IN February of the year 1913 I made up my mind to go to Turkey for a few months in order to escape an atmosphere which sickened me. The English Press and public had, in this twentieth century, responded with fanaticism to the cry of a Crusade against the Turk raised by some cunning Balkan rulers; and that fanaticism had been fostered, as it seemed to my intelligence, by British statesmen — not for their country's ends, but for the ends and in the interests of Russia, our great Eastern rival. The solidarity of Christendom against a Muslim power was reckoned a fine thing by many people; but it broke the heart of Englishmen who loved the East. For what had England stood for until then, in India and throughout her Eastern empire? Had she not stood for universal toleration, for a nation ality which should be independent of religious differences? The Turks of their own will.