Page:Ossendowski - The Fire of Desert Folk.djvu/160

144 not run counter to, nor stir up the antagonism of, the native population and, at the same time, carries with it the best features of European civilization.

Undoubtedly, if the only great question at issue were the agitation stirred up by the attitude toward the caliphate, France would find a way of resolving the dilemma; but there are in play exterior influences which have no direct relationship with the Moslem movement. Chief among these we must place the propaganda of Soviet Russia, who thinks not so much of communism but of fomenting trouble, of a new war and of the way to augment the difficulties of those nations who look upon the Kremlin and its masters with suspicion and distrust.

In North Africa I felt strongly the geographical advance of the anti-European, or general Asiatic, front which has been aligned by Moscow, extending its ramifications through Turkey and Egypt into the lands to the south of the Mediterranean, seeking to reach the Atlantic and aiming thus to encircle Europe not only on the eastbut also round through the south. Do not the European statesmen see and understand this patent fact? Do they not sense the pressing necessity of changing the general European attitude for one of defense and, what is imminently demanded now, of re-establishing their ancient prestige, which has all but disappeared from the minds of the colored peoples?

These colored races are carried along by the spirit of the times, by this wish for freedom from overlordship and for independence, which is being fomented by a wisely directed propaganda, energized and supported by ample capital. These people give no thought to the days