RUSSIA RESISTS AND FRANCE IS UNCERTAIN
RUSSIA VOICES HER DISPLEASURE
Russian objections to the Bagdad Railway were put forth as early as
1899, the year in which the Sultan announced his intention of awarding
the concession to the _Deutsche Bank_. The press of Petrograd and
Moscow roundly denounced the proposed railway as inimical to the
vital economic interests of Russia. It was claimed that the new line
would offer serious competition to the railways of the Caspian and
Caucasus regions, that it would menace the success of the new Russian
trans-Persian line, and that it might prove to be a rival even of the
Siberian system.[1] The extension of the existing Anatolian Railway
into Syria, it was asserted, would interfere with the realization of
a Russian dream of a railway across Armenia to Alexandretta—a railway
which would give Russian goods access to an all-year warm water port
on the Mediterranean. The Mesopotamian sections of the line, with
their branches, might open to German competition the markets of Persia
and, later, of Afghanistan. If German capital should develop the
grain-growing possibilities of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, what
would happen to the profits of the Russian landed aristocracy? And if
the oil-wells of Mesopotamia were as rich as they were said to be, what
would be the fate of the South Russian fields? The Tsar was urged to
oppose the granting of the kilometric guarantee to the concessionaires,
on the ground that the increased charges on the Ottoman Treasury would
interfere with payment of the indemnity due on account of the War of
1877.[2]
Russian objections to the Bagdad Railway did not meet with a
sympathetic reception in England. _The Engineer_, of August 11, 1899,
in an editorial “Railways in Asia Minor,” for example, expressed
its firm opinion that many of the demands for the protection of
Russian economic interests in Turkey were specious. “The world has
yet to learn,” ran the editorial, “that Russia allows commercial
considerations to play any great part in her ideas of constructing
railways; the Imperial authorities are influenced mainly by the policy
of political expediency. The commercial competition thus foreseen by
Russia is put forward merely as a stop-gap until Russia can get time
and money to repeat in Asia Minor the methods of which she has made
such success in Persia and the Far East.” Other British opinion was of
like character.
The Russian claim for exclusive control of railway construction in
northern Anatolia met with equally bitter denunciation. The London
_Globe_, of August 10, 1899, characterized as “impudence” the intention
of the Russian Government “to regard Asiatic Turkey as a second
Manchuria, on the pretence that the whole country has been mortgaged to
Russia for payment of the Turkish war indemnity. If this preposterous
claim were admitted, not only the development of Asia Minor but the
opening of another short-cut to the East might be delayed until the
end of the next century. Russia had so many ambitious and costly
projects on hand at present that her nearly bankrupt treasury could not
meet any fresh drain, and especially one of such magnitude as that
in question. The policy of her Government, therefore, is to preserve
Asia Minor as a _tabula rasa_ on which the Russian pen can write as it
pleases hereafter. It is a cool project, truly, but the success which
has attended similar Russian endeavors in the Far East will not, we
undertake to predict, meet with repetition.”
The Russian Government, meanwhile, was interposing serious
objections to the Bagdad Railway. M. Zinoviev, the Tsar’s minister
at Constantinople, informed the Sublime Porte that the proposed
extension of the Anatolian Railways from Angora across Armenia to
Mosul and Bagdad would be a strategic menace to the Caucasus frontier
and, as such, could not be tolerated. If Russian wishes in the matter
were not respected, immediate measures would be taken to collect all
arrears—amounting to over 57,000,000 francs—of the indemnity due
the Tsar under the Treaty of Berlin (1878). The outcome of these
demands was submission by the Sultan’s Government. The proposed
Angora-Kaisarieh-Diarbekr route was abandoned in favor of one extending
from Konia, through the Cilician Gates of the Taurus Mountains, to
Adana, Aleppo, and Mosul—the latter being the route over which the
Bagdad Railway actually was constructed. The discussions between the
Russian and Ottoman Governments subsequently were crystallized and
confirmed by the so-called Black Sea Agreement of 1900, which pledged
the Sultan to award no further concessions for railways in northern
Anatolia or Armenia except to Russian nationals or to syndicates
approved by the Tsar, and, furthermore, to award such Russian
concessionaires terms at least as favorable as those to be granted the
Bagdad Railway Company.[3]
The agreement thus reached, however, satisfied Russia only temporarily.
In December, 1901, M. Witte, Imperial Minister of Finance at
Petrograd, stated categorically that he considered the construction
of the Bagdad Railway by any Power other than Russia a menace to the
imperial interests of the Tsar. Proposals for the internationalization
of the line he asserted to be chimerical; in his opinion the nationals
of one Power would be certain to control the administration of the
enterprise. The Tsar was determined that Russian capitalists should
have nothing to do with the Railway; Russian capital, for a time at
least, should be conserved for industrial development at home. “The
Government of Russia,” he concluded, “is more interested in devoting
its available resources to the construction of new railways within
the Empire than it is in promoting an enterprise destined to offer
competition to Russia’s railways and industries.”[4] In 1902 and again
in 1903, M. Witte made similar statements, asserting that he saw no
reason for changing his point of view.[5]
Witte’s words carried weight in Russia. As an erstwhile railway
worker he knew the great economic importance of railways. During his
régime as Minister of Finance (1893–1903) an average of 1,400 miles
of rails was laid down annually in Russia; the Transcaspian and
Transcaucasian systems were constructed, and the Siberian Railway was
pushed almost to completion. He foresaw that one day these railways
would be powerful weapons in the commercial and political expansion of
an industrialized Russia. As an official in charge of troop movements
during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 he had learned to understand the
function of railways in offensive and defensive warfare. Although he
considered it wasteful to construct railways for military purposes
alone, he believed that every railway was of strategic value; in fact,
he looked upon railways as the most important single factor in national
preparedness. As the foremost protagonist of Russia’s tariff war with
the German Empire he was opposed to any plan which promised to promote
German commerce and to open up new resources and new markets to German
industry. As a native of the Caucasus region and as an ardent advocate
of colonial expansion Witte looked forward to the time when Russia
herself—possessed of capital for the purpose—should dominate the
transportation system of Asiatic Turkey.[6]
It is questionable, however, if the Bagdad Railway really threatened
any important Russian economic interests. The railways of southern
Russia, so far from being injured by competition with the proposed
new railways of Turkey, would be almost certain to profit from any
increase of trade in the region of the Black Sea. The Russian dream of
a railway to Alexandretta was still very much of a dream; but even if
the contrary had been the case, its construction for peaceful purposes
would not have been hindered by the Bagdad plan. The claim that a
trans-Mesopotamian railway would compete with the Far Eastern traffic
of the Siberian Railways was purely fantastic; it overlooked the
obvious fact that an ideal shipping route, like a straight line, is the
shortest distance between two points. It would be at least a generation
before Mesopotamian grain and oil could play a prominent part in the
Russian market.[7]
But with Russian political interests the case was different. Ever
since the days of Peter the Great, the Russian Tsars had persistently
and relentlessly continued their efforts to obtain a “window” on the
Mediterranean. This historical trend toward the open sea led to a
well-defined intention on the part of Russia, in one way or another,
to take Constantinople from the Turks. The dynastic interests of
Russia were reënforced by commercial considerations. “Most of Russia’s
southern trade is bound to pass through the Bosporus. Her wheat and
hides, her coal and oil cannot reach the European markets any other
way; her manganese and petroleum are inaccessible to other nations
if they cannot find an outlet from the Caucasus to the Dardanelles.”
During the Turco-Italian War the closing of the Straits for a few days
was said to have cost Russian shipping about eight million francs.[8]
Bonds of religion and race enlisted Russian sympathy in the struggle
of the Balkan states to win independence from Turkey—a cause which
harmonized with the Russian ambition to bring about the disintegration
of Turkey-in-Europe. The rise of German influence at Constantinople—of
which the Anatolian and Bagdad Railway concessions were a tangible
manifestation—had been a source of annoyance to Russia, not only
because it prevented Russian domination of Turkish affairs and because
it strengthened the position of Austria-Hungary in the Balkans, but
also because it tended to strengthen Turkish military power. It was
annoying enough to witness the rising political and economic power of
Germany in the Near East; it was more annoying to realize that, under
German guidance, the Turks might experience an economic and military
renaissance which would end once and for all the Russian hope of
possessing ancient Byzantium.
Strategically the construction of the Bagdad Railway was a real menace
to Russian ambitions in the Near East. The completion of the line would
enable the Ottoman Government to effect a prompt mobilization along
the Armenian front. For example, the Fifth Turkish Army Corps, from
Damascus, and the Sixth Corps, from Bagdad—which in the War of 1877
arrived on the field after a series of forced marches, minus a large
number of its effectives, too late to save Kars or to raise the siege
of Erzerum—could be brought quickly by rail from Syria and Mesopotamia
to Angora for the defence of northern Anatolia. In the event of a
Russo-Turkish war such a maneuver would render extremely precarious a
Russian invasion of Armenia or a Russian advance on Constantinople
along the south shore of the Black Sea. In a general European war in
which both Russia and Turkey might be involved the existence of this
railway line would make possible a Turkish stroke at the southern
frontier of Russia, thus diverting troops from the European front. That
the German General Staff was not ignorant of these possibilities is
certain because of the presence in Turkey, during this time, of General
von der Goltz.[9]
The Russian Government and the Russian press were fully aware of the
menace of the Bagdad Railway to Russian imperial interests. That the
Tsar did not offer serious resistance to the construction of the line
was due to the rise of serious complications in the Far East, the
crushing defeats of his army and navy in the War with Japan, friction
with Great Britain in Persia and in Central Asia, and the outbreak of
a revolutionary movement at home. But the Russian press called upon
French citizens to show their loyalty to the Alliance by refusing to
participate in the financing of the Railway.[10]
The plaintive call of the Russians, however, did not fall on altogether
sympathetic ears in the Republic; a conflict of interests led some
French citizens to invest in the Railway even though it was denounced
by their Government.
THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT HESITATES
The position of France in the Bagdad Railway controversy was anomalous.
In addition to political, economic, and religious reasons for opposing
the construction of the trans-Mesopotamian railway, the French had many
historical and sentimental interests which influenced the Government
of the Republic to resist German penetration in the Near East. French
patriots recalled with pride the rôle of France in the Crusades;
they remembered that Palestine itself was once a Latin kingdom; they
believed that Christians in the Levant looked to France as their
protector and that this protection had received formal recognition
under the Capitulations, negotiated by Francis I and renewed and
extended by his successors from Henry IV to Louis XV. They knew that
the French language was the language not only of the educated classes
in Turkey, but, also, in Syria, of the traders, so that it could be
said that a traveler in Syria might almost consider himself in a French
dependency. They were proud of the fact that the term “Frank” was the
symbol of Western civilization in the Near East. They were aware of the
far-reaching educational work of French missionaries. France, to their
mind, had done a great work of Christian enlightenment in the Moslem
stronghold, Turkey. Was the Government of the Republic to be backward
in asserting the interests of France, when Bourbons and Bonapartes had
so ably paved the way for the extension of French civilization in the
Holy Land? Reasoning of this kind was popular in France during 1898 and
1899, when the Kaiser’s visit to Abdul Hamid was still under discussion
and when the first indications were given that a German company was
to be awarded a concession for the construction of a railway from
Constantinople to the Persian Gulf.
On the other hand, however, there was a considerable and a powerful
group in France which urged the French Government, if not to support
the project of the Bagdad Railway, at least to put no obstacles in its
way. The members of this group were French financiers with investments
in Turkey. They believed that the construction of the Railway would
usher in a new era of prosperity in the Ottoman Empire which would
materially increase the value of the Turkish securities which they
owned. If the interests of these financiers were not supported by
historical traditions and nationalist sentiment, they were tangible and
supported by imposing facts. It was estimated, in 1903, that French
investors controlled three-fifths, amounting to a billion and a half
of francs, of the public obligations of the Imperial Ottoman Treasury.
French promoters owned about 366 million francs in the securities of
Turkish railroads and over 162 millions in various industrial and
commercial enterprises in Asia Minor. French banks had approximately
176 million francs invested in their branches in the Near East. The
total of all French investments in Turkey was more than two and a
half billion francs.[11] The French-controlled Imperial Ottoman Bank,
the French-owned Smyrna-Cassaba Railway, and the French-administered
Ottoman Public Debt Council all favored the promotion of the Bagdad
Railway idea.
For a time, the French Government decided to follow the lead of
the financial interests. French bankers, in 1899, had entered into
an agreement with the _Deutsche Bank_ to operate the Anatolian and
Smyrna-Cassaba systems under a joint rate agreement, to coöperate
in the construction of the Bagdad Railway, and to attempt to secure
diplomatic support for their respective enterprises.[12] At the request
of the Imperial Ottoman Bank, M. Constans, the French Ambassador at
Constantinople, adopted a policy of “benevolent neutrality” toward the
negotiations of the _Deutsche Bank_ with the Ottoman Ministry of Public
Works. This course was approved by M. Delcassé, Minister of Foreign
Affairs, who considered the Bagdad Railway harmless because French
capitalists were to participate in its construction and operation. Just
how much this diplomatic non-interference assisted the _Deutsche Bank_
in obtaining the concessions of 1899 and 1903 is an open question. It
is extremely doubtful if French objections could have blocked the
award of the concessions, although M. Chéradame subsequently maintained
that the consummation of the plans of the _Deutsche Bank_ would have
been impossible without the tacit coöperation of the French embassy at
Constantinople.[13]
Between 1899 and 1902 the proposed Bagdad Railway was discussed
occasionally by French publicists, but it could not have been
considered a matter of widespread popular interest. In the spring of
the latter year, however, immediately after the award of the first
Bagdad concession by the Sultan, a bitter protest was voiced in the
Chamber of Deputies against the policy of the French Government.
M. Firmin Fauré, a deputy from Paris, introduced a resolution that
“the issue of debentures, stocks, or bonds designed to permit the
construction of the Bagdad Railway shall not be authorized in French
territory except by vote of the Chamber of Deputies.” In a few words
M. Fauré denounced the Bagdad Railway plan as a menace to French
prestige in the Near East and as a threat against Russian security in
the Caucasus. He believed, furthermore, that Bagdad Railway bonds would
be an unsafe investment: “It is a Panama that is being prepared down
there. Do you choose, perchance, my dear colleagues, to allow French
capital to be risked in this scheme without pronouncing it foolhardy?
Do you choose to allow the great banks and the great investment
syndicates to realize considerable profits at the expense of the
small subscribers? If that is how you attend to the defence of French
capital, well and good, but you will permit me to disagree with you.”
He warned the members of the Chamber that they would not dare to stand
for reëlection if they thus allowed the interests of their constituents
to be prejudiced.[14]
M. Delcassé, Minister of Foreign Affairs, objected to the resolution.
He denied that French diplomacy had assisted the German bankers in
securing the Bagdad Railway concession.[15] But the concession was a
_fait accompli_, and it also was a fact that French financiers felt
they could not afford to refuse the offer of participation with the
German concessionaires. “I venture to ask how it can be prevented, and
I inquire of the Chamber whether, when such an enterprise has been
arranged and decided upon, it is not preferable that French interests,
so considerable in the East, should be represented therein.” He
promised that every possible precaution would be taken to assure French
capitalists a share in the enterprise equal to that of any other power.
The Minister was upheld, the motion being defeated by a vote of 398 to
72.[16]
Less than two years later, in October, 1903, the Paris Bourse, at the
instigation of the French Government, excluded all Bagdad Railway
securities from the privileges of the Exchange. This change in policy
was not so much the result of a _volte face_ on the part of M. Rouvier
and M. Delcassé as it was a consequence of a persistent clamor on the
part of the French press that the construction of the Bagdad Railway,
which was popularly considered a serious menace to French interests,
should be obstructed by every effective method at the disposal of the
Government.[17]
FRENCH INTERESTS ARE BELIEVED TO BE MENACED
The commercial interests of southern France were opposed to
participation in the Bagdad Railway by the French Government or by
French capitalists. Business men were fearful, for example, lest “the
new route to India” should divert traffic between England and the East
from the existing route across Europe _via_ Calais to Marseilles and
thence by steamer to Suez, to a new express service from Calais to
Constantinople _via_ Ostend, Cologne, Munich, and Vienna. Thus the
importance of the port of Marseilles would be materially decreased,
and French railways would lose traffic to the lines of Central Europe.
Also, there was some feeling among the manufacturers of Lyons that the
rise of German economic power in Turkey might interfere with the flow
to France of the cheap raw silk of Syria, almost the entire output of
which is consumed in French mills. The fears of the silk manufacturers
were emphasized by one of the foremost French banks, the _Crédit
Lyonnais_, which maintained branches in Jaffa, Jerusalem, and Beirut,
for the purpose of financing silk and other shipments. This bank had
experienced enough competition at the hands of the _Deutsche Palästina
Bank_ to assure it that further German interference was dangerous.[18]
From the political point of view there was more to be said for
the French objections. Foremost among serious international
complications was the strategic menace of the Railway to Russia. The
Bagdad enterprise was described as the “anti-Russian maneuver _par
excellence_.” To weaken Russia was to undermine the “foundation stone
of French foreign policy,” for it was generally conceded that “the
Alliance was indispensable to the security of both nations; it assured
the European equilibrium; it was the essential counterbalance to the
Triple Alliance.”[19] Then, too, the question of prestige was involved!
In the great game of the “balance of power” an imperial advance by
one nation was looked upon as a humiliation for another! Thus a
German success in Turkey, whether gained at the expense of important
French interests or not, would have been considered as reflecting
upon the glory of France abroad! There was also a menace to France in
a rejuvenated Turkey. A Sultan freed from dependence upon the Powers
might effectively carry on a Pan-Islamic propaganda which would lead to
serious discontent in the French colonial empire in North Africa. What
would be the consequences if the Moors should answer a call to a Holy
War to drive out the infidel invaders?[20]
Still more fundamental, perhaps, than any of these reasons was the fear
among far-sighted French diplomatists that the Bagdad Railway would
be but the first step in a formal political alliance between Germany
and Turkey. The French, more than any other European people, have been
schooled in the political ramifications of foreign investments. The
very foundations of the Russian Alliance, for example, were loans of
French bankers to Russian industries and to the Tsar. Might not Baron
Marschall von Bieberstein and Karl Helfferich, Prince von Bülow and
Arthur von Gwinner, tear a leaf out of the book of French experience?
Certainly the way was being paved for a Turco-German alliance, and M.
Deschanel eloquently warned his colleagues in the Chamber of Deputies
that there were limitless possibilities in the situation. Speaking in
the Chamber on November 19, 1903, he said: “Behold a railway that can
divert from the Suez Canal a part of the traffic of the Far East, so
that the railways of Central Europe will become the competitors of
Marseilles and of our French railways! Behold a new colonial policy
which, instead of conquering territories by force of arms, makes war
with funds; possesses itself of the means of communication; crushes
out the life of states, little by little, by the artifices of the
financiers, leaving them only a nominal existence! And we, who possess
the world’s greatest fund of _capital, that supreme weapon of modern
conquest_, we propose to place it at the disposal of foreign interests
hostile to our fundamental and permanent foreign policies! Alas, it is
not the first time that our capital has gone to nourish rival, even
hostile, schemes!”[21]
Religious interests supported the political and economic objections to
the construction of the Bagdad Railway. French Clericals were fearful
lest this railway become the very backbone of German interests in the
Ottoman Empire, thus strengthening German missionary activities and
jeopardizing the time-honored protectorate of France over Catholics
in the Near East. As early as 1898 an anonymous writer sounded a
clarion call to Catholics and nationalists alike that German economic
penetration in Turkey was a matter of their common concern: “Preeminent
in the Levant, thanks to the friendship of the Sultan and to the
progress of the commerce of her nationals, Germany, if she gathers in,
besides, our religious heritage, will crown her formidable material
power with an enormous moral power; she will assume in the world the
eminent place which Charlemagne, St. Louis, Francis I, Richelieu, Louis
XIV, and Napoleon have assured to our country. The ‘nationalization’ of
missions will inaugurate a period of German supremacy in the Orient,
where the name of France has been so great and where it still is so
loved.”[22]
France occupied a unique position in the Near East. For centuries she
had been recognized as shouldering a special responsibility in the
protection of Catholics and of Catholic missions in the Ottoman Empire.
This protectorate—which as late as 1854 had provided the occasion for a
war between the empire of Napoleon III and Russia—had been acquired not
by military conquest alone, but by outstanding cultural and religious
services as well.[23]
Certainly at the end of the nineteenth century French missions held
a preëminent position in Turkey. French Jesuits and Franciscans
maintained elementary, secondary, and vocational schools in Aleppo,
Damascus, Beirut, Jerusalem, and numerous smaller towns throughout
Syria and Palestine. A Jesuit school established at Beirut in 1875
rapidly expanded its curricula until it obtained recognition as a
university, its baccalaureate degree being accredited by the French
Ministry of Public Instruction early in the decade of the eighties.
The medical faculty of this Jesuit University—said to have been
founded under the patronage of Jules Ferry and Léon Gambetta—was
given authority to grant degrees, which were recognized officially by
France in 1888 and by Turkey in 1898. In addition to the classical and
medical courses, instruction was given in law, theology, philosophy,
and engineering. A preparatory school, conducted in connection with
the university, had an enrollment of about one thousand pupils. By
1907 it was estimated that over seventy thousand Syrian children were
receiving instruction in French religious schools. In addition to these
educational accomplishments mention should be made of the work of the
Sisters of St. Joseph of the Apparition and the Society of St. Vincent
de Paul, who made Jerusalem, Bethlehem, and other towns centers of
French religious and philanthropic activity.[24]
The progress of German missions and schools was a challenge to the
paramount position of France in the cultural development of the Near
East. And it was not a challenge which was passed unanswered. To
counteract the influence of German schools established, with the aid of
the Railway Company, at a few of the more important points along the
Anatolian lines, French missionary schools were established at Eski
Shehr, Angora, and Konia.[25]
Furthermore, German missions seemed to bring with them an additional
threat—an attempt to discredit the French claim to an exclusive
protectorate over Catholics in the Ottoman Empire. As early as 1875 the
German Government declared that “it recognized no exclusive right of
protection of any power in behalf of Catholic establishments in the
East,” and that “it reserved its rights with regard to German subjects
belonging to any of these establishments.”[26] This position appeared
to be strengthened by Article 62 of the Treaty of Berlin (1878), which
affirmed that “ecclesiastics, pilgrims, and monks of all nationalities
traveling in Turkey shall enjoy the same rights, advantages, and
privileges. The official right of protection of the diplomatic and
consular agents of the Powers in Turkey is recognized, with regard both
to the above-mentioned persons and to their religious, charitable, and
other establishments in the Holy Places and elsewhere.”[27]
In 1885 it was proposed that the Sultan should appoint his own emissary
to the Vatican, thus rendering supererogatory the time-honored
procedure of transacting all affairs of the Church through the French
embassy at Constantinople. French Catholics immediately charged that
this proposal emanated from Berlin and did everything possible to
oppose its acceptance. Italian and German influences in Rome heartily
supported the idea of direct communications between the Vatican and the
Porte, but Pope Leo XIII and Cardinal Rampolla finally decided against
maintaining diplomatic relations with the Infidel.[28]
Largely as a result of Italian insistence that the rights of the
diplomatic and consular agents of the Kingdom be given recognition, it
was considered advisable for the Pope to state definitely his position
on the French protectorate. This he did in an encyclical of May 22,
1888, _Aspera rerum conditio_, which informed all Catholic missionaries
in the Levant that “the Protectorate of the French Nation in the
countries of the East has been established for centuries and sanctioned
even by treaties between the empires. Therefore there must be
absolutely no innovation in this matter; this Protectorate, wherever it
is in force, is to be religiously preserved, and the missionaries are
warned that, if they have need of any help, they are to have recourse
to the consuls and other ministers of France.”[29] In a letter dated
August 1, 1898, addressed to Cardinal Langénieux, Archbishop of Rheims,
Leo XIII again confirmed this opinion: “France has a special mission in
the East confided to her by Providence—a noble mission consecrated not
alone by ancient usage, but also by international treaties.... The Holy
See does not wish to interfere with the glorious patrimony which France
has received from its ancestors, and which beyond a doubt it means
to deserve by always showing itself equal to its task.”[30] No more
sweeping confirmation of French rights could have been desired.
The German Government, however, was by no means willing to accept these
pronouncements as final. In the name of nationalism German unification
was accomplished; in the name of nationalism German missionaries abroad
must look to their own Government for protection. To admit a foreign
claim to the protectorate of Germans was to stain the national honor.
To accede to the French pretension that Catholic Germans occupied an
inferior position in the East was to decrease the prestige of German
citizenship. The Shantung incident was a noisy demonstration of the
intention of the German Empire to recognize no such distinctions.
The visit of the Kaiser to the Sultan in the same year, 1898, was
directly concerned with the determination of _Wilhelmstrasse_ to
assert the secular rights of German missionaries, Catholics as well as
Protestants.[31]
French Catholics denied the German claims and worked upon national
sentiment at home to add to the growing fear of German imperial
aggrandizement. “Catholic missions,” it was asserted, “by their very
nature and purpose are a supra-national institution, similar to the
sovereign majesty of the Pope.” What could be the purpose of the
Germans in asserting the doctrine of the “nationalization of missions,”
if it were not to undermine French influence in Turkey? How great would
be the national humiliation if the protectorate of the Faithful in
the East should pass from the hands of Catholic France to Protestant
Prussia! The Germans, too, were prejudicing the Holy See against the
Republic. A notoriously pro-German party at the Vatican, supported
by their political allies, the Italians, were winning the sympathies
of the Pope by insinuating references to “red France,” “schismatic
Russia,” and “heretical England”! Thus was a dark plot being hatched
against France and against the unity of Christendom![32]
This situation was not without its advantages to the French Clericals.
Between the years 1899 and 1905, when the Bagdad Railway controversy
was at its height, a serious domestic controversy was raging in France.
In a bitter fight to extirpate Clericalism the Republican ministries of
Waldeck-Rousseau and Émile Combes had put through law after law to curb
the power of the Church and to break up the influence of the religious
orders. The Clericals were waging a losing battle. But perhaps the
last crushing blows might be warded off by resorting to a favorite
maneuver of Louis Napoleon—the diversion of popular attention from
domestic affairs to foreign policy. If Republicans and Monarchists,
Socialists and bourgeois Liberals, Radicals and Conservatives,
Free-Masons and Clericals, could be aroused against the German advance
in Turkey, a common outburst of national pride might obscure, for a
time at least, the domestic war on organized Catholicism. Therefore
Clerical writers in France warned of the menace of the Bagdad Railway
to the Russian Alliance, to the advance of French commerce, and to
the ancient prerogatives in the East. “It is Germany, preëminent at
Constantinople,” said an anonymous writer in the _Revue des deux
mondes_, “which blocks the future of Pan-Slavism in the East; it
is Germany, installed in Kiao-chau, which can forestall Muscovite
expansion toward the Pacific; it is Germany which, in the East and
Far East, seeks to undermine our religious protectorate. Faced by the
same adversary, it is natural that France and Russia should build up
a common defence.” That France should not desert her ally Russia or
her own prerogatives in the protectorate of Near Eastern missions is
self-evident. “The protectorate over Catholics is for us, in short, a
source of material advantage!”[33]
THE BAGDAD RAILWAY CLAIMS FRENCH SUPPORTERS
The Bagdad Railway was not without friends in France. The French
chairman of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration was an enthusiastic
supporter of the project and served on the Board of Directors of
the Bagdad Railway Company, for he believed that widespread railway
construction was essential to the establishment, upon a firm basis, of
Turkish credit. The French-controlled Imperial Ottoman Bank, as early
as 1899, had agreed to participate in the financing of the Bagdad line,
and an officer of the bank had accepted the position of vice-president
of the Bagdad Railway Company at the time of its incorporation in 1903.
The French owners of important railways in Anatolia and Syria believed
it would be suicidal for them to obstruct the plans of the _Deutsche
Bank_ and preferred to coöperate with the German concessionaires.
Unless the French opponents of the Bagdad Railway were prepared
to offer these interests material compensation for resisting its
construction, it was hardly likely that, hard-headed business men as
they were, they would jeopardize the security of their investments
for the sake of such intangible items as international prestige and
protectorates of missions.
There were two important groups of French-owned railways in
Turkey-in-Asia. In Anatolia there was the important Smyrna-Cassaba
system, extending east and north-east from the French-developed port
of Smyrna. At Afiun Karahissar the main line of this system from
Smyrna connected with the Anatolian line from Constantinople to Konia.
Therefore a route for French trade already existed to all of Asia
Minor; and when the Bagdad Railway was completed, direct service could
be instituted from Smyrna to Adana, Aleppo, Mosul, Bagdad, and Basra.
The second group of French railways was the Syrian system, owned by _La
Société Ottomane du Chemin de fer Damas-Hama et Prolongements_. This
company operated railway lines from Aleppo to Damascus, from Tripoli
to Homs, from Beirut to Damascus, from Jaffa to Jerusalem, and between
other less important points. After the completion of the Bagdad Railway
this group of railways would have direct connections, at Aleppo,
with all of Europe _via_ Constantinople and with the Indies _via_
Basra and the Persian Gulf. Perhaps the French interests controlling
these railways were chagrined at their inability to secure the
trans-Mesopotamian concession for themselves. But faced with the _fait
accompli_ of the German concession, they realized that coöperation with
the Bagdad Railway would make their lines an integral part of a greater
system of rail communications within Turkey and also between Turkey and
the nations of Europe and Farther Asia. Refusal to coöperate would be
cutting off their noses to spite their faces.[34]
French bankers were disposed to look at the Bagdad enterprise in
much the same light. The economic renaissance of Turkey, which it
was hoped would be an effect of improved rail communications, would
increase the value of their earlier investments in that country. But,
in addition, the Bagdad Railway offered handsome profits in itself:
profits of promoting the enterprise and floating the various bond
issues; profits of the construction company, in which French capital
was to participate; profits of the shareholders when the Railway should
become a going concern. True, the Council of Ministers had requested
the Bourse to outlaw the Bagdad securities. But, after all, when
profits are at stake, what is a mere resolution of the Cabinet among
friends? A syndicate of French financiers invested heavily in the
bonds and stock of the Bagdad Railway Company, the hostility of their
Government notwithstanding. And it was said that one of the bankers
who participated in the syndicate was none other than M. Rouvier,
Minister of Finance in the Cabinet of M. Combes, and subsequently Prime
Minister.[35]
Many intelligent French students of foreign affairs felt that a merely
obstructionist policy on the part of France toward the Bagdad Railway
would be futile and, in the end, disastrous. In spite of the many
historical and sentimental attachments of France in the Near East, she
really had no vital interests which were jeopardized by the Bagdad
enterprise. It was urged, therefore, that she should play the rôle
of conciliator of the divergent interests of Russia, Great Britain,
Germany, and Turkey. A forward-looking program, it was suggested, would
be to urge these nations to reach a full and equitable agreement in
the promotion of “a project unquestionably valuable in the progress of
the whole human race.” National material interests should be merged in
“the superior interests of civilization.” Mere self-interest demanded
this of France, because, should a war break out over the Near Eastern
question, France would most certainly become involved.[36]
As regards the claims of Russia to influence French policy in the
Bagdad Railway affair, there was a considerable amount of irritability
exhibited by French publicists. It was pointed out, for example, that
M. Witte was unwilling to accept “internationalization” of the Railway
at a time when the German and French bankers were prepared to effect
a satisfactory settlement on that basis. It was asserted, also, that
Russian strategic interests were adequately safeguarded when the
northern route was abandoned by the Black Sea Basin Agreement of 1900.
So far from decreased difficulties of Turkish mobilization constituting
a menace to Russia, “Russia still had both the power and, apparently,
the inclination to be a formidable menace to Turkey.”[37] How could the
Colossus of the Caucasus tremble before the Sick Man!
One French writer was frank in advocating that France should pursue
a course independent of Russia in this instance. “The St. Petersburg
press,” he wrote, “has asserted vehemently that we are unjust to
support an enterprise which will injure considerably the economic
interests of Russia, which will seriously prejudice its grain trade,
and create a ruinous competitor to Russian railways now projected. Of
what use is the Franco-Russian Alliance if our policy runs counter to
Russian interests?
“We are particularly pleased to answer the question. The Franco-Russian
Alliance does not imply complete servility on the part of France toward
Russia, or annihilation of all free will, or perpetual agreement on
matters of finance. After having furnished our ally with almost seven
billion francs, we find ourselves called upon to support her policies
in the Far East, although we ourselves were abandoned and isolated in
the Fashoda affair. It will be well for us now to think of ourselves
somewhat, although respecting scrupulously, even cordially, the clauses
of the contract of alliance.... It is in our own interests to coöperate
with Germany in the Bagdad enterprise. It is extremely regrettable that
we cannot carry it out ourselves; but since it is otherwise, we should
make the most of the conditions.”[38]
It is said that M. Delcassé, French Minister of Foreign Affairs,
certainly no friend of German imperial designs, never really was
hostile to the Bagdad Railway and its affiliated enterprises. As
Bismarck welcomed French colonial activities in Africa and China as a
means of diverting French attention from the Rhine and the Vosges, so
Delcassé hoped that the colossal Bagdad plan would absorb all German
imperial inclinations, leaving Morocco an exclusive sphere of French
influence. In the construction of railways in the Ottoman Empire,
Germany might satisfy her “irresistible need for expansion,” without
menacing vital French interests. And all the while the _Quai d’Orsay_,
through the French representatives on the Board of Directors of the
Bagdad Railway Company, could be kept fully informed of the progress
of the German concessionaires and the purpose of the German diplomatic
agents interested in the success of the project.[39]
There were other ardent French nationalists who felt very much the same
way about it. However, in their opinion, it would be unwise to gamble
on the complete absorption of Germany in her _Bagdadbahn_. It would be
wiser, perhaps, to withhold financial support until such time as the
German Foreign Office was willing to execute a formal treaty conferring
upon France an exclusive sphere of interest in Morocco. Bagdad was to
be had for the asking—but in exchange for Morocco! It is said that
in 1905, after the fall of Delcassé and on the eve of the Algeciras
Conference, M. Rouvier, Prime Minister of France, approached the
German ambassador in Paris with a view to negotiating a Franco-German
agreement granting Germany a free hand in Turkey in return for
recognition of the special interests of France in Morocco.[40]
M. André Tardieu revived this suggestion two years later. “Germany
needs capital,” he said. “And when one needs capital, it is to France
that one comes in search of it. It is inevitable, necessary, therefore,
that Germany come to us. She will be obliged to come to us sooner or
later to seek our capital for the Bagdad enterprise. Germany has the
concession. She has commenced the lines. But all the sections requiring
the greatest engineering skill are still to be constructed, and she
has not the money to construct them.” If France agrees to let Germany
have the necessary funds, it will be on the condition that Germany
allow France important compensations. “Where will these compensations
be sought? I have no hesitation in saying, in Morocco. The Act of
Algeciras must be set aside, and France must have a free hand in
Morocco! An agreement upon the Bagdad question would be mischievous if
it concerned Bagdad alone, for, the Germans having the concession in
their pockets, the positions of the negotiators would not be equal. On
the other hand, if the agreement is for two purposes, if it refers to
Bagdad _and_ Morocco, I believe, I repeat, it would be both practicable
and desirable.”[41]
The proposal that French consent to the Bagdad Railway could be
purchased with compensations in North Africa met with no enthusiasm
in Germany. Herr Bassermann, leader of the National Liberals in the
Reichstag, urged the Foreign Office to meet any such diplomatic
maneuver on the part of France with a sharp rebuff.[42] At the time
of the Agadir crisis, furthermore, Baron Marschall von Bieberstein is
said to have warned Bethmann-Hollweg that Germany would have to stand
firm on Morocco, for “if, notwithstanding Damascus and Tangier, we
abandon Morocco, we lose at one blow our position in Turkey, and with
it the advantages and prospects for the future which we have acquired
painfully by years of toil.”[43]
It was not until 1914 that an agreement was reached between France and
Germany on Asiatic Turkey. For more than ten years, then, the Bagdad
Railway was a stinging irritant in the relations between the Republic
and the Empire. It aggravated an open wound which needed, not salt, but
balm. We shall return later to consider its consequences. But in the
meantime we must turn our attention to Great Britain, standing astride
the Persian Gulf and blocking the way.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
[1] Regarding Russian railways in the Near East _cf._ the article
“Russia—Railways,” in the _Encyclopedia Britannica_, 11th edition,
Volume 23, p. 891. The trans-Persian railway from Resht, a Persian
port on the Caspian, to Teheran was completed in September, 1899.
_Cf._ “Russia’s Tightening Grip on Persia,” in _The Globe_ (London),
August 24, 1899; also “Russian Railways in Asia,” _The Financial News_
(London), August 14, 1899. The Bagdad Railway frequently was referred
to in the French and Russian press as the _Petit Transasiatique_.
[2] Foreign correspondence of _The Globe_, July 28, 1899; _Commerce_
(London), August 2, 1899; articles quoted from the _Novoe Vremya_ in
_The Globe_, August 10, 1899; _The Engineer_ (London), August 11, 1899;
_The Observer_, August 13, 1899; R. Henry, “L’intérêt française en Asie
occidentale—Le chemin de fer de Bagdad et l’alliance franco-russe,” in
_Questions diplomatiques et coloniales_, Volume 15 (1903), pp. 673–688.
[3] _Corps de droit ottoman_, Volume IV, pp. 64 _et seq._; Paul Imbert,
“Le chemin de fer de Bagdad,” in _Revue des deux mondes_, 5 period,
Volume 38 (1907), pp. 657–659.
[4] Quoted by Georges Mazel, _Le chemin de fer de Bagdad_ (Montpelier,
1911), p. 324. It should be remembered that Russia at this time was
experiencing the Industrial Revolution. _Cf._ James Mavor, _An Economic
History of Russia_, Volume II (Toronto, 1914), Book VI.
[5] _Annual Register_, 1902, p. 323; 1903, pp. 293–294.
[6] _Memoirs of Count Witte_, edited and translated by A. Yarmolinsky
(Garden City, 1921), pp. 75 _et seq._; G. Drage, _Russian Affairs_
(London, 1904), pp. 507 _et seq._; A. Sauzède, “Le développement des
voies ferrées en Russie,” in _Questions diplomatiques et coloniales_,
Volume 37 (1914), pp. 272–281; F. H. Skrine, _The Expansion of Russia_
(Cambridge, 1904), _passim_.
[7] Bohler, _loc. cit._, pp. 294–295; Gervais-Courtellemont, “La
question du chemin de fer de Bagdad,” in _Questions diplomatiques et
coloniales_, Volume 23 (1907), pp. 499–507.
[8] Baron S. A. Korff, _Russia’s Foreign Relations during the Last Half
Century_ (New York, 1922), pp. 133–134.
[9] Rohrbach, _Die Bagdadbahn_, pp. 10–13; Imbert, _loc. cit._, p. 678.
Enthusiastic Turks believed that, with adequate rail communications,
Erzerum might be transformed into a Turkish Belfort. _Cf._ Mazel, _op.
cit._, p. 37. Had the Bagdad Railway and the projected railways of
northern Anatolia been completed before the outbreak of the Great War,
the Turks could have made a more effective defence in the Caucasus
campaign of the Grand Duke Nicholas in 1916.
[10] For a general statement of the attitude of Russia and the Balkan
States to the Bagdad Railway _cf._ Alexandre Ilitch, _Le chemin de fer
de Bagdad, ou l’expansion de l’Allemagne en Orient_ (Brussels, Paris,
Leipzig, 1913), pp. 100–107, 121–123.
[11] Bohler, _loc. cit._, pp. 273–289; _cf._, also, P. Rohrbach,
_German World Policies_, pp. 223–224.
[12] _Supra_, pp. 59–60.
[13] Chéradame, _op. cit._, pp. 267 _et seq._; _The Times_, August 10,
1899; K. Helfferich, _Die Vorgeschichte des Weltkrieges_, p. 124.
[14] _Journal Officiel, Débats parlementaires, Chambre des Députés_,
March 25, 1902, p. 1468.
[15] According to M. Deschanel, this was sophistry. The French
Government, if it was not guilty of an error of commission, certainly
was guilty of a sin of omission. It was the opinion of M. Deschanel
that the French Ambassador at Constantinople should have done
something to put the French Government on record as opposed to the
Bagdad Railway. M. Deschanel was not certain, however, that the French
Ministry had not consented to the participation of French capital
in the plan. “How can one imagine,” he said, “that an institution
such as the Ottoman Bank became involved in an enterprise of such
great political and military importance without the approval of our
Foreign Office?... How is it that the Ottoman Bank is a party to this
enterprise, and how is it that the Board of Directors for the first
section of the line has French representatives, when only a word from
the Government could have prevented it?” _Ibid._, November 20, 1903, p.
2798.
[16] _Ibid._, March 25, 1902, pp. 1468 _et seq._
[17] Victor Bérard, “Le Discours du Chancelier,” in the _Revue de
Paris_, December 15, 1906.
[18] The _Revue Bleue_, April 6, 1907, p. 429; _Syria and Palestine_,
p. 126. Many of the claims that the Bagdad Railway jeopardized French
prosperity were purely fantastic. It was maintained that the opening
of the great Mesopotamian granary would cripple French agriculture,
already seriously handicapped by the competition of the new world. To
this was added the suggestion that development of cotton-growing in
Turkey would stifle the infant efforts at the cultivation of cotton
in the French colonies. It is incredible that Mesopotamian grain
and cotton would have interfered with the flourishing prosperity of
the French peasantry; in any event, any such danger was at least a
generation removed. France raised high tariff barriers against foreign
competition in the home market for agricultural products; she was not
an exporter of grain.
[19] _Journal Officiel, Débats parlementaires, Chambre des Députés_,
March 25, 1902, pp. 1467 _et seq._
[20] _Cf._, M. Montbel, “Les puissances coloniales devant l’Islam,” in
_Questions diplomatiques et coloniales_, Volume 37 (1914), pp. 348–362.
[21] _Journal Officiel, Débats parlementaires, Chambre des Députés_,
November 20, 1905, p. 2798. The italics are mine.
[22] _Revue des deux mondes_, Volume 149 (1898), p. 29.
[23] Sources of the treaties granting special privileges to France are
sighted in Note 3, Chapter II. Regarding the origins and nature of
the French protectorate over Roman Catholic missions see the article
“Capitulations” in the _Encyclopedia Britannica_, previously cited; J.
Brucker, “The Protectorate of Missionaries in the Near East,” in the
_Catholic Encyclopedia_, Volume XII, pp. 488–492; A. Schopoff, _Les
Réformes et la Protection des Chrétiens en Turquie, 1673–1904_ (Paris,
1904); _Livre de propagande de l’alliance française, 1883–1893_ (Paris,
1894), especially pp. 35 _et seq._; Viscomte Aviau de Piolant, _La
défense des intérêts catholiques en Terre Sainte et en Asie Mineure_
(Paris, 1886).
[24] _Syria and Palestine_, pp. 43–45, 54–55; L. Bréhier, “Turkish
Empire—Missions,” in _Catholic Encyclopedia_, Volume XV, pp. 101–102;
J. Atalla, “Les solutions de la question syrienne,” in _Questions
diplomatiques et coloniales_, Volume 24 (1907), p. 472.
[25] _Bulletin de la Chambre de Commerce française de Constantinople_,
June 30, 1897, pp. 112–113, November 30, 1897, p. 149.
[26] Brucker, _loc. cit._, p. 490.
[27] It should be added that the Treaty also stipulated that “the
acquired rights of France are explicitly reserved, and there shall be
no interference with the _statu quo_ in the Holy Places.” E. Hertslet,
_The Map of Europe by Treaty_, Volume IV (London, 1891), p. 2797.
[28] _Revue des deux mondes_, Volume 149, (1898), pp. 24–25; Brucker,
_loc. cit._, p. 491.
[29] _Catholic Encyclopedia_, Volume XII, p. 491. The rôle of the
Italians in this controversy is of considerable interest. The desire
of the Italian Government to assert its right to protect its own
citizens abroad was a manifestation of the Italian nationalism which
brought about the establishment of the Kingdom; at the same time it
was an expression of that anti-Clerical tendency which characterized
Italian politics from the days of Cavour to the outbreak of the Great
War. Undoubtedly, also, there was an economic side to the question.
It will be recalled that Italian trade with the Ottoman Empire
grew more rapidly than that of any other power after the opening
of the twentieth century. (_Supra_, pp. 105–106.) This growth was
due, in no small degree, to the earlier rise of Italian missionary
activity in Turkey. This growth of missions and schools, as well as
of commercial establishments, was irritating to patriotic Frenchmen.
_Cf._ two articles by René Pinon, “Les écoles d’Orient,” in _Questions
diplomatiques et coloniales_, Volume 24 (1907), pp. 415–435, 487–517.
Italian missionaries, charged M. Pinon, were encouraged in every way to
ignore the French protectorate, appealing only to Italian diplomatic
and consular representatives. “Official Italy, Catholic and papal
Italy, free-mason Italy and clerical Italy, all are working together in
a common great patriotic effort for the spread of the Italian language
and the rise of the national power” (p. 500). Annoying as this is, says
M. Pinon, it should be “a singular lesson for certain Frenchmen!” That
there was no love lost on the Italian side of the controversy may be
gathered from an analysis of the Italian press comments which appeared
in _Questions diplomatiques et coloniales_, Volume 37 (1914), p. 495.
[30] Brucker, _loc. cit._, p. 491. Inasmuch as the protectorate of
Catholic missions involved a considerable responsibility for France,
one may ask why the French Government should have been so solicitous
that no other nation be allowed to share the burden. The answer is
suggested by the _Catholic Encyclopedia_, which states that the system
of religious protectorates is almost invariably subject to the abuse
that “the protectors will seek payment for their services by trammeling
the spiritual direction of the mission or by demanding political
services in return.” Volume XII, p. 492.
[31] _Supra_, pp. 134–135.
[32] _Revue des deux mondes_, Volume 149 (1898), p. 39. The “pro-German
party” was said to consist of Cardinals Ledochowski, Hohenlohe,
Galimberti, and Kapp. _Ibid._, pp. 11–12; Reinsch, _op. cit._, p. 269.
[33] _Revue des deux mondes_, Volume 149 (1898), pp. 36–40. On this
whole subject see, also, C. Lagier, _Byzance et Stamboul: nos droits
françaises et nos missions en Orient_ (Paris, 1905); Hilaire Capuchin,
_La France Catholique en Orient durant les trois-derniers siècles_
(Paris, 1902); A. Schopoff, _Les Réformes et la Protection des
Chrétiens en Turquie_ (Paris, 1904).
[34] G. Saint-Yves, _Les Chemins de fer françaises dans la Turquie
d’Asie_ (Paris, 1914).
[35] The French and Belgian banks principally interested were: the
Imperial Ottoman Bank, the _Banque de l’Union Parisienne_, and the
_Banque Internationale de Bruxelles_. _Cf._ article “Ou en est la
question du chemin de fer de Bagdad,” in _Questions diplomatiques
et coloniales_, Volume 24 (1907), pp. 167–171; E. Letailleur, _Les
capitalistes français contre la France_ (Paris, 1916), pp. 72–110. M.
Rouvier visited Turkey in 1901, at the request of the Ottoman Public
Debt Administration, to suggest improvements in the fiscal system of
the Empire. (_Corps de droit ottoman_, Volume IV, p. 110.) It was at
this time, probably, that he learned enough of the Bagdad Railway to
persuade him of the wisdom of investing in its securities.
[36] Gervais-Courtellemont, _loc. cit._, p. 507; Imbert, _loc. cit._,
p. 682.
[37] Gervais-Courtellemont, _loc. cit._, p. 507; Bohler, _loc. cit._,
p. 294.
[38] Bohler, _loc. cit._, pp. 293–295.
[39] Mazel, _op. cit._, pp. 315–322.
[40] K. Helfferich, _Die deutsche Türkenpolitik_, p. 18.
[41] “La politique extérieure de l’Allemagne,” in _Questions
diplomatiques et coloniales_, Volume 23 (1907), pp. 340–341.
[42] _Stenographische Berichte, XII Legislaturperiode, 1 Session_,
Volume 231 (1908), pp. 4226 _et seq._
[43] Quoted by the _Annual Register_, 1913, p. 326.