend Of Germany's power and his greatness in tn
whole Turkish world. 1t generally accepte
in Islam that the kaiser Mohammedan. Thi
alliance was to permit the Germans. the Bag
dad railroad was completed, to go south and cas-
'. south to Egypt and east to India. The Germa
plans included the arrival of the Bagdad railroad
h Suez and at the Persian gulf this railroad to h
. linked up ultimately with the railroads in Egyl
- and in India.
= When Turkey entered the a Holy War wa
e proclaimed against the Infidel and the German
IS planned to harness the fanatics of the Mohamme
British and Russian territories by Turkish armie
trained, differed and equipped by Germans. NJ
y did the German scheme pause at Egypt: it dreame
a further extension along the African shores of II
10 Mediterranean and contemplated repeating the tr
;, unlph of the Arab successors of the Prophet. WI
carried Islam from the Arabian desert to the shor
" Of the Atlantic facing Gibraltar.
~ To cxpel the Turk from Islam by separating hi
from Mecca, to restore the Arab to the place
- once occupied to cOnfine the Turk to Asia Min
by erecting French protectoratc in Syria, Ru
y sian province in Armenia and British colony
r Mesopotama. with extension of Egyptian teri
be tory Palestine the creation of an independe
e. Holy Land-these have been the conceptions of 4
!, allies. This has been their answer to the Germ:
success in capturing the Turk and thus the machi
- cry of Islam.
H. one more circumstance should be noted r
be German scheme of Mitteleuropa. which underli
the present policy of German statesmen as it W
the chief purpose of Pan German activity before t
war; was based upon the creation of a great sta