him in that as their schemes developed they looked forward to logical
conclusions far beyond what he had ever dreamed of. But Abdul Hamid may,
I think, be taken to be the true founder of the new Nationalism: at any
rate it was he who had first seen the possibilities of massacre as a
means of maintaining Ottoman supremacy. In the hands of Nationalists
that was to prove a more effective weapon than the printing of railway
tickets in Turkish. But already before the European War the Nationalists
had vastly extended his ideas, and had seen the danger of allowing even
Arabs to have a standing of any kind in the new state. Henceforth all
subject people were to be _rayas_, cattle, as in the old days of the
Sultans who absorbed the strength of the aliens, but did not exterminate
them. But now the cattle were not only to be used for milk, but were to
be slaughtered when advisable. Till then they must be dumb, or speak the
language of their masters only, for this alone can save them from the
shambles. Ahmed Sherif Bey, a prominent Nationalist, lays this down. 'It
is the business of the Porte to make the Arabs forget their own
language, and to impose upon them instead that of the nation that rules
them. If the Porte loses sight of this duty, it will be digging its
grave with its own hands, for if the Arabs do not forget their language,
their history, and their customs, they will seek to restore their
ancient empire on the ruins of Ottomanism and of Turkish rule in Asia.'

Here, then, is the definite statement of the Nationalists' hostility to
all things Arab, and we shall see how they translated it into practice.
Even Moslems were but cattle for them, as also were Armenians and Greeks
and Kurds. Armenians were doomed to be the first complete sacrifice on
the bloody altar of the Nationalists, and, as a Turkish gendarme engaged
in that sacrifice said to a Danish Red Cross nurse, 'First we kill the
Armenians, then the Greeks, and then the Kurds.' And if he had been a
Progressive Minister he would certainly have added, 'And then the