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 XII

THE ANGLO-RUSSIAN WAR OF 1918-'20

HOW MR. LLOYD GEORGE TRIED TO IMPOSE ALONE UPON ISLAM THAT FATE WHICH GREAT BRITAIN AND RUSSIA HAD AGREED TO IMPOSE TOGETHER IN 1907—THE ANGLO-PERSIAN AGREEMENT—THE "CENTRAL ASIAN FEDERATION"—THE AMERICAN MANDATE IN TRANS-CAUCASIA—THE RETURN OF SOVIET RUSSIA.

The war now began in bitter earnest.

Czarist Russia had been a weight upon Islam which had increased until 1907 when, in agreement with Great Britain, the two Powers began grinding to pieces the last of the independent Islamic States. Russia's collapse in 1917 and the resultant abrogation of the 1907 Treaty, coinciding with Germany's collapse, afforded the British Government a marvelous opportunity to reconsider its policy toward Islam. The British had no great enemy left in the East, but apparently the fact did not occur to Mr. Lloyd George. In the Anglo-Russian war of 1918-'20, the British Government took over the business of crushing Islam which Czarist Russia had begun, while attempting to overthrow the Soviet Government and re-instate in office a Russian Government which should concur in the fate which the British alone now sought to impose on the last of the