Powers of the League must first of all be sincere in their undertakings, and next, they must convince the world in general of their sincerity. To that subject we must return later.

CHAPTER II

THE EAST

BUT the world is not merely threatened by the prospect of future wars. It is filled with wars at the present moment. There are quarrels and bickerings between most of the newly liberated states in eastern Europe; there is a war, sometimes avowed and sometimes underground, between Communist Russia and all her neighbours and rivals, a war whose tentacles reach far throughout Europe and Asia; and there are wars against the British and French in various parts of the East. Let us briefly touch upon a few sample cases.

I. SYRIA, MESOPOTAMIA, EGYPT, AND INDIA THE simplest case is Syria. In 1915, during the war, a Syrian National Committee, including representatives from Damascus and Mosul, negotiated with us through Sherif Husein, and we signed a document promising to "recognize and uphold Arab independence" in an area in

cluding the whole of Arabia, Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia, except (1) Aden and (2) the Syrian coast. Within the independent area we merely claimed for ourselves "a measure of administrative control" in Bagdad and Bosra — not in Mosul · and reserved any special interests of France. The French were informed of the negotiations immediately. They expressed themselves content with the possession of the Syrian coast, and agreed in our promises to Husein. On the strength of this agreement the Hejaz revolted, and Feisul's army, consisting mainly of Syrian and Mesopotamian soldiers who had formerly been in the Turkish service, fought as our allies to the end of the war. An attempted rising in Syria proper was crushed with great severity by the Turks.

In 1918 the Syrians welcomed the Entente armies as liberators, and were again promised their national independence, though this time it was to be under the guidance of one of the Entente Powers as mandatory. They asked that the mandatory should be England, but England had too much on her hands. The Syrians

next asked for America; but America refused all mandates. France, meantime, had always claimed special rights in Syria, and England by a treaty made during the war had recognized Syria as a French interest. If they must be under France, the Syrian representatives specially demanded pledges that the government should be a civil government, that a certain degree of independence should be allowed to the natives, and that the country should not be occupied by French troops. How far these pledges were given and broken by the French; how far it was only we ourselves who gave assurances which we had neither the right nor the power to carry out, and thus unconsciously deceived Feisul, these are questions still in dispute. It seems unfortunately certain that the Syrians considered themselves betrayed. In the end, Syria was occupied by French troops; the native government was not recognized, but dispersed; there were raids and pitched battles, and the Emir Feisul, one of our most popular heroes during the Great War, was expelled from his throne and country. He is now an exile, and

was for a time officially forbidden to land in England.

France so far has neither accepted nor asked for any mandate from the League of Nations, and appears not fully to realize the obligations undertaken by her in signing the Covenant of the League, or the pledge repeated in the Reply of the Allied Powers to Germany, “that the Mandatory Powers, in so far as they may be appointed trustees by the League of Nations, will derive no benefits from such trusteeship."

In Mesopotamia the British established themselves during the war after a long and chequered campaign by defeating the Turks and capturing Bagdad. The Indian soldiers and officials who were in command showed the most praiseworthy zeal and energy in proceeding at once to develop the country: to drain and irrigate, to plant crops, to establish order and good government in regions which had not known such things since a remote antiquity. The English were welcomed as liberators and made explicit promises to set up an independent Arab kingdom under a "measure of British