CHAPTER XI

THE GEOGRAPHICAL CASE OF TURKEY

Turkey, by virtue of position, has always stood closely related

to every section of the European mainland. The country’s fate

has affected the destiny of every European nation. The modern

importance of Turkish affairs in European international problems is

a measure of the extensive influence of the Near East over Europe.

A study of European nationalities cannot therefore be complete

without reference to the empire of Turkish Sultans.

A strong contrast constantly engages attention in the history of

Ottoman lands. Of old, the world’s highest civilizations, its

purest religions, arose within their confines. In modern days

decadence on the heels of a steady recessional marks their lot.

The explanation usually advanced is that Mohammedanism has impeded

Turkish progress. But this religion was no obstacle to cultural

growth in the countries surrounding Turkey. In Egypt, as in

Arabia, Persia and northern India, the thought of the natives grew

to splendid maturity. The intellectual life of these Mohammedan

countries is altogether beyond the grasp of the Turkish mind.

The foundation of Turkey’s weakness as a nation and the failure

of the cause of civilization within its boundaries lie in the

country’s situation. The land staggers under the load of misfortune

which its central position in the eastern hemisphere has heaped

upon it. Its native populations have never been able to develop

freely. The country is an open road alongside or at the ends

of which nationalities have blossomed. It has been the prey of

invaders by which it has been overrun. The Turks find themselves

on this land today because they are descendants of wanderers.

They have occupied the road because they ignored the ways of

stepping off its path. Having come in numbers sufficiently strong,

they managed to subdue the original inhabitants, who in their

groping for the higher life had given the world a number of great

conceptions in learning, art and religion. But hardly had the

easterners occupied the road before the process of clearing it

began.

Turkey has been a highway of commerce and civilization between

Europe on the one hand and Asia and Africa on the other. The

history of this country and of its inhabitants cannot be understood

unless one is thoroughly impressed by this fundamental fact. On

the east the Persian Gulf followed by the Mesopotamian valley,

its natural prolongation, formed a convenient channel for the

northwesterly spread of human intercourse. To the west, land travel

between Europe and Africa drained into the Syrian furrow. Both of

these natural grooves led to the passes which carried the traveler

into Asia Minor. The peninsula therefore was both an important

center of human dispersal and a meeting place for men of all

nations.

The through roads converging into Turkish territory are probably

the oldest commercial routes of the world. At any rate they

connected the sites on which the most ancient civilizations

rose. The remotest past to which the history of humanity carries

us centers around the large river valleys of the tropical and

subtropical zone in the eastern hemisphere. The banks of the

Nile, of the Euphrates, of the Indian rivers, or of the broad

watercourses in Chinese lowlands were nurseries of human culture.

Abundance of water, together with a profuse flora and fauna, gave

early man ease of life. Hunters, fishermen and shepherds were

naturally converted into farmers. A short wait and the seeds they

planted would grow to maturity without exacting other attention

than the preliminary act of sewing. The life men led afforded time

for thought. Curiosity was awakened regarding lands beyond. Ample

provision of natural products furnished them with stocks available

for barter. These conditions favored the development of commerce

and stimulated the creation of trade routes, which were coveted by

many as they became more and more trodden.

Between Europe and Asia the great movements of peoples have

followed two parallel directions north or south of the central belt

of high Eurasian mountains extending from east to west. Men have

traveled back and forth in these two lines from the earliest known

period. But exchange of ideas has been practically confined to the

southern avenue. In the cold of the Siberian or northern European

lowlands men had little opportunity to acquire refinement. They

were active and energetic, while the followers of the southern

pathways were thinkers.

From the dawn of history to our day only two departures of

importance have taken place from this east-west traffic. Both

were modern events. One occurred in the middle of the fifteenth

century as soon as the Turks acquired mastery of western Asia

and the Balkan peninsula. The Christian sailor-trader of that

time was then obliged to circumnavigate Africa in order to reach

eastern seaports. The other change took place when the Suez Canal

was completed. This waterway diverted to its channel much of the

overland Asiatic traffic routed between the Black Sea and the

Persian Gulf or the Indian Ocean. But even these two diversions

failed to eliminate entirely the picturesque caravans which plied

over Turkish roads. Thus it may be assumed that these routes have

been used uninterruptedly for about 10,000 years at least, that is

to say, before the time in which their known history begins.

The southeastern portal of these celebrated highways is situated at

the head of the Persian Gulf. The broad Tigris and Euphrates thence

mark the northerly extension of the routes. On the western river,

the natural road leaves the valley above Mosul and penetrates

into the Armenian highland through the gorges in the neighborhood

of Diarbekir. The very name Mosul, a contraction of the Greek

“Mesopylae” or Central Gates, suggests its origin. The city

grew at the meeting point of routes from the Caspian, Black and

Mediterranean seas and from the Persian Gulf. The through highway

links once more with the Euphrates in its upper reaches around

Keban Maden in order to reach the Anatolian plateau. The passes

are precipitous and the waters flow southward closely hemmed in by

steep and rocky barriers. Access to the billowy surface of Armenian

mountain lands is obtained by means of either the Murad Su or the

Kara Su. The union of these two rivers into the single watercourse

known as the Euphrates at a short distance above Keban Maden has at

all times attracted much of the traffic and travel between Armenia

and Mesopotamia. The eastern affluents of the Tigris south of Lake

Van, on the other hand, reach the uplifted core of Armenia where

they are lost in the tangle of steep valleys and deeply broken

surfaces.

Because it is a region of water dispersal, Armenia is also the

gathering-site of the heads of outflowing watercourses. If the

distance at the divide between the uppermost reaches of two

divergent watercourses be short, it is hardly a barrier to human

intercourse. This condition prevails in the uppermost reaches of

the Euphrates and of the Aras. The important town of Erzerum is the

symbol of this union. Within its walled area the traffic of the

central plateaus of Asia joined with Mesopotamian or Black Sea and

Mediterranean freight, after having followed the easterly approach

to Turkey through Tabriz and the southern affluents of the Aras,

north of Urmiah Lake. Through this eastern avenue of penetration

Asiatic peoples and products have been dumped century after century

into Turkish territory.

The valley of the Euphrates, rather than that of the Tigris, is

therefore the main artery of communication between north and south

in eastern Turkey. It is the avenue through which the ideas of Iran

came into contact with Semitic thought. But the uniting influence

of the great river was far from being exerted on Oriental peoples

alone. In its broad southern course, the river provided ancient

merchants with a short-cut which greatly facilitated land travel

between the Ægean or Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. Another

city, Aleppo, is the geographical monument which grew with the

increase of travel in this stretch of the Euphrates or declined as

the channel became less and less frequented. It is the western

counterpart of Mosul in the sense that it also is a point of

convergence for routes proceeding from every quarter of the compass.

The chief Turkish route leaves the Euphrates at the angular bend

near Meskeneh. A two-days’ journey across the desert brought the

traveler to Aleppo. Beyond, the ancient road hugged the shores of

the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean and, passing over the

dull gray of the broad Cilician plain, headed for the huge cleft

in the limestones of the Taurus, known as the Cilician Gates. Past

this breach it is the plateau of Anatolia--a region whose physical

isolation has always influenced the life of its inhabitants.

Today, south of the Cilician Gates, the land is Arabian in speech

and Semitic in thought, while in the country to the north the

prevailing language is Turkish, which differs from the refinement

of Arabian as markedly as the crudity of the Turkish mind differs

from the intellectuality of the Arabian.

Thus through mountain tract and mountain trough the east found its

way into the Anatolian plateau. Conversely the west made several

successful scalings of its slopes. The valleys leading westward

into the Ægean or northward into the Black Sea acted as breaches

which facilitated human travel. Among these the Meander, Gediz and

Sakaria are noteworthy. The “Royal Road” of the Persian period

connected Ephesus with Susa by way of the Cilician Gates. It is

described by Herodotus. Official despatch-bearers traveled over it

in the fulfilment of their missions. Ramsay places this road north

of the desert center of Asia Minor[202] and considers the southern

route as the highway of the Graeco-Roman period. This last road is

the shortest and easiest between Ægean ports and the Cilician Gates.

The history of inland Asia Minor is the record of travel over

the network of the region’s roads. Its chief events consist of

military marches and trade travels. Urban life on this section of

the peninsula had its origin in caravan halts. The cities of inner

Anatolia represent successive stages of east-west travel. Their

alignment serves to trace the course of the road. To our own day

this part of Turkey has not been a land of settlement.

In the southeastern half of Turkey human life has also been

confined to highway regions. This part of the world is known to

us as Syria or Mesopotamia. Both are depressed regions--channels

of human flows--bordering the western and eastern sides of the

Great Syrian desert which, wedge-like, interposes its shifting

solitude of sand between the two as far as the foothills of the

mountains on the north. West of Syria lies the Mediterranean; east

of Mesopotamia the mountains of Persia. With such a pattern of land

carving, it was natural that life and activity should have gathered

in the precise regions where the historian finds them.

A dominant fact recurs in every stage of the region’s history.

Turkey is so placed that its possession is the goal of every nation

which has risen to eminence in or around Turkish lands. Its control

ushers in a period of great prosperity in every instance. Trade

flows freely in the highways, carrying prosperity in its wake. The

energy of the fortunate nation is spent to maintain the economic

advantages secured. The loss of the highway zone is accompanied by

national decline. A new nation rises and obtains the mastery of the

road, and the cycle is repeated. The western Asiatic highway may

aptly be named a highway of wealth or of misfortune.

At the beginning of the first pre-Christian millennium the struggle

for the possession of this highway was as keen and sanguinary as

it is at present. The empires of the Nile and Mesopotamian basins,

of the Syrian strip and of the Hittite mountain lands mustered

the flower of their manhood in yearly arrays for the purpose of

seizing or guarding the great arteries of west Asiatic traffic.

The short-lived prosperity of the Jewish empire, at the time of

Solomon, was attained immediately after the country’s boundaries

extended from the Red Sea and the Mediterranean to the Persian

Gulf. Judea grew to splendor by becoming sole mistress of the

international routes which traversed Syria and Mesopotamia. Her

greatness was transmitted to Assyria with the loss of the land

routes to that same empire in the eighth century B.C. A hundred

years later the Chaldeans obtained possession of the highways. It

is now their turn to impose their will on neighboring nations.

Another century slips by and with it the greatness of Semitic

states. In the east, men of Aryan speech, mostly Persians, have

begun to value the present Turkish land routes. In 560 B.C. Cyrus

is at the head of cohorts which soon after give him mastery of

Turkish Asia from the Ægean to the Persian Gulf. To this conquest

Darius adds Egypt and India.

All these events center around one of the greatest struggles ever

fought between men. It is the conflict between Europeans and

Asiatics immortalized in Hellenic literature,--the clash between

two continents, each battling for the exclusive control of the

highway connecting them. The contestants met on this Turkish

highway, they fought over its plains and defiles, and battled for

its possession in the realization that the economic prosperity upon

which national wealth and greatness rest could be secured only by

its conquest.

A significant fact of the celebrated struggle is revealed by the

inability of the Greeks to conquer the Persians. They defeated

them and checked their westerly advance. The Ægean and Eurasian

waterways of Turkey proved an impassable moat to the Persian

invaders. As long as the Persians retained control of the highways

the menace of their brutal despotism faced the liberal spirit of

the Greeks. The danger was dispelled by Alexander’s conquest of the

highway. No better instance of the power vested in the effective

hold of these lines of communication between the east and west can

be found.

All the history of Turkish lands is conditioned by their location

on the map. The region has occupied a conspicuous position on the

stage of world events since the earliest known times. Faint rays of

prehistoric light reveal it as the bridge over which the race of

round-headed men crossed into Europe from Asia. During antiquity

we find it to be the original seat of civilizations which radiate

outward in every direction. In medieval times it is the great

half-way station of the main artery of world trade. We know of it

in modern days as the center of a mighty international struggle

familiarly known as the Eastern Question.

A world relation of such an enduring character must obviously rest

on exceedingly firm foundations. A search for its causes leads us

straight into the field of geography. Three elements, namely, those

of position, form and natural resources are primarily accountable

for the extraordinary interest which Turkey has always awakened.

The region is the Asiatic extension of Mediterranean lands nestling

against the great central mountain mass of Asia. It is sharply

separated from the rest of the continent by a mountain wall which

extends continuously from the Black Sea to the Persian Gulf and

is made up of the Armenian and Zagros ranges. It is a peninsula,

itself formed by two distinct peninsulas, and one of the unit

divisions of the Asiatic continent in the sense that it is the

only part of the entire Asiatic continent subject to Mediterranean

climatic influences.

By position first, at the junction of three continents and

therefore on the main field of history; secondly, as the site of

convergence of the main avenues of continental travel and, thirdly,

by its situation in one of the two regions in which climatic

conditions proved most favorable for the early development of

humanity, Turkey, at first glance, appears to have been eminently

favored by nature. These advantages made it the meeting place of

races which are generally associated with the three continents

which the country unites. Aryan, Tatar and Semitic peoples

therefore are strongly represented in the land.

In considering Turkey as the meeting place of three continents

it is necessary that we should confine our conception of this

fact to the strictly literal sense of the term. The country is a

meeting place and nothing more. It has never been a transition

zone physically and, as a consequence, there has been very little

mingling of the different elements in its population. The very

shape of the land prevents fusion of the inhabitants into a single

people. The interior upland rises abruptly above a narrow fringe

of coastal lowland. Its surface features, consisting partly of

deserts and saline lakes, recall the typical aspect of central

Asia. On the other hand, the rich vegetation of the maritime fringe

reflects European characteristics. No better relic of Asia Minor’s

former land connection with Europe exists than this strip of the

west soldered to the eastern continent. But the physical union is

clean-cut and, as a result, the change from the low-lying garniture

of green scenery to the bare tracts of the uplands is sharp. These

features make of Turkey a land of strange contrasts. Its coasts

are washed by the waters of half a dozen seas and yet in places

a journey of barely twenty-five miles from the shore lands the

traveler squarely in the midst of a continental district.

So diversified a country could not be the land of patriotism, and

as we pick up the thread of its troubled history we find a woeful

absence of this spirit. In Byzantine times as in Ottoman a selfish

bias towards local interests, a parochial attachment of the sordid

type, pervades its population. A medley of peoples, each filling

its particular geographical frame and animated by widely divergent

ideals, are constantly engaged in looking abroad rather than

toward the land for the attainment of their hopes. Nature fostered

this condition. Communications between the different regions have

always been difficult. From the narrow fringe of coastland to the

interior plateau the ascent is steep. More than that the maritime

dweller of the lowland dreaded the total lack of comfort which he

knew awaited him on the arid highland. Conversely the indolent

inhabitant of this elevated district realized that were he to

settle near the coast he could not compete successfully with the

more active seafarers. As time went on the coastal peoples--mainly

Greeks--accustomed themselves to look beyond the sea for

intercourse with the outside world while the Turkish tenants of

the interior land still kept in their mind’s eye the vast Asiatic

background out of which they had emerged.

In the same way the imposing barrier of the Taurus prevented

contact between the occupants of the districts lying north and

south of the mountain. The significance of this range to Europeans

cannot be overestimated. The mountain has proved to be the chief

obstacle to the northward spread of Semitic peoples and their

civilizations. Successive waves of southern invaders, invariably of

Semitic descent whether highly civilized or drawn from tribes of

savages, spent themselves in vain dashes against the rocky slopes.

The fact is verified historically whether we consider the failure

of Assyrians in antiquity, of the Saracens during Middle Ages, or

of the Egyptians and Arabs led by Mehemet Ali in modern days. At

present the linguistic boundary between Turkish and Arabic occurs

in this mountain chain and Hogarth has expressed the fact in a

realistic phrase by stating that, at an elevation of about 2,000

ft., the Arabic speech is chilled to silence.

To come back to the factor of Turkey’s geographical position, we

find that while this feature has generated an attracting force

the shape of the land, on the other hand, promoted a constantly

repellent action. We have in this situation a remarkable conflict

which has exerted itself to the detriment of the inhabitants. The

centripetal action of position was always reduced to a minimum by

the centrifugal effects of form. The mountainous core made up by

the Anatolian table-land and the western highland of Armenia was

a center of dispersal of waters, and hence to a large degree of

peoples. Furthermore, however much the land was a single unit with

reference to the broad divisions of Asia, the fact remains that it

was greatly subdivided within itself. The six main compartments

into which it may be laid off have fostered totally divergent

civilizations. All of these conditions were fundamentally fatal to

the formation of nationality. They only favored intercontinental

travel and trade. In this respect the country has been of the

highest importance in the history of the eastern hemisphere, and at

present commands world-wide attention.

In only one respect did position and form operate harmoniously.

Both agencies combined to create Turkey’s relation with the world

beyond its borders. This relation was facilitated by the admirable

set of natural routes which led in and out of the country.

Beginning with the broad band of the Mediterranean Sea, land and

water routes succeed each other in close sequence. The inland sea

itself is prolonged through the Ægean and the Turkish straits

into the Black Sea, the shores of which are closely dotted with

the terminals of great avenues from northeastern Europe, as well

as all of northern and central Asia. On the European mainland,

the far-reaching Danube has an outlet into Turkey through the

Morava-Maritza valleys in addition to its own natural termination.

The Dnieper valley plays an exceedingly important share in

connecting Turkey to northern lands. To the east the trough-like

recesses in the folds of the mountains of Armenia and Kurdistan

lead to the great Tabriz gate beyond which the Persian Gulf affords

sea travel to centers of civilization of the monsoon lands or

westward to the African coast. Land connection with this continent

also exists in the rift valley of Syria where the beginning of

the African rift system is found. Through the occurrence of all

these channels of penetration the history of Turkey finds place as

a special chapter in the history of the world’s great nations. A

greater share of responsibility falls on the land for this relation

than on the Turks themselves.

The world relation of Turkish lands antedates, however, the

coming of the Turks by many a century. Problems summarized in the

familiar term Eastern Question have their origin in the existence

of the narrow waterways consisting of the Dardanelles, Marmora

and Bosporus. This water gap has exerted profound influence in

shaping the relation of Turkish territory to the outside world. The

Eastern Question is as old as the history of civilization on this

particular spot of the inhabited world. It could not be otherwise

because, fundamentally, this momentous international problem is

merely that of determining which people or nation shall control

the strait. Who shall gather toll from the enormous transit trade

of the region? This is the economic problem which has always

deeply agitated the leading commercial nations of the world. Its

continuity is a proof of its geographical character. As long as

these straits exist at the point of nearest convergence of the

Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, identical problems are bound to

recur on their site. Beneath the shifting scenes of human events

the abiding stage persists in directing them into its own channels.

Accordingly as early as in late Minoan times and surely in full

Mycenean period, some fifteen hundred or two thousand years before

our era, we find the Eastern Question already vexing the world.

It centers first around Troy, because the city commanded the

southwestern outlet of the straits and played the same leading part

in the history of its day as Constantinople has played since then.

The shifting of the site to the northeastern end of the waterway

represents the gradual spread of Hellenic influence in northeastern

maritime territory.

We can only come to an adequate conception of the rôle of Troy in

history by a clear understanding of the value of its site. The city

was a toll-station. Its citizens accumulated wealth in the manner

in which the burghers of Byzantium laid the foundations of their

vast fortunes. Schliemann’s excavations brought to light amazing

treasures of precious metals and jewelry. These riches may well be

regarded as the price paid for the right of the passage of vessels

and their freight through the straits. Nor is it strange to find

that coincident with the decline of the Homeric city, the earliest

mention of Byzantium, its successor, appears. Consistently with

this method of viewing Trojan history it becomes possible to reach

a rational understanding of Homer’s classic epic as the account of

a secular struggle for the possession of an eminently profitable

site.[203] The testimony of history on the number of sieges which

Constantinople has undergone is at least precise, although no

literary masterpiece sheds lustre on the events. It is impossible

to escape from the parallelism in the histories of Byzantium and

Troy simply because the geographical background of both sites is

similar in every respect. In the case of Troy, it meant convenient

access to the Pontine rearland, probably the first El Dorado

recorded by history--the land of fabulous treasures, in search of

which the Argonautic expeditions were equipped. With Byzantium, it

meant access to the luxuries which Asia could supply as far as the

Pacific.

So much for the antiquity of the Eastern Question. Passing to

another phase of Turkey’s world relation we find that the land’s

influence has even affected the discovery of America. We now stand

on the threshold of modern history and deal with a broad economic

problem which affected late medieval commerce and which is an ever

recurrent theme in that splendid period of active human enterprise

known as the Age of Discovery. The dominant idea of the day was

to find means of facilitating east-west trade in the eastern

hemisphere.

From earliest times commercial relations between the land of

Cathay and Europe had been one-sided. The east sold and the west

purchased. There was very little exchange. The products which came

from the east could all be classed as luxuries. They constituted

freight of small volume such as precious stones, fine woods,

essence and spices, the value of which generally ran high. These

commodities had been shipped to Europe for about two millenniums

prior to the fourteenth century of our era. Overland the caravans

plowed their way across the southern expanse of Russia’s

interminable steppeland and penetrated finally into the plateaus

of Iran and Anatolia. Their home stretch lay in Turkey. By sea the

traders were accustomed to end their journeys at the head of the

Persian Gulf, whence the valuable wares would be shipped farther

west via Mesopotamia. In this case again the home stretch is found

on Turkish soil. It was not until about the end of the fourth

century B.C. when the Egyptian hamlet of Rhaecotis changed its name

into that of Alexandria, that this sea route was extended into the

Red Sea and Mediterranean. At this time the vision of acquiring

wealth through the eastern trade began to dawn on the minds of the

inhabitants of the Mediterranean seaboard. Many centuries were to

elapse, however, before westerners realized that fortunes could

be made by venturing into eastern fields. The profits and the

splendor of the eastern trade were popularized by Christendom when

the accounts of Marco Polo and the friar travelers of his time

became available. Then the ambition of every adventurous merchant

was to act as middleman in the trade with Cathay.

The bulk of the east-west trade in medieval time flowed through the

same two main arteries. The northern land route from China through

central Asia passed through the Tabriz and Erzerum gates and ended

at Trebizond, the rest of the journey being made by sea through the

Bosporus-Dardanelles passage. The southerly course was an all-water

route from the sea of China to the Mediterranean.

The incentive to reduce cost of transportation was as strong in

those days as it is at present. The northern route being mainly

overland was a source of incessant worry to the trader. The unrest

which followed the appearance of Mohammedanism, the reluctance of

the adherents of Islam to deal with infidels, rendered commerce

more and more risky. Transportation by land was slower and less

profitable than by sea, as it is now. Caravans could not avoid

brigands as easily as ships could escape pirates. It was not only

a case of argosies reaching port but also of camels escaping

highwaymen. In addition, duties had to be paid at four or five

different points of transshipment. If we examine the pepper and

ginger trade alone--the supply of both of which came from the

east--we find that from Calicut, the great emporium of trade on the

Malabar coast, these spices were carried by the Arabs to Jiddah and

thence to Tor, on the Sinaitic peninsula. Overland journeys began

at the last point and extended to Cairo. From the city a river

journey on the Nile to Rosetta followed, after which the freight

was packed on camels and sent to Alexandria. All these conditions

made for the increase of cost of the eastern wares which were

supplied to Europe.

With the cost of eastern commodities rising higher and higher,

as land transportation became more and more hazardous, the minds

of navigators naturally turned to the possibility of discovering

a sea-way to India and Cathay. The discovery of America in the

course of these endeavors to lower prevailing freight rates was an

inevitable consequence of economic conditions. The chief point of

interest resides in the fact that the discovery which immortalized

Columbus’ name was accelerated by fully half a century through the

falling of Constantinople into the hands of the Turks in 1453.

The capture of the Byzantine capital came as the death-blow to an

already declining commercial intercourse. Henceforth the Moslem

was to stand guard at the western gate through which east-to-west

intercontinental trade had passed; and there seemed to be no doubt

that he was firmly resolved to prevent the Christian from traveling

back and forth through his dominions. It meant the definite closing

of the western gate to eastern commerce. The first evil effects of

the Turkish conquest were felt by the Venetians and Genoese. The

Venetians especially incurred the wrath of Mohammed the Conqueror

on account of the aid they had rendered to the beleaguered capital.

Greater leniency was shown by the Turks to the Genoese, who had

refrained from open manifestations of sympathy with the Byzantines.

The Sultans themselves as well as their ministers were willing to

foster the trade which traversed their lands. It left a share of

its proceeds in the Turkish treasury. As a matter of fact, commerce

between Turkish lands under Mohammedan rule and the west existed

only because of the income it brought to the Turkish government.

But the Turk could not compete successfully with the Christian in

the markets of the world and this proved a barrier to commerce.

The significance of the Turkish conquest of the Byzantine Empire

is to be found therefore in the fact that it practically cut off

land communications between western Europe and eastern Asia.

Incentive to western exploration was intensified. Before the fall

of Constantinople the discovery of a western sea route to the east

was regarded as highly desirable. It now became a necessity.

The possibility of reaching the Far East by a voyage through the

pillars of Hercules had suggested itself to the active intellect of

the Greeks and Romans, yet the incentive to undertake exploration

did not acquire intensity until the latter half of the fifteenth

century. The Turkish advance into western Asia came, therefore, as

a shock whose impact forced trade out of the Mediterranean through

the straits of Gibraltar into the wide Atlantic.

But there was another important result of the Turk’s conquests in

the Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas. The diversion of the eastern

trade from European land routes into sea lanes impoverished the

German-speaking inhabitants dependent on the Danube artery of

continental life. The land on either side of this main highway was

blessed with natural wealth, but its treasures had been drained

by the Vatican. The reformation, which combined religious and

political aspirations, was an excellent opportunity for the chiefs

of the small states scattered in the long valley of the great river

to pounce upon the landed property owned by the Roman church and

establish economic conditions favorable to themselves.

The present world relations of Turkey may be summarized by the

statement that the country lies squarely in the path of both

Teutonic and Slavic advance. A natural course of expansion is

leading Germany to the southeast across the Balkan peninsula into

Turkey. The extension of frontiers required by Russia likewise

impels Slavic conquest of Turkey. Overpopulation in the one case

and the need of access to ice-free waters in the other make the

contest inevitable. The Teuton is answering the call of the land,

the Slav that of climate. In both the problem is mainly economic.

At bottom it is the modern phase of the Homeric struggle idealized

in the Iliad.

The dismemberment of Turkey into European colonies is the

goal steadily held in view since the loss of the Holy Land to

Christendom. It will be the last chapter in the long history of

Europe’s commercial conquest of western Asia. Three causes militate

in favor of an eventual partition. The country is rich in natural

resources. It is held by a people whose incompetence to convert

nature’s gifts into use or profit is historically patent. It

also happens to occupy a commanding situation with reference to

the trade of Europe with Asia and Africa. These three points are

fundamental in the solution of the Turkish problem.

The European nations most vitally concerned in the dismemberment of

the Sultan’s dominions are four in number. Great Britain’s interest

is born of the Empire’s relation to Egypt and India. The cause of

Russian progress depends on the country’s access to warm seaports.

Germany is the newcomer on the scene and, as a land power, is

engaged in extending her land area. To her sons Turkey offers an

attractive colonization area and at the same time the land route

which will render them independent of the sea-way passing through

Suez to the east. As a colonial power of the first magnitude, no

less than on account of her millions of Mohammedan subjects, France

cannot be disinterested in the fate of the corelands of Islam.

Turkey is the Asiatic pendant of the intercontinental highway

represented in Europe by the Balkan peninsula. Through Asia Minor

the land provides a convenient causeway between Asia and Europe.

Through Arabia it connects Asia to Africa. Again, through the

combined position of Asia Minor and Syria it becomes possible to

maintain continuous land travel from Europe to Africa. Turkey is

thus the ideal center of the eastern hemisphere. Mastery of its

territory is bound to turn the flow of intercontinental trade into

the lap of its holders. The entire history of European conflict

over Turkish lands is wrapped up in this geographical fact.

Italians were the pioneers of European trade with Turkey after

the consolidation of Ottoman power. In this Genoese and Venetian

traders merely followed in the footsteps of their fathers, whose

dealings with the Byzantines had been considerable. French

merchants were not slow to compete with Italians. In the fifteenth

century British drapers and commissioners begin to appear in the

Levant. Germans show signs of activity a hundred years later, but

confine their operation mainly to the European dominions of the

Sultans. From these beginnings to the twentieth-century territorial

claims of the great powers is but a natural economic unfolding.

Turkey’s remarkably central position in the eastern hemisphere

makes the country the threshold of Great Britain’s Asiatic

dominions as well as the natural land connection between British

Africa and British Asia. From India westward and from the British

zone in southern Persia as defined by the Anglo-Russian convention

of 1907, to the Sultanate of Egypt, southern Turkey, represented by

Lower Mesopotamia and Arabia, is the only stretch of territory in

which the British government does not exercise direct control; and

the task of consolidating British influence in these two regions of

the Turkish Empire is well advanced.

In the economic life of modern Mesopotamia British influence is

paramount. About 90 per cent of the trade of Basra and Bagdad is in

British hands. Steam navigation on the Euphrates and Tigris with

its attendant privileges of transportation is a monopoly exercised

by the British. This means that all the Persian trade which enters

or leaves the country through its southern Turkish border must pay

toll to British capital. Most important of all, the stupendous task

of reclaiming the great twin-river valley has been undertaken by

British enterprise.

The area of agricultural lands in Lower Mesopotamia is generally

calculated at ten times the total surface of farming land in Egypt.

The territory suited for cultivation extends northward from the

Persian Gulf roughly to a line drawn from the bend of the Euphrates

at Anah to Tekrit on the Tigris. Its eastern boundary is defined

by the Zagros and Pusht-i-Koh mountains. On the west it reaches

the Great Syrian desert as far as its junction with the plateau

of Arabia. Thus defined the region is the great alluvial plain of

Mesopotamia. A stretch of land remarkably rich in humus, it only

needs a just rule and competent engineers in order to become highly

productive.

In olden days the entire district was one vast field. Its fertility

had earned it the name of granary of the world. Herodotus extols

its productivity: “ ... In grain it is so fruitful as to yield

commonly two-hundred fold. The blade of the wheat plant and barley

plant is often four fingers in breadth.”[204] In their present

state the once productive lands present the appearance of a desert.

The old irrigation ditches are in ruins. Mile upon mile of parched,

cloggy soil or dreary marsh take the place of ancient fields.

The reclamation of this arid country was undertaken in 1908

by British engineers headed by Sir William Willcocks. In the

Delta region of Mesopotamia, comprising the entire drainage

valley extending south of Hit on the Euphrates and of Samarra

on the Tigris, between 12 and 13 million acres of first-class

irrigation land were to be converted into productive areas. In

spite of Turkish opposition the work advanced with sufficient

rapidity for the Hindiyeh Barrage to be inaugurated in 1914. At a

distance of twenty centuries a handful of plucky northerners had,

notwithstanding well-nigh insurmountable obstacles, put the last

touches to a drainage project begun on the same spot by Alexander

the Great, the construction of a new head for the Hindiyeh branch

or Pallocopas having been that monarch’s first public work in

Babylonia.[205]

In the Persian Gulf British influence advanced by great strides

during the present century. Within the last ten years the policing

of the gulf waters and harbors has been undertaken by Britain’s

men-of-war. An appreciable curtailment of the trade in firearms

followed the tracking of gun-runners by British captains. The

important towns of the Persian and Arabian coast are virtually

British possessions. Bushire[206] on the eastern shore, Koweit

on the west are protectorates. The trend of it all is to advance

India’s western frontier to the line of the Euphrates.

For Great Britain’s attitude toward Turkish politics is dictated by

Delhi rather than London. As ruler of the most numerous political

group of Mohammedans in the world, the king of England’s residence

in his European capital cannot affect India’s geographical needs,

among which the maintenance of a clear road from its shores to

the mother island is of prime import. Thus the establishment of

a British zone in southern Persia and the attempt to substitute

British law in Mesopotamia where, after all, the Sultan’s authority

is most precarious in character, merely reveal England’s necessity

of consolidating her power over the approaches to her great Asiatic

colony.

In dealing with Indian geography and the vast body of Mohammedan

Hindus, attention is necessarily riveted on the question of Arabia.

British stewardship of the peninsular table-land seems inevitable.

Not that those huge wastes of burning sand contain resources

convertible into profit; but Arabia represents a wedge of barbarism

driven in between the civilizing influences exerted by Great

Britain in Egypt and India. The danger of its becoming a generating

center of revolutionary currents involving British colonial

policies in destruction is not mythical. Millions of Indian Moslems

turn daily in prayer toward the direction of the Kaaba. A glance at

India’s history suffices to reveal the extent to which the Sea of

Oman has linked the two peninsulas.

To detach Arabia from a shadowy allegiance to the Sultan of Turkey

and bring it within the uplifting sphere of British activity was

part of the political program elaborated at Downing Street after

the bombardment of Alexandria in 1882. In pursuance of this policy

British influence is now markedly felt along Arabia’s three coasts.

It is firmly planted on the southeast, where Arabia is nearest to

India. From Koweit to Muscat every petty potentate exercising an

antiquated patriarchial authority has learned to rely on British

protection against Turkish encroachments. Aden, on the southwest

coast, is a lone outpost of civilization from which western ideas

radiate and occasionally reach the plateau land of Yemen or the

niggardly wastes of Hadramut. This British seaport is the natural

outlet of Yemen. Products of the favored districts around Kataba,

as well as between this town and Sana’a, can be transported with

greater facility to Aden than by the arduous routes which lead to

Red Sea harbors.

The question of Arabia involves other considerations. Mecca and

Medina, its holy cities, are essentially the religious center of

the Islamic world. From their sites Mohammedanism has spread about

4,000 miles both east and west. Among Arabs as well as the majority

of Mohammedans outside of Turkey desire for the restoration of

the Caliphate at Mecca is strong. Arabs especially consider the

Sultans as usurpers of the title. Selim I had been the first to

adopt it after the conquest of Egypt and Arabia in 1517. Arabs

however refuse to recognize the right of any but descendants

of the Prophet’s family to this supreme post of the Mohammedan

ecclesiastical hierarchy. According to Islamic traditions the

Caliph must be a member of the Koreishit tribe. This explains why

any ambitious leader who succeeds in circulating the report of his

relationship with Mohammed’s progeny has always secured a following

among his co-religionists in Asia or Africa.

The Arabs have aired this chief grievance of theirs in English

ears. They found ready sympathy among British officials no less

than among the leaders of their faith in Egypt or India. The

complete severance of the Mohammedan Caliphate from the Turkish

Sultanate will, therefore, be a probable result of Franco-British

success in the present war. The reëstablishment of the Prophet’s

family in its hereditary right and capital will have the advantage

of providing Islam with a geographical center at the very point of

its birth.

Modern German ascendancy in Turkey has constituted the gravest

menace to the British project of uniting Egypt to India by a broad

band of British territory. German diplomacy has exerted its best

efforts during the past generation in the attempt to defeat this

design. In overcrowded Germany the need of land for colonization

is felt as keenly as the necessity of providing new markets for

the country’s busy industries. Germany does not contain within

its borders an agricultural area of sufficient extent for the

requirements of its fast-growing populations. Against this it has

been estimated that with adequate irrigation Asia Minor can turn

out a million tons of wheat annually, as well as at least 200,000

tons of cotton. The basis of Teutonic southeasterly expansion

lies in these facts. The immediate aim of German imperialism is

to spread through Austria and the Balkan peninsula into Turkey

down to the Gulf of Alexandretta and the shallow waters of the

Persian Gulf. But its realization implies the shattering of British

projects.

This rivalry in the west Asian field became inevitable from the

moment that men of German speech became conscious of the power

they had acquired in 1870 by banding together in a single state.

The task of national consolidation once accomplished, the thought

of German leaders naturally turned eastward in the direction in

which land extended. Eight years later the prestige acquired by the

newborn empire gave it a decisive voice in the treaty of Berlin.

The first peg in the line of the Teutons’ southeasterly march was

driven then by the revision of Bulgarian frontiers delimited by the

treaty of San Stefano. The Slavic obstacle seemed removed from the

Teutons’ path and its place filled by the more easily negotiable

Turkish obstruction.

From the date of that treaty to the events of these years of war

Germany’s conduct in Turkey has been determined entirely by the

call of the land. In 1882 a German military commission undertakes

to reorganize the Turkish army. In 1889 the Deutsche Bank--whose

directors are leaders of Germany’s oversea affairs--is granted

a concession for a through line from Constantinople to Konia.

This concession has since been modified so as to comprise the

trans-Anatolian trunk railway which connects the capital with

Bagdad. In 1898 the Kaiser visits Damascus in person, there

solemnly to proclaim assurances of his unalterable good-will to

the millions of Mohammedans scattered over the surface of the

earth. In 1902 the Bagdad line is definitely awarded to a group

of capitalists, among whom Germans represent the majority of

investors. From that date on, railroad, mining and irrigation

concessions in Turkey seemed to have been reserved exclusively

for Germans. The transfer of Turkey’s unexploited riches to German

ownership became almost an accomplished fact.

It was the “Drang nach Osten,” a movement directed primarily

by the valleys of the Danube and the Morava, and forking out

subsequently along the Vardar and Maritza gaps. To clear this road

to Turkey, Serbia was wiped off the map of Europe in the fall of

1915 by Teutonic armies. For this too had Serbian nationality

been split into three separate bodies at the behest of Teutonic

diplomatists. Bosnia and Herzegovina, lands Serbian in heart and

logic, were administered by Austria, an empire in name like Turkey

but virtually ruled by Prussia since the day of Sadowa. Montenegro,

of old the refuge of martyred Serbia, had always been prevented by

Austria from uniting with its sister state. In truth Serbia lay

under the bane of a geographical curse. It was always in the way.

The misfortune of position is shared fully by Turkey. Coming at

right angles to Germany’s southeasterly drive, Russia’s steady

southwesterly advances in the nineteenth century foreshadowed the

conversion of all the Black Sea and its Bosporus entrance into

Russian waters. With the most inaccessible parts of the Armenian

mountains in Russian hands since 1878, further expansion through

western Armenia into Anatolia cannot be delayed much longer.

The Russian viewpoint deserves every consideration. Russia lies

benumbed by the cold of her frozen land. She has had one long

winter since the dawn of her nationality. The chief reason why her

sons have been laggards in the liberal progress of the past hundred

years must be sought in this simple fact of geography. Russia does

not need more land or fresh resources. She only seeks the warmth

of the sun’s rays. Geographically it is Russia rather than Germany

who is entitled to “her place under the sun.” Today more than ever,

and because of her newly-won liberty and democratic institutions,

Russia needs a window on the sunny side of her national dwelling.

Russian access to the open sea in the southwest can be secured

either at Constantinople or Alexandretta. The Bosporus route is the

more advantageous, as the markets for products of the plains of

southern Russia are strewn along Mediterranean coasts. But mastery

of the Bosporus is of little value to Russia without possession of

the Dardanelles strait. The Marmora is but the lobby of the Black

Sea. The entire Bosporus-Dardanelles waterway must, therefore, be

Russian in order to allow the country to reap the full advantages

of attaining ice-free seas. If fifty years ago the question was

merely one of political foresight, today it has assumed vital

importance, for southwestern Russia’s economic development, in

the present century, has made the country absolutely dependent on

Balkan and Mediterranean markets.

As an alternative, the harbor of Alexandretta finds favor among

Russians. It lies at a distance of only 450 miles from the southern

Caucasus frontiers. Moreover, it is part of the ancient land of

Armenia, which sooner or later is destined to become a Russian

province in its entirety. Such an extension of Russian territory

to blue water on the Mediterranean has significance in two ways.

It would redeem a land that has remained Christian in spite of

centuries of Mohammedan yoke and it might effectively bar German

access to the Persian Gulf.

[Illustration:

_Copyright by Underwood & Underwood_

FIG. 54--View of the harbor of Odessa.]

[Illustration:

_Copyright by Underwood & Underwood._

FIG. 55--Export wheat ready to be loaded at Odessa.]

Russian influence in Turkey differs signally from the control

exerted by its three western competitors. British, German and

French encroachments on Turkish sovereignty have increased in

proportion to the amount of capital expended by each of these

countries for the development of Turkish resources. In this

respect Russia, which is not a country of financiers, stood at

a disadvantage. To overcome this handicap Russians resorted

to borrowing from France and England, mainly the former, and

invested the funds thus obtained in Turkey. Such transactions have

in reality been the means of strengthening French and British

ascendancy in the Ottoman land. The northeastern region of

Anatolia, which, owing to its contiguity to Russia, was regarded as

a sphere of Russian influence, has lately been looked upon often as

a zone of French interests, owing to the participation of French

capital in its development. But from a geographical standpoint

this French zone is artificial. Its dependence on Russia cannot be

altered as long as its position on the map remains unchanged.

France’s natural sphere of interest in Turkey will be found in

the Syrian vilayets. This is not due to the financing of Syrian

public utilities and industries by French capitalists as is often

alleged. It is the offspring of the Mediterranean which, since the

dawn of history, has connected the southern French coast to Syrian

harbors. Phœnician oversea trade in the first millennium before the

Christian era had reached the coasts of Provence and Languedoc.

Marseilles, a city born of this intercourse, has maintained

commercial relations with Syria uninterruptedly down to the present

time.

[Illustration:

FIG. 56--French states in Syria at the time of the Crusades.

Scale, 1:11,500,000. Based on Pl. 68, Historical Atlas, by W. R.

Shepherd, Holt, New York, 1911.]

Franco-Syrian ties were strengthened considerably during the

Crusades. The conquest of Syria and Palestine by the Arabs diverted

the thoughts of Christendom from the economic importance of these

lands to their religious appeal. France, “the eldest daughter of

the Church,” took the lead in the attempt to wrest the Holy Land

from its Mohammedan conquerors,--“Gesta Dei per Francos.” Many of

the petty states founded by noblemen who took part in the Crusades

were ruled by Frenchmen. Antioch and Tripoli had French princes,

Jerusalem a French king. The title of Protector of Oriental

Christians conferred by the Papacy on French kings had its origin

in the active part played by France in the Crusades.

France has exercised a dominant intellectual influence in the

Levant for at least seven centuries. Turks bestow the appellation

“Frank” on Europeans without discrimination of nationality.

Western ideas which have trickled down to Turkish soil are French

in character. French schools in Turkey are more numerous than any

other. The civilizing power of French culture showed its strength

by the readiness with which it asserted itself in the midst of

uncongenial Turkish thought. France’s hold on Turkey is thus of

a high moral order. It differs in this respect from the material

claims of the other European powers.

At the same time through the investments of French capitalists a

well-defined zone of French interests has been created in Syria.

Excepting the Hejaz line every railroad in the province has been

financed in France. The silk factories of the Lebanon, around which

the whole industrial life of Syria clusters, were started by French

citizens. Their annual product, usually estimated at half a million

kilograms of silk, is exported to France. Syrian silk farmers in

need of funds for the annual purchase of cocoons raise their loans

exclusively among the banking houses of Lyons. French interests are

not confined to Syria alone; fully one-half of the amount of one

billion dollars representing Turkey’s official debt to Europe has

been advanced by French financial institutions.

It is difficult to assign a place to Italy in the array of

European claimants for Turkish territory. The trade between

Italian and Turkish seaports has lost the relative importance it

had acquired in medieval times. Italian pretensions to Adalia

Bay and its rearland are of quite recent date and the result of

conquests in Libya. But beyond vaguely formulated promises for

railway concessions from the Turkish government no ties bind the

region to Italy. Italy however created its own sphere of interest

somewhat unintentionally by the occupation of the islands of the

Dodecanesia. By this act it distanced every other European country

in the race for a share of Turkey.

The group of islands lying off the southwestern coast of Anatolia

is now held by Italy in virtue of stipulations covenanted with

Turkey at the treaty of Lausanne. According to the terms agreed

upon, Italy was to occupy the islands in guarantee of Turkish

good faith pledged to prevent anti-Italian agitation in Libya.

Upon complete pacification of the latest territorial addition to

Italy’s African domain, the political fate of the islands was to be

determined jointly by the six Great European Powers.

The islands, between twelve and fifteen in number, are peopled

exclusively by Greeks. Hellenic customs, language and religion have

survived upon each in spite of centuries of Turkish rule. Italian

sovereignty, however benevolent or likely to promote the welfare

of the islanders, is disliked equally at Patmos, Leros, Cos and

Rhodes. The remaining islands are relatively unimportant, some

consisting of mere uninhabited rocks emerging two or three hundred

feet above the sea. But to the smallest inhabited islet, annexation

to Greece is keenly desired. The Italians were hailed as liberators

from the Turkish oppression by the hardy fishermen who labored

under the impression that their island homes had been rescued in

order to be annexed to Greece. Their disappointment was expressed

in mass meetings at Patmos and Cos in 1913.

Racial and historical considerations add their weight to the

linguistic claims advanced by Greeks in Greece and the Dodecanesia.

As sailors the islanders have maintained to this day classical

traditions of Hellenic maritime activity in the region. The islands

in fact constitute lands of unredeemed nationality whose natives

are without a single exception akin to the continental Greeks.

This fact combined with a distribution of a numerically

preponderant Greek element along the western coast of Anatolia

makes the Ægean a truly Greek sea. Structurally the coast lands

encircling this body of water are identical. In the east as in the

west they constitute the warped margin of a subsided area. Identity

of land and peoples has given rise to Greek claims on western

Turkey. Greece, therefore, keeps in line with other European

nations in expecting a share in the inheritance of the moribund

Turkish state.

The claim is historical no less than economic. The association

of the Ægean religion with centuries of Hellenism and fully one

millennium of Byzantinism is by no means severed in modern days.

For the second time in its glorious history the ancient city of

Athens has become the social, political and intellectual center of

the Greek world. In one and the same prospect the Greek capital can

point with pride to the Hellenic splendor exhaled from Anatolian

ruins and to her modern sons achieving daily economic victories

over the Turk in his own land.

In this spectacle of nations lying athwart each other’s path the

clue to the adequate settlement of the Turkish problem may be

found. Turkey is before anything else a roadway--a bridge-land.

As soon as this point of practical geography is recognized it

will be easy to provide international legislation in which the

claims of interested powers will be harmonized. But no solution of

the political problem involved can ever be attained without full

consideration of its geographical aspects. Failure to recognize

this would leave the Eastern Question in the hopeless tangle in

which it has lain for over a century.

As the seat of through routes Turkey and its railroad play a

great part in international transportation. Hence it is that the

Turkish lines, with exception of the Hejaz railroad, are controlled

by financiers grouped according to nationality. At present the

majority of shareholders in each of the concessions belong to one

or the other of the great European powers.

[Illustration:

_The American Geographical Society of New York_

_Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe, 1917, Pl. V_

RAILROADS IN TURKEY SHOWING THEIR CONNECTIONS AND EXTENSIONS]

The broad Eurasian landmass contains three densely populated areas.

Of these central Europe is the westernmost. The Indian peninsula

follows, situated approximately midway between the European

area and the coastlands and islands of eastern Asia, which form

the easternmost of the three. In these three regions only does

the average density of population exceed 64 inhabitants to the

square mile. The speediest and most convenient routes between the

westernmost and the two Asiatic regions must inevitably cross

Turkey. This feature, together with the fact that Asiatic Turkey

is a land richly endowed with natural resources and that, although

lying at Europe’s very door, it is still undeveloped, confer upon

Turkish railroads an importance which has always been keenly

realized by enterprising business men the world over.

All travel between Europe and Asia is deflected into northern and

southern channels by a central mass of mountains which separate a

vast lowland of plains and steppes on the north from the tablelands

of southern Asia. Age-old avenues of human migration and of trade

in the northern area have the disadvantage of traversing sparsely

inhabited regions. To build trans-continental railroads along

this route implies scaling some of the highest mountain ranges in

the world in order to tap the populous centers of India. Although

this is not beyond the engineer’s ability, capitalists decline to

consider it. Southern routes, on the other hand, link with the seas

that set far inland on Asiatic coasts. The function of the Turkish

trunk lines is to provide the shortest connection between European

railways and the steel tracks of southern Asia or to connect with

the sea routes that link harbor to harbor from the Persian Gulf to

the China Sea.

Although lying at Europe’s very door and in spite of its extreme

antiquity as the abode of civilized man, Asia Minor presents

the strange anomaly of being one of the world’s least developed

regions. It was only after the Crimean War that railroad

construction was undertaken within the peninsula. The granting of

railway concessions enabled the Sultan to pay his debt of gratitude

to the western nations which had assisted him in checking the

natural efforts of the Russians to add a strip of ice-free coast

to their country’s southwestern boundary. With the exception of

a single line every kilometer of track in the peninsula has been

built by Europeans. As is always the case in undeveloped areas,

the districts tapped by the various lines became economically

dependent on the roads that hauled their products and supplies.

This circumstance induced tacit recognition of spheres of

foreign influence in which commercial, and attendant political,

preponderance leaned strongly towards the country which supplied

the capital with which the railroads were built. Wherever, as in

Syria, vaguely defined spheres of European influence had previously

existed, the advent of engines and cars contributed to strengthen

them considerably. The routes determined by the steel-clad tracks

may therefore be considered as approximate center-lines of these

spheres of foreign influence. It is on this basis that six distinct

spheres may be marked out as follows:

(1) A British sphere extending over the entire drainage basin of

the Meander and traversed by the British-owned Aidin railway.

(2) A French sphere which was originally confined to the drainage

of the Gediz river, the ancient Hermos, but which, through

privileges acquired as a result of the successful operation of the

French-owned Cassaba railway, now extends northwards to the Sea of

Marmora. This additional sphere is divided into two equal east and

west areas by the French-owned Soma-Panderma railroad.

(3) A German sphere--the most important of these spheres of foreign

influence--which, beginning at the Bosporus, traverses the entire

peninsula diagonally by way of the inviting routes provided by

surface features and extends southeasterly through Mesopotamia to

the Persian Gulf.

(4) A Franco-Russian sphere which was originally allotted to Russia

and which comprises all of the area north of the German zone

described above. Russia’s inability to finance railway enterprise

in this area, no less than political ties which bind this country

to France, led to French participation. As a result of this dual

arrangement construction on the French-owned Samsoun-to-Sivas line

was begun in 1913.

(5) A second French sphere comprising all of Syria. It is

considered by Frenchmen as their most important sphere of influence

in Turkey. The French-owned Beirut-Aleppo, Tripoli-Homs and

Jaffa-Jerusalem lines are operated in this area.

(6) An Italian sphere extending inland from the extreme

southwestern coast of Asia Minor so as to include the hinterland of

the Gulf of Adalia. Italy is a recent invader of this field. Its

ambitions were revealed in the fall of 1913, after it became known

that negotiations had been carried on between the representative

of the Italian bondholders of the Ottoman Public Debt and the

Turkish government for the concession of a railway line to connect

the seaport of Adalia and the town of Burdur, the southeasterly

terminus of the Aidin railway.

(7) With these six spheres a contested seventh should be mentioned,

which is constituted by the exceedingly rich mineral district

situated at the northern convergence of the valleys of the

Tigris and Euphrates. Russian, French and German interests claim

respective rights of priority to its exploitation.

None of these divisions would be recognized officially as

such in Turkey. But then ethnographic boundaries are likewise

strictly ignored by the rulers of that country. Definite official

recognition of these spheres is nevertheless implied in the terms

of a number of commercial covenants signed by Turkey and various

European powers according to which the right to operate railroads,

and even mines sometimes, is granted by the Turkish government

exclusively to a single company which in almost every instance is

owned by capitalists of the same nationality. The Russo-Turkish

convention of 1900, which reserved to Russians rights of preëmption

on railroad building in the area called the Franco-Russian sphere,

may be mentioned as an example. Similarly the Bagdad Railway

Convention of 1902, formally signed by the German ambassador and

the Turkish Minister of Public Works, recognized the exclusive

rights of the Bagdad Railway Company--a German enterprise--to build

the important trans-peninsular route which will link Europe to Asia

and Africa.

One might infer that the existence of these six spheres should be

attributed to Turco-European agreements. Closer scrutiny brings to

light, however, the working of purely natural forces, explanation

of which is to be found in the geography of Asia Minor. These

international railroad conventions, and the areas determined by

their text, represent in reality the outcome of the geographical

conditions which are grouped here under the two major heads of

world relation and regional features.

World relation is an attribute of geographical location. Situated

as a junction area, a bridge as it were, between two continents,

Asia Minor stands out as an excellent type of an intermediate

region which has participated in the life of both. This two-fold

influence has been particularly marked whenever general progress

in either continent culminated in an overflow beyond continental

boundaries. The feats of Greeks and Persians, and of Byzantines

and Turks, may be considered as successive cycles in which the

spirit of Europe or of Asia predominated in turn. At the end

of each cycle life on the peninsula would revert to conditions

determined largely by regional influences. The past sixty years

have witnessed the beginning of a process of slow liberation from

the effects of the last cycle of Asiatic invasion. The spirit

of the west is ushered in once more for the simple reason that

it has become necessary to maintain a clear road over which the

products of overworked European factories will be transported to

populous markets in southern Asia. The primary cause of European

influence must therefore be traced back to Asia Minor’s location,

by virtue of which the peninsula has always been the site of an

important world route. Aryans of the present century are merely

preparing themselves to travel by rail the highway over which their

far-removed ancestors tramped on foot.

Besides offering the shortest overland route between the Baltic Sea

and the Indian Ocean, Asia Minor’s favored location affords the

same convenience with regard to land communication between Europe

and Africa. Any line diverging southwards at a suitable point on

the main trunk which traverses the peninsula diagonally may be

prolonged through Syria to the Turco-Egyptian frontier and extended

in Africa so as to connect with the Cape-to-Cairo railroad. While

no definite steps have yet been taken to secure this desirable

connection, the project has been under consideration for over

a decade and it may be surmised that its execution will not be

deferred much longer.

But world relation is also determined by a region’s natural

resources. Notwithstanding its undeveloped state, Asia Minor is

known to have been abundantly endowed with all the primary products

required by modern man’s complex life. The valleys connecting its

coast line with the inland ranges are exceedingly fertile. This

is particularly true of its western and northern area. The high

plateau of the interior needs only to be irrigated in order to

become a vast granary. Its mineral wealth is so abundant and varied

that it may be asserted that no other area of the same dimensions

can be compared to it. Its flora is extremely diversified. Its

forest belts are still considerable, despite a lack of legislation

for insuring their conservation and rational exploitation. The

slopes facing its three seas from the upper coniferous belts to

the lower olive tree zone, support a great variety of economic

species. We have here all the elements which satisfy man’s

natural desire for space after he has reached a given stage of

development. This desire is imposed by economic requirements

which impel activity in fields that must be kept expanding. The

zones must be hence regarded as spheres of economical rather than

political influence. They indicate natural foresight on the part

of powerful political agglomerations preparing the way for future

industrial and commercial advantages. At bottom it is an expression

of man’s growing ability to shape his destinies according to

his requirements and free himself from the limitations imposed

by frontiers. The economic phase of Asia Minor’s geography thus

contributes its full share in the determination of these spheres of

foreign interests.

Asia Minor may be considered as the eastern emergence of the

continental shelf supporting the European peninsula. Its salient

physical features are a central plateau surrounded by a rim-like

succession of ranges which are fringed in turn by a coastal strip

of land. A gradual ascent from west to east can be observed. The

western ranges have a mean altitude of about 2,000 feet above

sea level. The plateau has an average height of 3,000 feet.

The Armenian upland generally exceeds 4,000 feet. Access from

the sea to the interior is impeded by the mountainous barrier

reared as a natural bulwark. The gaps made by watercourses alone

permit communication. As most of the rivers are not navigable,

an important method of exploration is thus closed to adventurous

roamers, whether native or foreign. This lack of fluvial

communication has greatly hindered intercourse. Rivers have

constituted the ancient ethnic boundaries between the inhabitants

of the peninsula.[207] Communication between districts has been

carried on mainly from harbor to harbor. Although the peninsula

is in direct contact with three seas its mountainous rim prevents

benign maritime influences from extending to its interior. Its

climate may therefore be classed as extreme Mediterranean in type.

All these combined factors annul to a large extent the effects of

peninsular conditions.

The region is not as salubrious as its elevation might imply. It

is an area which has been occupied by communities of men actively

engaged in human pursuits at various periods of history, and which

has been subsequently abandoned to itself or rather to the working

of causes in which man had no part. Gradual desiccation of the

plateau is evinced by the presence of desert wastes coated with

alkaline precipitates, by receding lakes and all the manifestations

accompanying the decline of a hydrographic system. The salt lake

occupying the central part of the plateau is in reality nothing but

a vast marsh. Hydrographic changes are not confined merely to the

interior of Asia Minor but exert their action on the coast itself.

The bays of Tarsus and Ephesus are now much shallower than they

were two thousand years ago.[208] The general result is to impair

settlement. Reoccupation of the soil must often be preceded by

sanitation and it is only within recent times that this important

tool has been perfected by man so as to enable him to wield it

effectively in the conquest of fresh sites of occupancy.

Viewed therefore from its broadest aspect the problem of European

control of Asia Minor resolves itself into one of renewed

settlement. It is therefore pertinent to inquire how this condition

coupled with regional influences has affected each of the six

spheres.

Englishmen were the first to engage in Turkish railway building.

The Aidin railway, which links the thriving port of Smyrna to the

Anatolian plateau at Dineir, represents an investment of about

$50,000,000, or about a third of all the money invested in Turkey

by the British public. This road taps the fertile Meander valley

and has proved a remunerative undertaking to its owners, although

it has not been subsidized by the Turkish government. The line is

credited with the best management in Turkey. Its well-ballasted

track and the splendid condition of its rolling stock impress the

traveler most favorably. English capital is also represented in

other lines built in Turkey, though only as minority holdings.

This British zone of influence is at present the best developed

region in Asia Minor. Its northern boundary is determined by the

divide separating the watersheds of the Gediz and the Meander

rivers. The Aidin railway follows the course of the last-named

river to its very sources at about 1,000 feet below the general

western level of the plateau.[209] The eastern boundary of the

sphere is defined by the end of the natural road at one of the

abrupt slopes leading to the plateau in the vicinity of lakes

Burdur and Ajituz. Its southern frontier reaches the districts

which supply the railroad with traffic drawn from the border line

of the Carian ranges and the foot of the northern slopes of the

Lycian Taurus.

The sound establishment of Great Britain’s commercial influence in

this locality dates from the year 1856, when construction on the

Aidin railway was inaugurated. Its real beginning can be traced

back to the dawn of the nineteenth century, when English naval

supremacy replaced France’s hitherto paramount maritime influence

in the Levant. In recent years an interesting expansion of British

trade ascendancy in this zone can be detected since the products

of the area tapped by the Aidin railway, whether they consist of

cereals, fruit, ores or local manufactured goods such as rugs, are

mainly exported nowadays to Great Britain, the United States and

Australia.

Throughout history the valley of the Meander has constituted a

region in which natural features of the surface have been eminently

favorable to man’s development. In addition to the wealth of its

natural resources it is provided with a deeply indented coast

line, in which commodious natural harbors occur. Here is found

the maximum density of population for the entire peninsula--70

inhabitants to the square mile.[210] Within this restricted area

Greek influence first took root about 2,600 years ago before

spreading throughout Asia Minor. The origin of this movement must

be ascribed to the local advantages which invited human activity by

the display of favorable regional features. It is safe to surmise

that the same geographical agencies have been again responsible for

the striking parallel afforded by the first establishment within

contemporary times of a sphere of western influence in the region.

Italy’s connection with Turkish railroads has consisted in

providing labor and in laying claim to franchises in southern

Asia Minor. These claims are of recent date, and have been put

forth since the occupation of the islands of the Dodecanesia by

Italian troops. Specifically the claim is made for the right to

build a railroad from Adalia northwards to Burdur. The region to

be tapped by this line is a strip of broken lowland intervening

between the Lycian and Cilician Taurus. The valleys of the Aksu and

Keuprusu, bordering the east and west slopes of the Ovajik massif,

join in forming a deltaic area in which sub-tropical cultures,

rice, cotton and tobacco thrive. Plains and wide valleys, which

are probably ancient lakebeds, occur between the smaller ranges

of the zone. They contain arable lands which might be turned to

account were the region more thickly settled. A number of smaller

rivers discharge their contents into the gulf of Adalia. The gulf

itself is shallow, devoid of harbors, and open to southerly winds.

Lack of natural harbors and remoteness from the main highways of

the peninsula have contributed to the sphere’s isolation. It is

still imperfectly known through a few route surveys and occasional

descriptions.

The most important road in Turkey is the partially completed

trunk line running diagonally across Asia Minor and beyond into

Mesopotamia. The line is German-owned, although French and English

capital is represented. The concession for the first stretch,

extending from Constantinople to Konia, had been granted to German

and Austrian railroad builders in 1888. The celebrated Bagdad

railroad is the prolongation of this line. Its construction was

turned over to German promoters by a firman (decree) dated January

21, 1902. The financial burden of the enterprise was estimated at

about $200,000,000.

The Bagdad railroad is the final link of the shortest overland

route between Europe and Asia. In the minds of Germans it is

destined to compete with the sea-way controlled by England. The

road was conceived in order to connect Teutonic centers of industry

and Asiatic markets. The speediest sea route between Europe and

Asia passes through straits guarded by British sentinels. As long

as Gibraltar, Suez and Aden form part of Great Britain’s colonial

domain, they can be closed at will to competitors of British

manufacturers.

The great trade routes which link Europe to Asia have always

crossed Turkish territory. One of the most widely traveled of these

highways formerly connected the classic shores of Ionia to the

fever-laden coast of the Persian Gulf. It was the road to India.

The spices, gems and silk of the East reached European buyers by

way of this trunk land route. For countless centuries caravans have

plied back and forth over the barren plateau of Asia Minor and the

sweeping plains of the Mesopotamian depression. This traffic is

still maintained although it is now much on the wane. Long files of

camels proceeding leisurely at a swinging gait are met occasionally

by the traveler in Anatolia. A patient ass leads the way as of

old. The turbaned driver plods along unmindful of the historical

associations accumulated over his path. He knows however that the

steam engine, devised by western ingenuity, is about to deprive him

of the scanty pittance which his journeys yield.

Germany is essentially a land power. It was natural that the

country should seek to establish land routes over which its control

would prove as effective as England’s oversea highways. With this

aim in view, the German government lent unreserved support to

German captains of industry striving to obtain sole mastery of the

great Turkish trunk line. Asia, teeming with thickly populated

districts, lay at hand. Britain’s unrivaled sea power afforded its

people adequate transportation to these centers of consumption. The

Germans realized that a land power could not compete successfully

with rulers of the waves. They resolved to acquire commercial

supremacy in Asia by the creation of a land route. The Bagdad

railroad is the outcome of this realization.

The road starts at Konia at the southeastern terminal of the

Anatolian railroad, also a German line, whose tracks reach the

Asiatic suburbs of Constantinople. Konia lies in the very heart of

the Anatolian plateau, a stern and melancholy land, destitute of

trees and sparsely peopled. Here at an average elevation of 2,500

feet above sea-level, the tracks are laid over the ancient highway

which leads to Syria. In spite of its mournful scenery, the region

is a veritable paradise to the archeologist. It is studded with

prehistoric ruins and contains secrets of Hittite history which

await the scholar’s investigation. Here and there along the line

the dilapidated remnant of a Seljuk building reminds the traveler

of the peculiar charm of Mohammedan art.

Beyond the plateau the road plunges into a tangled mountainous

district known as the Taurus. The famous Cilician Gates are the

only practicable gap provided by nature among bold and abrupt peaks

in this region. The armies of Pagan, Christian and Mohammedan

monarchs have marched through this gorge in the long struggle

between the East and the West which enlivens the history of the

ancient East. Cyrus with his retinue of Persian lords and his

bands of Greek soldiers found it a convenient opening. Alexander

the Great stepped between its narrow walls on his way to conquer

the world. Detachments of Crusaders under Tancred and Baldwin bore

the banners of the cross through the rugged pass. Later Mongolian

hordes sang of loot as they swarmed through the mountain cut.

Unfortunately the ride through this mountain section of the

Bagdad line will not be made uninterruptedly in broad daylight.

The engineering problems involved are of considerable magnitude.

The mountain can be conquered only by means of tunnels and the

cost of this method of advance is naturally enormous. It has been

estimated at a minimum of $140,000 per mile. In addition to tunnels

considerable stretches of very heavy earth-work are required. If

the undertaking delights the engineer’s heart, it is on the other

hand apt to dismay the capitalist.

The drive through the Taurus does not end the difficulties of

construction. This mountain is succeeded immediately by the

equally lofty and precipitous Amanus range. Another arduous

tunneling section is encountered. Of the two the last is the most

difficult and costly. An idea of the heavy expense incurred in this

construction work is conveyed by the cost of the wagon road built

to reach the mouth of the first tunnel. It has been estimated that

over one million dollars have been spent in this preliminary work.

The descent towards the Cilician plain is steep. To the west

Tarsus, the birthplace of the Apostle Paul, looms a blot of white

over the grayish green of the surrounding land. The change from the

dreary scenery of the plateau is a delight to the eye. The valleys

leading to the Mediterranean coast are wooded. Vegetation soon

assumes a southern aspect of luxuriance. The sensation of finding

oneself in an altogether different country is especially felt on

hearing the sonorous accents of Arabic now spoken in place of

Turkish.

From the site of the Amanus tunnels to Aleppo the line was

completely built in 1915. Thence it strikes eastward only to

turn south after reaching the Euphrates river. From here on to

Bagdad trains will run through the great alluvial flood plains of

Mesopotamia. This is a rainless district. The present large cities,

Mosul, Bagdad and Basra, have no important share in world affairs

in comparison with the political and cultural influences which

radiated far outward from the precincts of ancient Nineveh and

Babylon.

Between Konia and Bagdad the railroad is 1,029 miles long.

For convenience of operation it is divided into sections of

approximately 130 miles in length or more correctly of 200

kilometers. Construction on the first section was begun shortly

after the award of the concession. This portion of the road was

opened to traffic in 1904. Building was abandoned until 1910 owing

to lack of funds. In May of that year operations were resumed at

different points of the line. By the middle of 1913 about 400 miles

had been completed.

Since the beginning of the European war, construction has been

pushed with increasing speed. In northern Mesopotamia the

construction of a bridge over the Euphrates at Jerabluz allows the

laying of tracks with a fair degree of rapidity in the northern

stretches of the Syrian desert. Work was also undertaken at Bagdad

in a northerly direction. In the last days of 1914 trains were

running regularly in the valley of the Tigris between this city and

Samarra. Since then, according to reports, the tracks have advanced

farther north.

Work on the sections in northern Mesopotamia does not present

great difficulties. There is reason to believe that construction

here proceeded with feverish haste during the European war. The

main obstacles to rapid track-laying are found in the mountainous

district which intervenes between the Anatolian plateau and the

plains of Syria and Mesopotamia. According to reports the tunnels

in the Amanus mountains were driven from end to end by the summer

of 1915. It will probably take longer to complete construction

through the mountainous wall which connects the Chakra valley to

the Tarsus river in the Cilician Taurus. This section of the road

is only 22 miles long. It crosses however an extremely rugged

district and requires four separate tunnels which together measure

some 10½ miles. In May, 1914, three tunnels had been started and

the ground cleared at the approach of the fourth.

A number of branch lines are included in the concession of the

Bagdad railroad. The products of some of Turkey’s most promising

districts will pass over their tracks toward the trunk line, thence

to be finally transported overland through the Balkan peninsula and

Austria to German manufacturing centers. A side line projected to

extend northeast of Aleppo will tap eventually an exceedingly rich

mineral belt situated at the northern convergence of the Tigris and

Euphrates. In this district the celebrated copper mines of Argana

are found. They are worked in desultory fashion by the Turkish

government. In spite of crude methods of extraction and long

camel-back hauls the ore is of sufficiently high grade character to

yield ample returns. Silver, lead, coal and iron also exist in the

same zone of mineralization.

An important branch connecting the trunk line with the

Mediterranean at Alexandretta has been in operation since 1913.

The line is only about fifty miles in length and traverses the

heart of a rich orange-growing district. The northern track of this

branch crosses the plain of Issus where Alexander battled against

Darius. At about six miles from its southern terminal the line

hugs Mediterranean waters and crosses the spot where, according

to statements of the natives, the whale relieved itself of the

indigestible burden of the prophet Jonah.

In central Mesopotamia, branch lines extending in easterly

directions will tap rich oil-fields and may eventually provide

connection with future trans-Persian railroads. The history of

this Mesopotamian region abounds in stirring chapters. The most

favored section is found in the narrow neck of land extending for

a short distance at the convergence of the courses of the Tigris

and Euphrates. This site was marked by nature for the heart of

great empires. After the fall of Babylon, the neighboring cities

of Seleucia and Ctesiphon became in turn the capitals of Greek

emperors and of Parthian and Sassanid sovereigns. Here Bagdad,

rich in human history, grew to world fame. The farms and palm

groves surrounding the city spread on the east and west until they

almost reached the banks of the rivers which carried life and

fertility in their waters. At the time of Arab prosperity Bagdad

was one of the most magnificent cities of the Mohammedan world.

As a center of Mussulman art the city had no peer. The Turkish

conquest, which swept light a blight over the land, put an end to

the city’s prosperity.

In modern times, Persians and Turks have vied with each other

to retain possession of the land. Bagdad then became the center

of the struggles waged between Caliphs and Imams. The conflict

which splits Islam into the two rival camps of Sunnis and Shiites

revolved around the city. The mausoleums and mosques which annually

attract thousands of pilgrims are the sanctuaries in which

upholders of the divergent beliefs elbow each other oftener than in

any other Mohammedan city.

Should the Bagdad railroad be destined to remain German property

the line is bound to become the backbone of German supremacy in

western Asia. Germania, helmeted and carrying sword and shield,

will ride over its rails to conquer Palestine and to wrest the

wealth of the Nile and Ganges from British grip. But the foreign

interests of every European nation are affected by the construction

of this celebrated railway. It is the most direct route to Asia

for all of Europe. The question of its internationalization is

therefore one of the problems of European diplomacy.

[Illustration:

FIG. 57--One of the many shops in a Turkish bazaar. All commerce

in Oriental cities was formerly centered under a single roof.

This feature of Oriental commerce is gradually disappearing.]

The extensive zone traversed by this railway comprises the fertile

and well settled valleys of the Sakaria and the Pursak, practically

the whole of the interior plateau to the foot of its surrounding

mountains and the eastern section of the Mesopotamian valley.

Within this belt the most populous inland towns of the peninsula

succeed each other at regular intervals. This circumstance

indicates their former importance as stages on the long journey

between the Bosporus and the Persian Gulf. Casual inspection of

their crowded bazars would dispel doubt on this score. Attention

must be called here to the geographical significance of these

bazars in the Orient. Every urban center is provided with one. It

is usually a roofed inclosure within which the city’s business

is carried on. Caravans proceeding from remote sections of the

continent have their rendezvous outside their gates. The size of

these bazars and the activity displayed in each is the measure

of an eastern city’s intercourse with the rest of the world. In

the geographer’s mind their significance is the same as that of

railroad stations.

By acquiring this trunk line the Germans succeeded in taking a

first mortgage on Turkey. It was the first signal success of the

policy of directing Teutonic ambitions into eastern channels which

Bismarck had adopted immediately after the consolidation of the

German Empire. He had a vision of an all-German line of traffic

starting at Hamburg and crossing the Bosporus towards the Far

East. In one direction German calculations miscarried. Germany was

unable to finance the undertaking without the support of British

and French capitalists. The international character of the line

became more and more pronounced between the years 1908 and 1911.

During this period a number of agreements were signed between Great

Britain, France, Germany and Turkey in which a notable percentage

of German interests passed over to the two rival countries, the

Germans emerging out of the transaction with a bare control.

The project of an all-German route received another setback when

England was awarded the final section of the Bagdad line. This

successful stroke of British diplomacy consolidated British

influence in the Persian Gulf. Koweit and the environing districts

ruled by petty Arabian chiefs became British protectorates and the

long-planned German through line merely butted against a solid wall

raised by British ability.

The French have invested twice as much capital as the English

in Turkish railroads. The lines they manage and own directly

are the Syrian railroads and the Smyrna-Kassaba line. They are

also interested in the construction of roads in the northeastern

districts of the country where concessions have been awarded to

Russians. Muscovite inability to provide capital is responsible for

the transfer of the building and operating grants to Frenchmen.

The sphere of French influence comprising the Gediz valley and its

adjacent territory to the Sea of Marmora lies entirely out of the

beaten track of intercontinental travel. Its economic prosperity is

therefore governed by purely regional influences. The valley of the

Gediz river itself compares in fertility with that of its southern

consort, the Meander. Tracts of arable land in its northern area

and the occurrence of extensive mineral deposits, a few of which

are among the most heavily exploited in Asia Minor, combined

with genial climate and the accident of position which places

the zone directly opposite the European mainland, all tend to

impart elements of economic significance which have allured French

enterprise.

As has been shown already, the zone of paramount French influence

in Asiatic Turkey lies, south of Asia Minor, in Syria. “La France

du Levant” is a term which is not uncommonly applied by Frenchmen

to this Turkish province. The origin of this intercourse may be

traced to the trade relations between Gaul and Syria in the fourth

century B.C. During antiquity a widely traveled road, albeit

of lesser importance than the peninsular highway of Anatolia,

connected the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. This route

started from Egypt and Syrian harbors and skirted the western and

northern edges of the Arabian desert before assuming a southerly

strike which led it through the Mesopotamian basin. The populous

cities of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo lie on this ancient

avenue of trade. Here, as in the case of the Anatolian cities

mentioned, their present population is altogether out of proportion

to their resources or activity. It can only be regarded as a

sign of the importance they once had as stages in this southern

east-west route. The Syrian littoral, described by Hogarth as

the garden of Arabia,[211] must be regarded therefore as an

intermediate region connecting Asia and the country lying west of

its Mediterranean border. This influence of location prevailed

throughout history.

The conquest of Syria by Frankish Crusaders gave renewed impetus

to commercial relations between Syria and France. A regular trade

route between Marseilles and Syrian ports was established. The

treaty of alliance between the Sultan of Turkey and the King of

France in the first half of the sixteenth century contributed

to bind this province more firmly to France. At the end of the

seventeenth century French trading-centers had been established

in all the important cities of Syria. Napoleon’s invasion of

this province as a result of the Egyptian campaign and French

intervention in the Lebanon in 1859 likewise increased French

prestige in the region. The confinement of this western hold to

Syria can be ascribed to the influence exerted by the boundaries of

the province. It forms with Palestine an excellent type of regional

unit consisting of an elongated mountainous strip barely 50 miles

wide. With the Mediterranean on the west, and deserts on the south

and east, its only outlet to the world lay on the north.

French builders first undertook to connect the province of Lebanon

with the sea by constructing the Beirut-Damascus line. The tracks

were subsequently extended to Aleppo, a city whose greatness was

founded on its situation along the natural road which connects the

Mediterranean with the Persian Gulf. As a railroad center Aleppo’s

future looms bright, for the city lies also in the path of the

tracks which will connect the Black Sea with the Mediterranean.

In southern Syria, the outlook for French enterprise was dimmed

for a few years by the construction of a Turkish line from

Damascus southwards. Branch lines were carried to the sea. Harbor

concessions, however, were granted to French firms. French

interests thus retained a notable share of the control over the

traffic in and out of Syria. Furthermore, a concession for a line

from Rayak to connect with the Jaffa-Jerusalem road which they

obtained in 1914 will enable them to compete with the Hejaz line.

The last railroad agreement between the French and Turkish

governments was signed on April 9, 1914. Concessions on the part of

the Turkish government are bestowed in return for French financial

support. The lines granted will tap northern Anatolia and Armenia.

Connection with the German lines will be made at Boli and at

Argana. The area tributary to this line contains fertile plains and

plateaus. It is known to be rich in mines, notably in copper. The

advent of the railroad will undoubtedly brighten the outlook of the

Turkish mining industry.

In southern Arabia a railroad concession was awarded to French

promoters in 1908. The line was to connect the seaport of Hodeida

with Sana’a. It was intended to divert into Turkish territory

the large trade with the interior which now passes through Aden.

Strategic reasons also weighed heavily in the decision to build

this road. At no time have the Arabs of the Yemen shown sympathy

for their Turkish rulers. Every commander sent to quell their

incessant rebellions ascribed his failure to lack of transportation

facilities. It was mainly in view of this condition that steps were

taken to connect this section of the Arabian table-land with the

sea.

The Franco-Russian sphere is the outcome of privileges originally

conceded to Russia by Turkey. The terms of the agreement under

discussion call for the construction of railroad lines as follows:

The trunk line is to start at Samsoun and to end at Sivas.[212]

A westerly branch line will diverge from Tokat towards Yozgat

without reaching this city, however, or extending beyond the divide

between the Yechil and Kizil rivers. A second branch will start at

Tokat and reach Erzindjian, whence it will be turned northwards

to Trebizond. Beyond Sivas the line will be extended to Kharpout

and the vicinity of the important Argana copper mine. Connection

with the Bagdad railway will be made beyond this point. Finally an

important branch will leave the trunk line at Kazva to extend to

Kastamuni and Boli.

[Illustration:

_The American Geographical Society of New York_

_Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe, 1917, Pl. VI_

EUROPEAN SPHERES OF INFLUENCE AND TERRITORIAL CLAIMS IN TURKEY]

The zone defined by these projected lines covers the greater

part of northern Asia Minor. It forms a region in which relief

and the rigor of the climate have retarded the development of the

population.[213] These geographical disadvantages are compensated

by ample natural resources. The eastern section is known to

contain a rich copper belt which bids fair to become the site of a

thriving industry. The deltaic strips and river valleys will permit

extensive tobacco culture and fruit raising. The passing of this

zone under the sphere of western influence is a mere result of

Russia’s constant endeavor to obtain a coast line which will not be

closed to navigation during the winter.

The only line owned by the Turks in their country is the

narrow-gauge railway known as the Hejaz line which starts from

Damascus and is intended to reach the holy town of Mecca. The

financing of this line has been unparalleled in the annals of

railroad building. Ostensibly the purpose of the construction was

to provide traveling conveniences to 250,000 pilgrims who, it is

estimated, came annually from all parts of the Mohammedan world to

worship at the Kaaba. In the belief of many, the line was built for

strategical reasons and to enforce Turkish sovereignty among the

Arabs, who have always been loath to admit the Sultan’s claims to

the Caliphate.

The funds for the construction and equipment of the road were

obtained by appealing to the religious feelings of the 230,000,000

Mohammedans scattered in widely separated regions of the globe.

Stress was laid on the pious character of the undertaking.

According to reports, $14,000,000 were collected soon after

the enterprise was launched. Thereafter about $12,000,000 were

contributed annually for several years. The operation involved

no responsibility to the promoters, headed by Abdul Hamid, the

former Sultan of Turkey, all the funds being bestowed in the form

of donations. The road has thus no shareholders and no bonded

indebtedness, its capital being spontaneously wiped off.

The religious character of the undertaking is apparent in the

mosque-wagon attached to each train. Seen from the outside, the

prayer carriage is distinguished only by means of a diminutive

minaret six and a half feet high. The interior is fitted out

according to religious custom with rugs on the floor and framed

Koranic verses in letters of gold on the walls. The direction of

Mecca is indicated by a map at the end of the car, so as to enable

the faithful to orient themselves properly when engaged in prayer.

A hopeful view of the future of Turkey’s economic position may be

entertained by remembering that the land is still unexploited and

that the resources of its soil and subsoil await the handling of

western energy. It is expected that as fine a cereal crop as can be

obtained anywhere in the world will be raised in the region between

Eskishehir, Angora and Konia. Five million dollars spent by Germans

on irrigation at Chumra in the vicinity of the last-named city has

proved conclusively that a thriving agricultural industry can be

established on the interior plateau of Asia Minor. The Cilician

plain, where cotton and cereals are cultivated, contains vast

tracts of swamp land which can be reclaimed. Here, too, irrigation

would greatly improve cotton culture. Many of these rich soils are

parts of Turkish crownlands which have been estimated by some to

amount to one-tenth of the entire area of Turkey. The lands owned

by the Evkaf, or Ministry of Religious Foundations, also cover

vast areas. Estates held under either of these forms of tenure

can be rendered highly productive under western management. The

southernmost end of the Bagdad line taps rich oil fields which are

situated in the area of transition between the plateau of Iran and

the Mesopotamian depression. The railroad traverses the western end

of this oil basin. Its eastern section in Persia has been developed

since 1908 by British firms.

The international control of Turkish railroads reflects the

transitional character of the land over which they are built.

Ownership in Turkish lines is of practically no value to so

backward a people as the Turks have proved themselves to be. It is

of vital importance to the industrial communities of the countries

which hold the extremities of the roads of which the Turkish

system is but a link. Germany, Austria and France at the western

extremity of the transcontinental line, Great Britain in India at

its eastern end, have interests which affect a large proportion

of their population. In the west the great through line starts in

some of the busiest industrial centers of the world. In the east it

taps coveted markets. The attention of European manufacturers is

directed towards densely populated India or China simply because

profitable trade is found where numbers exist.

A comprehensive glance at the spheres of foreign influence in

Turkey shows that the most satisfactory evidence of the control

of geography over the development of railway zones and spheres of

foreign influence in Asia Minor is obtained by mere reference to

the regions in which adverse geographical conditions prevail. The

Italian and Russian spheres are both characterized by physical

and climatic conditions which have stood in the way of human

development. The map reveals the absence of railways in both.

In the more favored zones western influences are shown by the

presence of modern surface features. Striking examples of German

enterprise can be observed along their extensive sphere of action.

Grain warehouses at Polatli on the Angora line receive the crops of

the environing country. In the plains of Konia canals and locks of

varying dimensions have been built and the former swampy area is

fast becoming a heavy producer of wheat. Farther south near Adana

over 200,000 acres have been reclaimed mainly for cotton growing.

In this district important harbor works have been undertaken at

Alexandretta which it is planned to make both the outlet of all

southern Asia Minor and the terminal of the sea route from Europe

to the east.

Similarly French influence in Syria is observable in the

macadamized highways of the Lebanon no less than in the development

of a thriving silk industry. In the British zone of the Meander

valley mines have been opened up by British capital. Along with

this economic progress education is also advancing. Numerous

European and American schools were in existence in Asiatic Turkey

prior to the European war. The mere presence of European employees

of the railroads in the Anatolian towns is enough to infuse new

thoughts into the minds of the inhabitants. On the whole the

locomotive is performing its civilizing work and Asia Minor is

gradually becoming Europeanized.

Summing up we find that we have dealt with a connecting region

which may justly be considered as the classical type in geography.

A land which by its position was everyman’s land, and which,

because of its geography, was of greater interest to the outsider

than to its own inhabitants. Being a part of three continents it

became part of the life which flourished in each. A nation formed

on such a site belongs more to its neighbors than to itself. In

this respect its future will resemble its past.

FOOTNOTES:

[202] The Historical Geography of Asia Minor, _Roy. Geogr. Soc.

Suppl. Papers_, Vol. 4, 1900, p. 27.

[203] W. Leaf: Troy, A Study in Homeric Geography, London, 1912.

[204] Bk. 1, Chap. 193. Babylonia’s fertility is also noticed by

other ancient writers. Cf. footnote of Rawlinson’s Herodotus, New

York, 1859, Vol. 1, p. 258.

[205] W. Willcocks: The Irrigation of Mesopotamia, New York, 1911,

pp. 13-14.

[206] Bushire with a population of about 20,000 inhabitants owes

its importance to its being the southern sea terminal of the

caravan route which starts at Teheran and passes through Isfahan

and Shiraz.

[207] Vivien de St. Martin: Asie Mineure, Vol. 11, p. 386.

[208] Reclus: Asie Antérieure, pp. 509 and 522.

[209] Hogarth: The Nearer East, New York, 1902, p. 33.

[210] Hogarth: op. cit., p. 155.

[211] Op. cit., p. 194.

[212] _Asie Française_, Oct. 1913, p. 402.

[213] Hogarth: op. cit., p. 244.