THE BAGDAD RAILWAY BECOMES AN IMPERIAL ENTERPRISE
POLITICAL INTERESTS COME TO THE FORE
It was asserted times without number that the Bagdad Railway was an
independent financial enterprise, unconnected with the political aims
of the German Government in Turkey and in no sense associated with an
imperialist policy in the Near East. At the time the concession of
1903 was granted Dr. Rohrbach expressed the belief that political and
diplomatic considerations were quite outside the plans and purposes
of the promoters of the Railway.[1] Herr Bassermann, leader of the
National Liberal Party, announced to the Reichstag that, although
German capital was predominant in the Railway, there was no intent on
the part of the owners or on the part of the Government to build with
any political _arrière-pensée_. Baron von Schoen, Imperial Secretary
for Foreign Affairs, reiterated this idea with emphasis. He pointed
out that the Bagdad convention of 1903 was _not a treaty_ between
Germany and Turkey, _but a contract_ between the Ottoman Government
and the Anatolian Railway Company. He maintained that if the railway
were considered, properly, as a purely economic enterprise, “all the
fantastic schemes that are from time to time being attached to it
would evaporate.”[2] A British journalist wrote in 1913: “Gwinner, it
may be assumed, is not building the Bagdad Railway for the purposes of
the German General Staff. What chiefly keeps him awake of nights is
how to extract dividends from it for the _Deutsche Bank_ and how best
to promote the golden opportunities which await the strategists of the
German trading army in the Near East.”[3]
The German Government, nevertheless, had been interested in the
Bagdad plan almost from its inception. The visits of the Emperor to
Constantinople and Palestine; the appointment of German military
and consular officers to the technical commission which surveyed
the line in 1899; the enthusiastic support of the German ambassador
all contributed to the success of the enterprise. In fact, the
German Government was almost too solicitous of the welfare of the
concessionaires; assistance, it was said, bordered upon interference.
During the early stages of the negotiations of 1898–1899 Dr. von
Siemens complained that the German embassy was jeopardizing the success
of the project by insisting that the issuance of the concessions
should be considered a diplomatic, as well as a business, triumph.
Dr. von Gwinner, also, was discontented with the tendency of the
German Government to urge strategic, rather than purely economic,
considerations. There was a widespread belief in Germany, as well as
elsewhere in Europe, that the Imperial Foreign Office nurtured the
Bagdad Railway and its affiliated enterprises with a full realization
that “the skirmishes of the political advance guard are fought on
financial ground, although the selection of the time and the enemy, as
well as the manner in which these skirmishes are to be fought, depends
upon those responsible for our foreign policy. Much more than ever
before Germans will have to bear in mind that industrial contracts,
commercial enterprises, and capital investments are conveying from
one country to another not only capital and labor, but also political
influence.”[4]
Had the German Government been disposed to pursue a different policy
in the Near East, had it refused to link its political power with the
economic interests of its nationals, it would have been standing out
against an accepted practice of the Great Powers. Lord Lansdowne,
British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, informed the House of
Lords, in May, 1903, that it was impossible for the Foreign Office
to dissociate commercial and political interests. He doubted whether
British success in the Middle and Far East could have been achieved
without careful diplomatic promotion of British economic interests in
those regions.[5] Through financial control Russia and Great Britain
effectually throttled Persian reform and nationalist aspirations.
The pioneer activities of French capital in Tunis and Morocco are
outstanding instances of modern imperial procedure. Such also is the
use by the Government of the French Republic of its power to deny
listings on the Paris Bourse for the purpose of forcing political
concessions—a procedure which a French banker described to the author
as “a species of international blackmail.”[6] A prominent historian
and economist has described the Franco-Russian alliance as a “bankers’
creation.”[7] What other powers had been doing it was to be expected
that Germany would do. The ownership and operation of the Bagdad
Railway by a predominantly German company was an important factor in a
notable expansion of German commercial and financial activities in the
Near East. In an age of keen competition for economic influence in the
so-called backward areas of the world, this growth of German interests
in Turkey was almost certain to influence the diplomatic policy of
Germany toward the Ottoman Empire. The political aspirations of the
diplomatists were reënforced by the economic interests of the bankers.
Had the German Government not voluntarily taken the Bagdad enterprise
under its wing, it might have been compelled to do so. Popular
dissatisfaction with a “weak” policy toward investments in backward
countries may force the hand of an unwilling government. Whether this
dissatisfaction be spontaneous or created by an interested press or
both, it is certain to be powerful, for there are few governments
which can resist for long the clamor for vigorous fostering of the
nation’s interests and rights abroad. And there was no lack of
popular enthusiasm in Germany for the Bagdad Railway. The fact that
French capital had been invested in the undertaking was usually
forgotten. The grand design came to be referred to, affectionately,
as _unser Bagdad_ and, somewhat flamboyantly, as the “B. B. B.”
(Berlin-Byzantium-Bagdad). German publicists of imperial inclinations
contemplated the Railway with reverent amazement, as though hypnotized.
The project speedily became an integral part of the national
_Weltanschauung_—a means of enabling Germans to compete for the rich
commerce of the Orient, to appropriate some of its enormous wealth, to
develop some of its apparently boundless possibilities. As a branch
of _Weltpolitik_ it held out alluring inducements for the exercise
of political influence in the East—an influence which would serve at
once to discomfit the Continental rivals of Germany and to promote the
_Drang nach Osten_ of her Habsburg ally.
The political aims of the German Empire in Turkey, however, were not
concerned with colonization or conquest. It was not proposed, for
example, to encourage German colonization of the regions traversed
by the Bagdad Railway. During the last two decades of the nineteenth
century, it is true, attempts had been made to stimulate German
settlements in Syria and Mesopotamia. But later, when the problem
of German oversea migration had become less acute, all proposals for
German colonization in the Near East were abandoned.[8]
The difficulties in the way of European settlement of Asiatic Turkey
were almost insurmountable. Mesopotamia is unbearably hot during the
summer and is totally unfit for colonization by Europeans. During July
and August the thermometer registers between 100 and 120 almost every
day, and the heat is particularly oppressive because of the relatively
high humidity. The total number of Europeans resident in Mesopotamia
before the War was not in excess of 200, who were almost all
missionaries, engineers, consuls, or archæologists. Palestine is more
suitable as a place of residence, but the country is not particularly
alluring; a few German agricultural colonies, chiefly Jewish, were
established there, but they were comparatively unimportant in size,
wealth, and political influence. In Anatolia the climate is tolerable,
but not healthful for western Europeans. The plateau is subject to
sudden and extreme changes in temperature in both winter and summer,
and, consequently, pneumonia and malaria are almost epidemic among
foreigners. To the German who was considering leaving the Fatherland to
seek his fortune abroad, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Anatolia were by no
means as attractive as Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. Turkey
offered few inducements to compare with the lure of the United States
or of South America.[9]
In addition to these natural difficulties, there existed the pronounced
opposition of the Turks to foreign colonization of their homeland. This
opposition was so deep-rooted that General von der Goltz warned his
fellow countrymen not to migrate to the Near East if friendly relations
were to be maintained with the Ottoman Empire. Paul Rohrbach said
that colonization of Turkey-in-Asia by Europeans was quite out of the
question. H. F. B. Lynch, of the English firm of Lynch Brothers, one of
the most pronounced opponents of the Bagdad Railway, declared that fear
of German settlement of Asia Minor was sheer nonsense, that no such
plan was in contemplation by the promoters of the Bagdad enterprise,
and that the reports of such intentions were the work of ignorant
chauvinists. It will be recalled, also, that a secret annex to the
concession of 1903 pledged the _Deutsche Bank_ not to encourage German
or other foreign immigration into Turkey.[10]
Germans denied, likewise, that they had any intention of utilizing
the Bagdad Railway as a means of acquiring an exclusive sphere of
economic interest in the Ottoman Empire. Attention was continually
directed to Articles 24 and 25 of the Specifications of 1903, which
decreed that rates must be applicable to all travelers and consignors
without discrimination, and which prohibited the concessionaires
from entering into any contract whatever with the object of granting
preferential treatment to any one. Arthur von Gwinner, President of
the Bagdad Railway, stated that his company had loyally abided by
its announced policy of equality of treatment for all, regardless of
nationality or other considerations, and he challenged the critics of
the enterprise to cite a single instance in which the contrary had
been the case. Dr. Rohrbach wrote, in 1903, that it was “unthinkable
that Germans should seek to monopolize the territories of the Turkish
Empire for the purposes of economic exploitation.” Somewhat later he
again stressed this point: “Germany’s political attitude to Turkey is
unlike that of all other European powers because, in all sincerity, we
ask not a single foot of Turkish territory in Europe, Asia, or Africa,
but have only the wish and the interest to find in Turkey—whether
its domination be in future restricted to Asia or not—a market and
a source of raw materials for our industry; and in this respect we
advance no claim on other nations than that of the unconditional open
door.” Baron von Schoen pledged the Government to a policy of equal and
unqualified opportunity for all in the regions to be opened up by the
Railway.[11]
Furthermore, there is little reason to believe that the Germans had any
intention of establishing a protectorate over Asiatic Turkey. Their
determination to respect the territorial integrity of the Ottoman
Empire was due, of course, not to magnanimity on their part as much as
to expediency. Protectorates are expensive. For the same reason it may
be doubted that there was any intention of maintaining an extensive
military control over Turkey. German aims were to be served by the
economic, military, and political renaissance of Turkey-in-Asia. A
strong Turkey economically would be a Turkey so much the better able
to increase the production of raw materials for the German market as
well as to provide an ever more prosperous market for the products of
German factories. A powerful Turkish military machine might strike some
telling blows, in alliance with German arms, in a general European war;
in the event of a Near Eastern conflict it might be utilized to menace
the southern frontier of Russia or to strike at British communications
with India. A politically strong Ottoman Empire might offer serious
resistance to the Russian advance in the Middle East and might menace
Britain’s hold on her Mohammedan possessions.
On the other hand, a Turkey in subjection would be an unwilling
producer and a poor customer. The occupation of Turkey by German armed
forces would seriously deplete the ranks of the German armies on the
Russian and French frontiers, and in time of war would confront the
German General Staff with the additional problem of maintaining order
in hostile Mohammedan territory. The conquering of Turkey would bring
the German Empire into the ranks of European powers with Mohammedan
subjects, thus exposing it to the menace, common to Great Britain,
France, and Russia, of a Pan-Islamic revival. For all of these reasons
the obvious German policy was not only to respect the territorial
integrity of Turkey, but to defend it against the encroachments of
other powers. “Not a penny for a weak Turkey,” said Rohrbach, “but for
a strong Turkey everything we can give!”[12]
In its political aspects the Bagdad Railway was something more than
a railway. It was one phase of the great diplomatic struggle for
the predominance of power, one pawn in the great game between the
Alliance and the Entente, one element of the Anglo-German rivalry on
the seas. The development of closer relations, political and economic,
between Germany and Turkey was in accord with the spirit of an era of
universal preparedness—preparedness for pressing economic competition,
preparedness for the expected great European war in which every nation
would be obliged to fight for its very existence. Through control of
the economic resources of the Ottoman Empire, German diplomacy sought
to arrive at an _entente cordiale_ or a formal military alliance with
the Sultan. Through support of the chief Mohammedan power Germany
might throw tempting “apples of discord” into the colonial empires of
her chief European rivals, for Great Britain ruled about eighty-five
million subject Mohammedans, Russia about seventeen million, France
about fifteen million; but Germany possessed almost none.[13] Friedrich
Naumann wrote in 1889, in connection with the Kaiser’s pilgrimage
to the Near East: “It is possible that the world war will break out
before the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. Then the Caliph of
Constantinople will once more uplift the standard of the Holy War.
The Sick Man will raise himself for the last time to shout to Egypt,
the Soudan, East Africa, Persia, Afghanistan, and India, ‘War against
England.’ It is not unimportant to know who will support him on his bed
when he utters this cry.”[14]
This menace to the British Empire was no more serious than another
which was frankly espoused by certain supporters of the Bagdad plan—the
possibility, even without a preponderance of naval power, of severing
the communications of the empire in time of war. Dr. Rohrbach, for
example, put it this way: “If it comes to war with England, it will
be for Germany simply a question of life and death. The possibility
that events may turn out favorably for us depends wholly and solely
upon whether we can succeed in putting England herself in a precarious
position. That cannot be done by a direct attack in the North Sea; all
idea of invading England is purely chimerical. We must, therefore, seek
other means which will enable us to strike England in a vulnerable
spot.... England can be attacked and mortally wounded by land from
Europe in only one place—Egypt. The loss of Egypt would mean not only
the end of her dominion over the Suez Canal and of her communications
with India and the Far East, but would probably entail, also, the loss
of her possessions in Central and East Africa. We can never dream,
however, of attacking Egypt until Turkey is mistress of a developed
railway system in Asia Minor and Syria, and until, through the
extension of the Anatolian Railway to Bagdad, she is in a position to
withstand an attack by England upon Mesopotamia.... The stronger Turkey
grows the more dangerous does she become for England.”[15]
It is only fair to add, however, that Dr. Rohrbach was not an
authorized spokesman of the German people, the German Government, or
the Bagdad Railway Company. His views were personal and are to be
given weight only in so far as they influenced or reflected public
opinion in Germany; to estimate their importance by such a standard
is no simple task. But whatever its true significance, Dr. Rohrbach’s
interest in the Bagdad Railway was certainly a source of great
annoyance to Dr. von Gwinner, who was constantly called upon to explain
irresponsible, provocative, and bombastic statements from Rohrbach’s
pen. It is well to recall that the writings of publicists are sometimes
taken too seriously.[16]
It would have been foolhardy, nevertheless, to discard these
possibilities as purely imaginary. Once the Bagdad Railway was
constructed and its subsidiary enterprises developed, there would have
existed the great temptation to utilize economic influence for the
promotion of strategic and diplomatic purposes. In an era of intensive
military and economic preparedness for war the observance of the
niceties of international relationships is not always to be counted
upon. In such circumstances the wishes of the business men—whether
they were imperialistic or anti-imperialistic—may be over-ruled by
the statesmen and the soldiers. The chance to strike telling blows at
French prestige in the Levant; the opportunity to embarrass Russia by
strengthening Turkey; the possibility of menacing the communications
of the British Empire; the likelihood of recruiting Turkish military
and economic strength in the cause of Germany,—these were alluring
prospects for discomfiting the Entente rivals of the German Empire.
At the same time it should be mentioned that promotion of the Bagdad
Railway would serve to weld firmer the Austro-German alliance. Austrian
ambitions in the Near East centered in the Vienna-Salonica railway
and were distinct from the Berlin-to-Bagdad plan of the Germans;
nevertheless circumstances served to promote a community of interest.
First, the routes of the railways through the Balkans coincided in
part: the Austrian railway ran _via_ Belgrade and Nish to Salonica;
traffic “from Berlin to Bagdad” followed the same line to Nish, where
it branched off to Sofia and Constantinople. Second, Austrian, as
well as German, trade would be carried over the Bagdad lines to the
Orient, and Austrian industries would be able to secure raw materials
from Anatolia and Mesopotamia. If the railway was to run from Berlin
to Bagdad, it also was to run from Vienna to Bagdad. Third, similarly,
German industry was to profit by the Austrian railway to Salonica, for
it opened a new route to German commerce to the Aegean. “Germany’s road
to the Orient lay, literally as well as figuratively, across the Balkan
Peninsula.”[17] The _Drang nach Osten_ was near to the hearts of both
allies!
It was not without warning that the German nation permitted itself
to be drawn into the imperial ramifications of the Bagdad Railway.
Anti-imperialists sensed the dangers connected with such an ambitious
project. Herr Scheidemann, leader of the Social Democrats in the
Reichstag, for example, warned the German people that the railway was
certain to raise increasingly troublesome international difficulties,
and he expressed the fear that the German protagonists of the plan
would come to emphasize more and more its political and military,
rather than its economic and cultural, phases.[18] Karl Radek,
also a Socialist, wrote that “The Bagdad Railway possessed great
political significance from the very moment the plan was conceived.”
He prophesied that German economic penetration in Turkey would prove
to be only the first step toward a formal military alliance, which,
in turn, would heighten the fear and animosity of the Entente Powers.
“The Bagdad Railway,” he said, “constitutes the first great triumph of
German capitalistic imperialism.”[19] Business men and politicians of
imperialist inclinations did not deny the charges of their pacifist
opponents. Herr Bassermann, so far from deprecating a greater political
influence in the Ottoman Empire, came to glory in it. Baron von Schoen
qualified his earlier statements with the following enunciation of
policy: “With reference to the attitude of the Imperial Government, it
goes without saying that we are giving the enterprise our full interest
and attention and will make every effort to further it.”[20]
The political potentialities of the Bagdad Railway aroused the fear and
opposition of the other European Powers. Exaggerated charges were made
as to the intentions of the German promoters and the German Government,
and there was a widespread feeling that there was something sinister
about the plan. Professor Sarolea sounded a prophetic warning when he
wrote, “The trans-Mesopotamian Railway ... will play in the Near East
the same ominous part which the Trans-Siberian played in the Far East;
with this important difference, however, that whilst the Far Eastern
conflict involved only one European Power and one Asiatic Power, the
Near Eastern conflict, if it breaks out, must needs involve all the
European powers, must force the whole Eastern Question to a crisis, and
once begun, cannot be terminated until the map of Europe and Asia shall
be reconstructed.”[21]
RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL INTERESTS REËNFORCE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
MOTIVES
Along with economic and political motives for imperialist ventures
there frequently goes a religious motive. That such should be the case
in the Near East was to be expected because of the religious appeal
of the Ottoman Empire as the homeland of the Jews, the birthplace of
Christianity, the cradle of Mohammedanism. It was small wonder, then,
that the Bagdad Railway, which promised to link Central European cities
with the holy places of Syria and Palestine, should have been supported
enthusiastically by German missionaries and other German Christians.
German Protestant missions were represented in the Holy Land as early
as 1860, when the Kaiserswerth Deaconesses established themselves in
Jerusalem. Shortly thereafter the _Jerusalems-Verein_ began work in
Jerusalem and Bethlehem, and about this same time, 1869, Lutheran
missionaries calling themselves Templars settled near Jaffa. Under
William II additional impetus was given to German religious activities
in the Near East. The _Jerusalems-Verein_, which was taken under
the special patronage of the Kaiserin Auguste Victoria, supported a
Lutheran clergyman in Jerusalem and was responsible for the erection in
the Holy City of the Church of the Redeemer. This same society rapidly
spread its activities throughout all of Palestine, and in 1910 it
dedicated the famous Kaiserin Auguste Victoria _Stiftung_,[22] erected
on the Mount of Olives by the Hohenzollern family at a cost in excess
of half a million dollars. The Evangelical Union, organized in 1896,
established a large orphanage in Jerusalem, together with schools
and related institutions, and proved to be a very useful auxiliary
to the work of the Deaconesses in maintaining schools, dispensaries,
and hospitals. Also in 1896 there was founded the _Deutsche Orient
Mission_, which rendered its services particularly in Cilicia, and
which kept up the interest of its supporters at home by the publication
in Berlin of a monthly periodical, _Der Christliche Orient_. It was
estimated that, during the early years of the twentieth century,
the German Protestant societies maintained in Turkey-in-Asia about
450 missionaries and several hundred native assistants at a cost of
hundreds of thousands of dollars. By 1910 the Germans occupied a
conspicuous position in evangelical missions in the Near East.[23]
The German Catholics were no less zealous than their Protestant
compatriots. Although for centuries Italian and French members of
the Franciscan order had been preëminent in Catholic missions in
Turkey, there was a marked tendency during the last decade of the
nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth for German
members of other religious orders to take an interest in the Near
East. This may have been merely the result of a general increase in
missionary activity connected with the increasing imperial activities
of the German Government. It may have been due to the announced
intention of the German Foreign Office to protect Christian missions
and missionaries and to the vigorous fulfilment of that promise
after the murder of two German Catholic priests in the Chinese
province of Shantung. It may have been a natural consequence of the
fact that the Prefect of the Propaganda from 1892–1902 was a famous
German cardinal.[24] In any event, under the guiding ægis of the
_Palästinaverein_, a society for the promotion of Catholic missions
in the Holy Land, German Lazarists, Benedictines, and Carmelites
established and maintained schools, hospitals, and dispensaries, as
well as churches, in Syria and Palestine.[25]
Even Jewish religious interests in Palestine promoted Teutonic peaceful
penetration in Turkey. As part of the Zionist activities of _L’Alliance
Israelite Universelle_, agricultural colonies were founded by German
Jews in the vicinity of Jaffa, Jerusalem, and Haifa. These colonists
appeared to be proud of their German nationality and were an integral
part of the German community in the Holy Land.[26]
The German Government had no intention of overlooking the political
possibilities of this religious penetration. Promotion of missionary
activities might be made to serve a twofold purpose: first, to win the
support, in domestic politics, of those interested in the propagation
of their faith in foreign lands—more particularly to hold the loyalty
of the Catholic Centre party; second, to further one other means of
strengthening the bonds between Germany and the Ottoman Empire.
An excellent illustration of the inter-relation among economic,
political, and religious aspects of modern imperialism is to be found
in the visit of William II to Turkey in 1898. On the morning of October
31—the anniversary of the posting of Luther’s ninety-five theses at
Wittenberg—the Emperor participated in the dedication of the Lutheran
Church of the Redeemer in Jerusalem. During the afternoon of the same
day he presented the supposed site of the Assumption of the Virgin
Mary to the German Catholics of the Holy City, for the construction
thereon of a Catholic memorial church, and he telegraphed the Pope
expressing his hope that this might be but one step in a steady
progress of Catholic Christianity in the Near East. The Kaiser likewise
might have visited the German Jewish communities in the vicinity of
Jerusalem, but perhaps he felt, as a French writer put it, that such a
visit “between his devotions at Gethsemane and at Calvary would have
created a public scandal.”[27] Nevertheless he did not hesitate, a week
later, at Damascus, to assure “three hundred million Mohammedans” that
the German Emperor was their friend. Yet with all this pandering to
religious interests—to the Protestants of Prussia, to the Catholics of
South Germany, to his Moslem hosts—the Kaiser found time ostentatiously
to promote the German Consul at Constantinople to the rank of Consul
General. And upon his return home he justified all of these activities
on the ground that his visit “would prove to be a lasting source of
advantage to the German name and German national interests.”[28]
This curious admixture of religion and diplomacy was made the more
complicated when the Imperial Chancellor informed the Reichstag, on
December 7, 1898, that one of the purposes of the Emperor’s visit to
His Ottoman Majesty was to make it plain that the German Government
did not propose to recognize anywhere “a foreign protectorate over
German subjects.” This served notice to France that Germany would
not respect the French claim to exclusive protection of Catholic
missionaries in the Ottoman Empire. “We do not lay claim,” said Prince
von Bülow, “to a protectorate over all Christians in the East. But
only the German Emperor can protect German subjects, be they Catholics
or Protestants.”[29] This pronouncement was received in France with
undisguisedly poor grace. One writer in a prominent fortnightly
magazine frankly expressed his disgust: “Germany possesses military
power; she possesses economic power; she proposes to acquire maritime
power. But she needs the support of moral power. On the world’s stage
she aspires to play the part of Principle. To base her world-wide
prestige upon the protection of Christianity, Protestant and Catholic;
to centralize the divergent sources of German influence; to have all
over the globe a band of followers, at once religious and economic in
their interests, who will propagate the German idea, consume German
products, and, while professing the gospel of Christ, will preach the
gospel of the sacred person of the Emperor—these are the ultimate ends
of the world policy of William II.”[30]
Closely allied with the spread of German missions was the propagation
of _das Deutschtum_—that is, the spread of the German language,
instruction in German history and ideals, appreciation of the character
of German civilization. German religious schools in the Near East were
dynamos of German cultural influence. The _Jerusalems-Verein_ alone,
for example, maintained, in 1902, eight schools with more than 430
pupils. In these schools German was taught. This also was the case
with the Catholic schools, under German influence. Even the Jews—a
large number of whom had emigrated from Germany because of anti-Semitic
feeling there—carried with them their German patriotism. The
_Hilfsverein der deutschen Juden_, the German section of _L’Alliance
Israélite Universelle_, not only taught German in its own schools, but
made a strenuous effort to have German adopted as the official language
of all Zionist schools in the Near East.[31]
It should be pointed out that this injection of nationalism into
religious education was an obvious imitation of the French method of
spreading imperial influence in Syria and Palestine. And it was frankly
admitted to be an imitation. “A policy of German-Turkish culture,”
wrote Dr. Rohrbach, “deserves to be pressed with renewed ardor. We must
endeavor to make the German language, and German science, and all the
great positive values of our energetic civilization, duties faithfully
fulfilled—active forces for the regeneration of Turkey by transplanting
them into Turkey. To do this we need above everything else a system
of German schools, which need not rival the French in magnitude, but
which must be planned on a larger scale than that of the now existing
schools. No lasting and secure cultural influences are possible without
the connecting link of language. The intelligent and progressive young
men of Turkey should have an abundant opportunity to learn German....
We can give the Turks an impression of our civilization and a desire to
become familiar with it only when we teach them our language and thus
open the door for them to all of our spiritual possessions. In doing
this we are not aiming to Germanize Turkey politically or economically
or to colonize it, but to introduce the German spirit into the great
national process of development through which that nation, which has
a great future, happens to be passing.”[32] French methods were to be
paid the compliment of imitation.
The sentimental appeal of the Bagdad Railway was more than a religious
and cultural appeal alone. The Great Plan was assiduously promoted
by a patriotic and Pan-German press. It caught the interest of the
ordinary workaday citizen, whose imagination was fired by the sweeping
references to “our” trade, “our” investments, “our” religious interests
in the Near East; the Bagdad Railway was the very heart of all these
interests. Here was a railway which was to revive a medieval trade
route to the East, which was to traverse the route of the Crusades.
Here was a country which had been the much-sought-after empire of
the great nations of antiquity, Assyria, Chaldea, Babylon, Persia,
Greece, Rome. Here had risen and fallen the great cities of Nineveh,
Babylon, and Hit. To these regions had turned the longing of the great
conquerors, Sargon, Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, Saladin.
With such materials some German Kipling might evolve phrases far more
alluring than Fuzzy Wuzzy, and Tommy Atkins, and the White Man’s
Burden.[33]
SOME FEW VOICES ARE RAISED IN PROTEST
Not all Germans were dazzled by the Oriental glamor of the Bagdad
Railway plan. Herr Scheidemann, leader of the Social Democrats in
the Reichstag, time and time again sounded warnings against the
complications almost certain to result from the construction of the
railway. Speaking before the Reichstag in March, 1911, for example,
he said: “We are the last to misjudge the great value of this road
to civilization. We know its economic significance: we know that it
traverses a region which in antiquity was a fabulously fertile country,
and we welcome it as a great achievement if the Bagdad Railway opens
up that territory. And if, by gigantic irrigation projects, the land
can be made into a granary for Europe, as well as a land to which we
could look for an abundant supply of raw materials, such as cotton,
that would be doubly welcome.” But that is not all, continued Herr
Scheidemann. German capitalists would not be able to overlook the
military-strategic interests of the line, for only the establishment
of a strong centralized government in Turkey “can offer European
capitalism the necessary security for the realization of its great
capitalistic plans.” This military strengthening of Turkey would be
almost certain, he pointed out, to arouse the opposition of Great
Britain, Russia, and France. Particularly was he desirous of avoiding
any additionally irritating relations with Great Britain, for the
traditional friendship with that nation had already been seriously
compromised by colonial and naval rivalries.[34] Similar warnings were
uttered by other Socialists and anti-imperialists.
Quite different in character was the objection raised to the Bagdad
Railway by a certain type of more conservative German. An aggressive
policy in the Near East naturally would have been distasteful to
the diplomatists of the old school, who were disposed to adhere to
the Bismarckian principles of isolating France on the Continent
and avoiding commercial and colonial conflicts overseas. According
to their point of view, German ventures in the Ottoman Empire were
certain to lead to two complications: first, the support of Austrian
imperial ambitions in the Balkans; second, a German attempt to
maintain a dominant political position at Constantinople. Under such
circumstances, of course, it would not be possible to bring about a
divorce of the newly married France and Russia, for Russian interests
in the Near East would brook no compromise on the part of the Tsar’s
Government. In addition, it was feared, the establishment of German
ports on the Mediterranean and on the Persian Gulf would strengthen
British antipathy to Germany, already augmented by naval and commercial
rivalry. The final outcome of such a situation undoubtedly would be the
formation of a Franco-British-Russian coalition against the Central
Powers.
During the Great War these views were given wide publicity by Prince
Lichnowsky, former German ambassador to Great Britain. In a memorandum,
written for a few friends but subsequently published broadcast in
Europe and America,[35] the Prince vehemently denounced the _Drang nach
Osten_ as the greatest of German diplomatic mistakes and as one of the
principal causes of the Great War. “We should have abandoned definitely
the fatal tradition of pushing the Triple Alliance policies in the
Near East,” he said; “we should have realized that it was a mistake
to make ourselves solidary with the Turks in the south and with the
Austro-Magyars in the north; for the continuance of this policy ...
was bound in time, and particularly in case the requisite adroitness
should be found wanting in the supreme directing agencies, to lead
to the collision with Russia and the World War. Instead of coming to
an understanding with Russia on the basis of the independence of the
Sultan; ... instead of renouncing military and political interference,
confining ourselves to economic interests in the Near East, ... our
political ambition was directed to the attainment of a dominant
position on the Bosporus. In Russia the opinion arose that the way
to Constantinople ran _via_ Berlin.” This was the “fatal mistake, by
which Russia, naturally our best friend and neighbor, was driven into
the arms of France and England.” Furthermore, maintained the Prince,
a policy of Near Eastern expansion is contrary to the best commercial
and industrial interests of the empire. “‘Our future lies on the
water.’ Quite right”; therefore it does not lie in an overland route to
the Orient. The _Drang nach Osten_ “is a reversion to the Holy Roman
Empire.... It is the policy of the Plantagenets, not that of Drake
and Raleigh.... Berlin-Bagdad is a blind alley and not the way into
the open, to unlimited possibilities, to the universal mission of the
German nation.”[36]
There may have been another reason for the opposition of Prince
Lichnowsky to the Bagdad Railway. As the owner of large Silesian
estates he was agrarian in his point of view. If it were true, as was
maintained, that after the opening of Mesopotamia to cultivation,
the Railway would be able to bring cheap Turkish grain to the German
market, the results would not be to the liking of the agricultural
interests of the empire. As Herr Scheidemann informed the Reichstag,
there was something anomalous in the Conservative support of the
Bagdad Railway on this score, because it was “in most violent
contrast to their procedure in their own country, where they have
artificially raised the cost of the necessaries of life by incredibly
high protective tariffs, indirect taxation, and similar methods.”[37]
Perhaps Prince Lichnowsky was somewhat more intelligent and far-sighted
than his land-owning associates!
There were some Germans who were not opposed to the Bagdad Railway
enterprise, but who were opposed to the extravagant claims made for
it by some of its friends and protagonists. A typical illustration of
this is the following statement of Count zu Reventlow, shortly before
the outbreak of the war: “Great Britain, Russia, and France, in order
to interpose objections, made use of the expedient of identifying
the _Deutsche Bank_ with the German Government. To this there was
added the difficult and complicating factor that in Germany itself,
in many quarters, the aim and the significance of the railway plan
were proclaimed to the world, partly in an inaccurate and grossly
exaggerated manner.... In this respect great mistakes were made among
us, which it was in no way necessary to make. The more quietly the
Railway could have been constructed the better.... That it would be
possible to make Turkey a dangerous threat against Egypt and India,
after the development of its railway system, was correct, to be sure,
but it was imperative not to say anything of that kind as long as Great
Britain still had means to hinder and prevent the construction of the
railway.” Similar opinions were expressed from time to time on the
floor of the Reichstag.[38]
The Bagdad Railway, however, was a triumphant enterprise which
would brook no opposition. In the army of its followers marched the
stockholders and directors of the _Deutsche Bank_—such men as Edward
B. von Speyer, Wolfgang Kapp, Karl von Siemens, Karl Helfferich,
Arthur von Gwinner—good patriots all, with a financial stake in the
Railway. Then there came the engineers and contractors who furnished
the materials and constructed the line and who shared in the profits of
its subsidiary enterprises—mines, oil wells, docks, wharves, irrigation
works. Next came the shipping interests—the subsidized services of
Herr Ballin and the Hamburg-American Line included—which were at once
the feeders and the fed of the Railway. There were also the German
traders who sought in the Near East a market for their products and
the German manufacturers who looked to this newly opened territory
for an uninterrupted supply of raw materials. In the line of march,
too, were the missionaries, Catholic and Protestant, who sought to
promote a renaissance of the Holy Land through the extension of German
influence there. Bringing up the rear, although by no means the least
important, were the soldiers and the diplomatic and consular officers,
those “parasites” of modern imperialism who almost invariably will be
found in cordial support of any movement for political and economic
expansion. In the reviewing stand, cheering the marchers, were the
great mass of average patriotic citizens who were thrilled with “their”
Bagdad Railway and “their” _Drang nach Osten_. And the chief of the
reviewers was His Imperial Majesty, William II.[39]
If there was a preponderance of opinion in Germany favorable to the
Bagdad Railway, there was by no means a similar favorable sentiment in
the rest of Europe. Statesmen in the other imperial nations were not
unaware of the potentialities of railways constructed in the backward
nations of the world. They knew that “railways are the iron tentacles
of latter-day expanding powers. They are stretched out caressingly at
first. But once the iron has, so to say, entered the soul of the weaker
nation, the tentacles swell to the dimensions of brawny arms, and the
embrace tightens to a crushing grip.”[40] Russia, Great Britain and
France, therefore, were gradually led to obstruct the progress of the
railway by political and economic means—at least until such time as
they could purge the project of its political possibilities or until
they could obtain for themselves a larger share of the spoils.
Thus the Bagdad Railway was an imperial enterprise. It became an
important concern of the Foreign Office, a matter of national
prestige. It was one of the stakes of pre-war diplomacy. Its success
was associated with the national honor, to be defended, if need be,
by military force and military alliances. The Railway was no longer a
railway alone, but a state of mind. Professor Jastrow called it “the
spectre of the twentieth century”![41]
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
[1] _Die Bagdadbahn_, p. 46.
[2] _Stenographische Berichte, XII Legislaturperiode, 1 Session_,
Volume 231 (1908), pp. 4226a, 4253c.
[3] Wile, _op. cit._, pp. 39–40.
[4] Riesser, _op. cit._, p. 543; _The Quarterly Review_, Volume 235
(1921), p. 315.
[5] _Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords_, Volume 121 (1903), p. 1348.
[6] For an interesting discussion of this point see George von Siemens,
“The National Importance of the Bourse,” in _The Nation_ (London),
October 6, 1900. _Cf._, also, W. M. Shuster, _The Strangling of Persia:
a Record of European Diplomacy_ and _Oriental Intrigue_ (New York,
1912).
[7] W. M. Sombart, _Die deutsche Volkswirtschaft in neunzehnten
Jahrhundert_ (second edition, Berlin, 1909), p. 184.
[8] Regarding early German interest in Near Eastern colonization _cf._
K. A. Sprenger, _Babylonien, das reichste Land in der Vorzeit und das
lohnendste Kolonisationsfeld für die Gegenwart_ (Heidelberg, 1886);
Paul Dehn, _Deutschland und die Orientbahnen_ (Munich, 1883); K.
Karger, _Kleinasien, ein deutsches Kolonisationsfeld_ (Berlin, 1892);
_Deutsche Ansprüche an das türkischen Erbe_ (Munich, 1896), a symposium
including an article by von Moltke.
[9] C. Nawratski, _Die jüdische Kolonisation Palästinas_ (Munich,
1914); _Syria and Palestine_, p. 59; _Mesopotamia_, pp. 6–7, 11;
_Anatolia_, pp. 4–7.
[10] _Supra_, p. 84; H. F. B. Lynch, “The Bagdad Railway,” in
the _Fortnightly Review_, March 1, 1911, pp. 376–377; A. Brisse,
“Les intérêts de l’Allemagne dans l’Empire Ottoman,” in _Revue de
Géographie_, June, 1902, pp. 486–487; P. Rohrbach, _Die Bagdadbahn_,
pp. 17–21, 35.
[11] _Stenographische Berichte, XII Legislaturperiode, 1 Session_,
Volume 231 (1908), p. 4253c; P. Rohrbach, _Die Bagdadbahn_, p. 16, and
_Deutschland unter den Weltvölkern_, pp. 51–53; Von Gwinner, _loc.
cit._, p. 1090.
[12] _Die Bagdadbahn_, p. 16. _Cf._, also, R. Henry, _Des Montes
Bohèmes au Golfe Persique; l’Asie Turque et le Chemin de fer de
Bagdad_ (Paris, 1908), p. 509 _et seq._; C. H. Becker, _Deutschland
und der Islam_ (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1914); Ernst Jäckh, _Die
deutsch-türkische Waffenbrüderschaft_ (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1915).
[13] H. A. Gibbons, _The Reconstruction of Poland and the Near East_
(New York, 1917), pp. 109–110.
[14] Quoted by Marriot, _op. cit._, p. 356.
[15] _Die Bagdadbahn_, pp. 18–19.
[16] In this connection see an important statement by Sir Thomas
Barclay in the _Proceedings of the Central Asian Society_ (London),
March 1, 1911, pp. 21–22, and the opinion of Karl Helfferich, _Die
deutsche Türkenpolitik_, p. 14.
[17] Von Reventlow, _op. cit._, p. 343. Regarding the so-called _Drang
nach Osten_ and the coincidence of Austrian and German interests in the
Near East _cf._ M. Meyer, _Balkanstaaten, Bagdadbahn_ (Leipzig, 1914);
J. W. Headlam, “The Balkans and Diplomacy,” in the _Atlantic Monthly_
(Boston), January, 1916, pp. 124 _et seq._; N. and C. R. Buxton, _The
War and the Balkans_ (London, 1915); M. I. Newbigin, _Geographical
Aspects of Balkan Problems_ (London, 1915); Evans Lewin, _The German
Road to the East_ (New York, 1917), Chapters VIII, IX, X; P. N.
Milyoukov, _The War and Balkan Politics_ (Cambridge, 1917).
[18] _Stenographische Berichte, XII Legislaturperiode, 2 Session_,
Volume 266 (1911), p. 5984c.
[19] _Der deutsche Imperialismus und die Arbeiterklasse_ (Bremen,
1912), pp. 33, 53.
[20] _Stenographische Berichte, XII Legislaturperiode, 2 Session_,
Volume 266 (1911), p. 5984c, Volume 231 (1908), p. 4253c.
[21] Charles Sarolea, _The Anglo-German Problem_ (London, 1912), p. 252.
[22] A _Stiftung_ is a general religious establishment, this particular
one serving manifold purposes as school, hospice, home, hospital, etc.
[23] J. Richter, _A History of Protestant Missions in the Near East_
(New York, 1910), pp. 258–270, 416–419; L. M. Garnett, _Turkey of the
Ottomans_ (London, 1911), Chapters VII-IX; H. C. Dwight, H. A. Tupper,
and E. M. Bliss, _Encyclopedia of Missions_ (second edition, New York,
1910), pp. 260, 263, 720; _New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious
Knowledge_ (New York, 1912), Volume XII, pp. 39–41.
[24] Cardinal M. H. Ledochowski (1822–1902). _Cf._ _Catholic
Encyclopedia_ (New York, 1912), Volume IX, pp. 111–112. French
Catholics openly charged that Cardinal Ledochowski used his official
position as director of all Catholic missions to promote German
religious and political interests at the expense of those of France.
_Cf._ an article “La Politique Allemande et le Protectorat des Missions
Catholiques,” in the _Revue des deux mondes_, Volume 149 (1898), pp.
11–12.
[25] On the general subject of German Catholic missions in the Near
East consult W. Koehler, _Die katholische Kirchen des Morgenlandes_
(Darmstadt, 1898); H. M. Krose, _Katholische Missionsstatistik_
(Freiburg, 1908); L. Bréhier, article “Turkish Empire-Missions,” in the
_Catholic Encyclopedia_, Volume XV, pp. 101–102; L. Bertrand, “La Melée
des Religions en Orient,” in the _Revue des deux mondes_, Volume 53
(1909), pp. 830–861.
[26] _The Jewish Encyclopedia_ (New York, 1906), Volume XII, pp. 286
_et seq._; Sir C. W. Wilson, _Handbook for Asia Minor_ (London, 1895),
pp. 240 _et seq._
[27] Etienne Lamy, “La France du Levant: le Voyage de l’Empereur
Guillaume II,” in _Revue des deux mondes_, Volume 151 (1899), pp.
336–337; see also Volume 150 (1898), pp. 421–440, 880–911. Further
observations on the religious aspects of the Kaiser’s trip to Palestine
are to be found in _The Times_, November 23, 1898; _Annual Register_,
1898, pp. 255–257; W. von Hohenzollern, _My Memoirs_, 1878–1918, pp.
210–211.
[28] _Annual Register_, 1898, pp. 257–258.
[29] _Ibid._, p. 261. Regarding the French protectorate of Catholics in
the Near East _cf._ _infra_, Chapter VII.
[30] “La Politique Allemande et le Protectorat des Missions
Catholiques,” in _Revue des deux mondes_, Volume 149 (1898), pp. 8–9.
[31] L. Bertrand, “Les Écoles d’Orient: I. Les Écoles Chrétiennes
et Israelites,” in _Revue des deux mondes_, Volume 52, new series
(1909), pp. 755–794; H. M. Kallen, _Zionism and World Politics_ (Garden
City, N. Y., 1921), pp. 117 _et seq._; A. Paquet, _Die jüdische
Kolonien in Palästina_ (Weimar, 1915); M. Blanckenhorn, _Syrien und
die deutsche Arbeit_ (Weimar, 1916), pp. 26–30; C. Nawratzki, _Die
jüdische Kolonisation Palästinas_ (Munich, 1914); M. Franco, _Essai sur
l’histoire des juifs de l’empire ottoman depuis les origines jusqu’à
nos jours_ (Paris, 1897); G. Corneilhan, _La judaisme en Egypte et en
Syrie_ (Paris, 1889).
[32] _German World Policies_, pp. 229–231. On this same general
subject consult an article by “Immanuel,” entitled “Die Bagdadbahn
ein Kulturwerk in Asien,” in _Globus_, Volume 81 (1902), pp. 181–185;
M. Hartmann, _Islam, Mission, Politik_ (Leipzig, 1912). It should be
pointed out that the Anatolian Railway itself established two schools,
at Haidar Pasha and Eski Shehr, for the instruction of its employees in
German and other subjects. Bohler, _loc. cit._, p. 275.
[33] That Germans were not unfamiliar with the spectacular history of
this region is evidenced by the popularity of General von Moltke’s
writings on Turkey, which were published in several large editions,
apart from his collected works, between 1900 and 1911. _Cf._, _e.g._,
H. K. B. (Graf von) Moltke, _Briefe über Zustände und Begebenheiten
in der Türkei aus den Jahren 1835 bis 1839_, seventh edition, with
explanatory notes by G. Hirschfeld (Berlin, 1911). Of this work H.
S. Wilkinson, Professor of Military History at Oxford University,
wrote in the _Encyclopedia Britannica_ (eleventh edition), “No other
book gives so deep an insight into the character of the Turkish
Empire” (Volume 18, p. 678). It is interesting to note, also, that
Moltke himself was a firm believer in the great military utility of
all railways. For the history of the Near East _cf._ Jastrow, _op.
cit._, pp. 31–81; A. R. Hall, _The Ancient History of the Near East_
(fourth edition, London, 1919), Chapters V, VIII, IX, X, XII; W. A.
and E. T. A. Wigram, _The Cradle of Mankind_ (London, 1914). A curious
sidelight on this phase of the question is the assertion of Baron von
Hertling, in 1907, that Germany’s chief interest in the Bagdad Railway
was scientific—geographic, geological, archæological—not military or
economic! Quoted by Dawson, _The Evolution of Modern Germany_, p. 346.
[34] _Stenographische Berichte, XII Legislaturperiode, 2 Session_,
Volume 266 (1911), p. 5980c.
[35] Karl Maximilan, sixth Prince, Lichnowsky (1860- ) had been a
member of the German diplomatic service since his youth. He was
attached to the embassy at London when he was but twenty-five and
later served at Constantinople, Bucharest, and Vienna and in the
Foreign Office at Berlin. He resigned in 1904 to devote himself to the
management of his large estates in Silesia, but he was recalled in
1912 to become German ambassador to Great Britain, succeeding Baron
Marschall von Bieberstein, who had died after only a few months’
service at his new post. Prince Lichnowsky’s memorandum _My London
Mission, 1912–1914_ was written only to justify the Prince before a
small circle of his acquaintances. Fugitive copies reached the press,
however, and the full text was published in the Berlin _Börsen-Courier_
of March 21, 1918. The quotations here given are from the translation
of Munroe Smith, _The Disclosures from Germany_ (New York, 1918).
[36] _The Disclosures from Germany_, pp. 37–41, 127.
[37] _Stenographische Berichte, XII Legislaturperiode, 2 Session_,
Volume 226 (1911), p. 5980c. _Cf._, also, W. H. Dawson, _The Evolution
of Modern Germany_, pp. 346 _et seq._
[38] Von Reventlow, _op. cit._, p. 340; _Stenographische Berichte, XII
Legislaturperiode, 2 Session_, Volume 226 (1911), p. 5994b.
[39] Regarding the Emperor’s personal interest in the Bagdad Railway
consider the following Reuter dispatch, published in _The Near East_,
December 6, 1911, p. 143: “By desire of the German Emperor, Herr
Gwinner, director of the _Deutsche Bank_, will give an address on the
Bagdad Railway before the Emperor and a number of invited guests, in
the Upper House of the Prussian Diet soon after the Emperor’s return to
Berlin, December 8.”
[40] E. J. Dillon, quoted by Lothrop Stoddard, _The New World of
Islam_, p. 98.
[41] Jastrow, _op. cit._, p. 9.