120 ,4 Short History of the Middle East

higli-lianded methods, unwillingness to accept advice, and per-
sonal prejudices. Some valuable British servants of the Egyptian
government had resigned in consequence, and had been replaced by
men with poorer qualifications. Thus, while the number of British
officials had rapidly increased since Cromer's time, their standard
had steadily deteriorated. It was said also that Kitchener's choice
of Egyptian advisers and assistants was not always of the happiest.l
A contemporary appreciation clearly saw the dangers which lay
below the surface: 'The superficial quiet is that of suppressed dis-
content—a sullen, hopeless mistrust towards the government of
occupation. The government has not yet succeeded in endearing,
or even recommending, itself to the Egyptian people, but is on the
contrary an object of suspicion, an occasion of enmity. Nationalist
feeling is very strong in spite of determined attempts to stamp out
all freedom of political opinion. The wholesale muzzling of the
press has not only reduced the Muslim majority to a condition of
internal ferment, but has seriously alienated the hitherto loyal
Copts/ 2 However, the entry of the Ottoman Empire into the War
was followed by the declaration of martial law in Egypt, and the
whole political question was suspended, and discontent driven still
further underground, to fester until the end of the world conflict.

Meanwhile, although Arabs were not strongly represented in
the Young Turk Committee of Union and Progress, the nation-
alists of Syria had been greatly encouraged by the Turkish Revolu-
tion, and in September 1908 they formed at Istanbul the Arab-
Ottoman Brotherhood, al-Ikha al-'Arabi al-'Uthmani, whose
objects were to unite all the races of the Empire in loyalty to the
Sultan, to protect the new liberal constitution, to promote the well-
being of the Arab provinces on a footing of real equality, etc.
However, following an attempted counter-revolution promoted
by Abdul Hamid in 1909, the Young Turks introduced new
security measures, one of which was the prohibition of all societies
founded by non-Turkish groups. The Ikha was shut down, and the
Arab Nationalists were driven underground to continue their
1 Amin Yusuf, Independent Egypt, 53.
2 Asiatic Review (April, 1914), quoted by Lothrop Stoddard, The New World
of Islam, 154f.