GREAT BRITAIN BLOCKS THE WAY
EARLY BRITISH OPINIONS ARE FAVORABLE
The idea of a trans-Mesopotamian railway was not new to informed
Englishmen. As early as 1831 a young British army officer, Francis
R. Chesney, who had seen service in the Near East, became impressed
with the desirability of constructing a railway from the Mediterranean
to the Persian Gulf. From 1835 to 1837—while Moltke was in Turkey
studying military topography—Chesney was engaged in exploring the
Euphrates Valley and upon his return to England brought glowing tales
of the latent wealth of ancient Babylonia. It was not until twenty
years later, however, that his plan for a Mesopotamian railway was
taken up as a practical business proposition. In 1856 Sir William
Andrew incorporated the Euphrates Valley Railway Company, appointed
General Chesney as chief consulting engineer, and opened offices at
Constantinople to carry on negotiations for a concession from the
Imperial Ottoman Government. The plans of the Company were supported
enthusiastically by Lord Palmerston, by Lord Stratford de Redcliffe,
British ambassador at Constantinople, and by the Turkish ambassador in
London. The following year the Sultan granted the Euphrates Valley
Company a concession for a railway from the Gulf of Alexandretta to the
city of Basra, with the understanding that the Ottoman Treasury would
guarantee a return of six per cent upon the capital invested in the
enterprise. The promoters, however, experienced difficulty in raising
funds for the construction of the line, and the project had to be
abandoned.[1]
Lord Palmerston, in the meantime, was busily opposing the Suez Canal
project. De Lesseps was handicapped by the obstructionist policies of
British diplomacy as well as by the unwillingness of British financiers
to invest in his enterprise. Palmerston frankly informed the great
French engineer that in the opinion of the British Government the
construction of the Canal was a physical impossibility; that if it
were constructed it would injure British maritime supremacy; and that,
after all, it was not so much a financial and commercial venture as a
political conspiracy to provide the occasion for French interference in
the East![2]
Nevertheless the Suez Canal was completed in 1869, and immediately
thereafter the question of a Mesopotamian railway was again brought to
the fore in England. The advance of the Russians in the Near East and
the control by the French of a short all-water route to the Indies gave
rise to serious concern regarding the maintenance of communication with
British India. In 1870 a British promoter proposed the construction of
a railway from Alexandretta _via_ Aleppo and Mosul to Bagdad and Basra.
Such a railway, as Sir William Andrew had pointed out, would assure
the undisturbed possession of India, for the “advancing standard of
the barbarian Cossack would recoil before those emblems of power and
progress, the electric wire and the steam engine, and his ominous tread
would be restrained behind the icy barrier of the Caucasus.”[3] Also
it would render Great Britain independent of the French-owned Suez
Canal by providing an alternative route to the East, making possible
more rapid transportation of passengers, mails, and troops to India.
This plan seemed desirable of execution from so many points of view
that a special committee of the House of Commons, presided over by
Sir Stafford Northcote, was appointed “to examine and report upon the
whole subject of railway communication between the Mediterranean, the
Black Sea, and the Persian Gulf.” This committee reported that the
construction of a trans-Mesopotamian railway was a matter of urgent
imperial concern and recommended a plan which would have involved
the investment of some £10,000,000. The necessity of providing an
alternative route to India was obviated, however, by Disraeli’s
purchase, in 1875, of a controlling interest in the Suez Canal at a
cost of less than half that sum.[4]
For the forty years during which, at intervals, these projects were
under discussion Germany was not even an interested spectator in Near
Eastern affairs. Domestic problems of economic development and national
unification were all-absorbing, and capitalistic imperialism was quite
outside the scope of German policies. France and Russia, not Germany,
were the disturbers of British tranquillity in the Orient.
When during the last two decades of the nineteenth century there was
a marked increase of German political and economic interests in the
Ottoman Empire, there was little disposition in England to resent the
German advance. As late as 1899, the year in which the preliminary
Bagdad Railway concession was awarded to German financiers, British
opinion, on the whole, was well disposed to Teutonic peaceful
penetration in the Near East. The press was delighted at the prospect
that the advent of the Germans in Turkey would block Russian expansion
in the Middle East. Such eminent imperialists as Joseph Chamberlain and
Cecil Rhodes announced their willingness to conclude an _entente_ with
Germany in colonial affairs. The British Government was more suspicious
of France than of Germany.[5]
During the opening years of the twentieth century, however, the
situation was materially changed. Although there was a continuance
of the cordial relations between the British and German Governments,
there was an undercurrent of hostility to Germany in England (as well
as to England in Germany) which was to be disastrous to the hopes for
an Anglo-German agreement on the Near East. By 1903, the year of the
definitive Bagdad concession, German diplomacy and German business were
under a cloud of suspicion and unpopularity in Great Britain.
The underlying reason for the increasing estrangement between England
and Germany was, as far as the British were concerned, the phenomenal
rise of Germany as a world power. The commercial advance of the German
Empire disturbed the complacent security and the stereotyped methods
of British business. The colonial aspirations of German imperialists
rudely interfered with British plans in Africa and appeared to be
threatening British domination of the East. The German navy bills of
1898 and 1900 constituted a challenge to Britannia’s rule of the waves.
German criticism of English procedure in South Africa had aroused
widespread animosity, in large part because the British themselves
realized that their conduct toward the Boers had not been above
reproach. This animosity was revealed in an aggravated and unreasoning
form in the vigorous denunciation which greeted the Government’s joint
intervention with Germany in the Venezuela affair of 1902. Joseph
Chamberlain, who in 1899 had advocated an Anglo-German alliance, in
1903 was preaching “tariff reform,” directed, among other objectives,
against the menace to the British Empire of the rising industrial
prosperity of Germany. The proposal that British capital should
participate in the Bagdad Railway project was introduced to the British
public at a distinctly inopportune time from the point of view of those
who desired some form of coöperation between England and Germany in the
successful prosecution of the plan.
THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT YIELDS TO PRESSURE
The Bagdad Railway came up for discussion in Parliament on April 7,
1903. Mr. Balfour then informed the House of Commons that negotiations
were being carried on between British and German capitalists, and
between British capitalists and the Foreign Office, for the purpose
of determining the conditions upon which British financiers might
participate in the enterprise. If a satisfactory agreement could be
reached by the bankers, His Majesty’s Government would be asked to
give its consent to a reasonable increase in the customs duties of the
Ottoman Empire, to consider the utilization of the new railway for the
transportation of the Indian mails, and to adopt a friendly attitude
toward the establishment of the eastern terminus of the Bagdad Railway
at or near Koweit.
Coöperation with the German concessionaires on any such basis was
attacked vigorously from the floor of the House. One member declared
it a menace to the existing British-owned Smyrna-Aidin Railway lines
in Turkey, a potential competitor of British maritime supremacy, and
a threat at British imperial interests in Egypt and in the region of
the Persian Gulf. Another member of the House believed that “it was
impossible to divorce the commercial from the political aspect of
the question. What made the House take a real, live interest in it
was the feeling that bound up with the future of this railway there
was probably the future political control of large regions in Asia
Minor, Mesopotamia, and the Persian Gulf.” Another member was certain
the House “knew Mesopotamia was a blessed word. They all felt it was
impossible for this country to oppose the introduction of a railway
through Mesopotamia. The only wonder was that the railway was not
constructed forty or fifty years ago.” At the same time, he felt, it
would be well for Britain to be assured that her participation in the
enterprise would not lead to another “Venezuela agreement”; Germany
must be given to understand that Britain, by control of the Persian
Gulf, held the “trump card” of the deck.
The Prime Minister made it plain, nevertheless, that he favored
coöperation with the German concessionaires provided British capital
were permitted to participate on a basis of equality with any other
power. He believed, also, that an obstructionist policy would be
futile. “I have no doubt that whatever course English financiers may
take and whatever course the British Government may pursue, sooner or
later this great undertaking will be carried out,” said Mr. Balfour.
“It is undoubtedly in the power of the British Government to hamper and
impede and inconvenience any project of the kind; but that the project
will ultimately be carried out, with or without our having a share in
it, there is no question whatsoever.”
“There are three points,” continued Mr. Balfour, “which ought not to be
lost sight of by the House when trying to make up their minds upon this
problem in its incomplete state. They have to consider whether it is or
is not desirable that what will undoubtedly be the shortest route to
India should be entirely in the hands of French and German capitalists.
Another question is whether they do or do not think it desirable that
if there is a trade opening in the Persian Gulf, it should be within
the territories of the Sheik whom we have under our special protection
and with whom we have special treaties [_i.e._, the Sheik of Koweit],
or whether it should be in some other port of the Persian Gulf where
we have no such preferential advantage. The House must also have in
view a third consideration with regard to a railway which goes through
a very rich country and which ... is likely after a certain period of
development to add greatly to the riches of Turkey, and indirectly,
I suppose, greatly to the riches of any other country which is ready
to take advantage of it. Whether the British producer will be able to
take advantage of it is not for me to say; but the House will have to
consider whether he is more likely to be able to take advantage of it
if English capital is largely interested, than if it is confined to
French and German capital. The House will have to calculate whether ...
it will be prudent to leave the passenger traffic in the hands of those
two nations, France and Germany, with whom we are on the most friendly
terms, but whose interests may not be identical with our own.”[6]
Mr. Balfour’s presentation of the case was hailed in Berlin as
eminently lucid and fair. The _National Zeitung_ and the _Vossische
Zeitung_ of April 8 expressed the hope that British participation in
the Bagdad Railway would be approved by Parliament and the press,
in order that the German promoters might have the opportunity
to demonstrate that no political ambitions were connected with
the enterprise. The Russian attitude of refusing even to discuss
internationalization, on the other hand, was roundly denounced.
The London press, however, saw no reason for enthusiasm over the
Prime Minister’s proposal. _The Times_, the _Daily Mail_, the _Daily
Telegraph_, the _Pall Mall Gazette_, and the _National Review_ let
loose a torrent of vituperation against German imperialist activities
in general and the Bagdad Railway in particular. The _Spectator_,
forswearing any thought of prejudice against Germany, constantly
reminded its readers of German unfriendliness during the Boer War and
suggested that the Bagdad negotiations offered the British Government
an admirable opportunity to retaliate.
The _Manchester Guardian_, organ of the old Liberalism, likewise was
opposed to British participation in the Bagdad Railway. Pleading for
continued observance of Britain’s time-honored policy of isolation,
its leading editorial of April 15 said: “Mr. Balfour expressed his
belief that ‘this great international artery had better be in the hands
of three great countries than in the hands of two or of one great
country.’ In other words, England is to be mixed up in the domestic
broils of Asia Minor; every Kurdish or Arab attack on the railway will
raise awkward diplomatic questions, and any disaster to the Turkish
military power will place the whole enterprise in jeopardy. What is
far more important, English participation in railway construction
in Asia Minor will certainly strengthen the suspicions which Russia
entertains regarding our policy. It is the fashion with certain English
politicians to abuse Russia for building railways in Manchuria and
for projecting lines across Persia. Yet Mr. Balfour seems more than
half inclined to pay her policy the compliment of imitation by helping
to build a railway across Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf—and, worse
still, of imperfect imitation, since the Government is certainly
not prepared to occupy the territory through which the railway will
pass, as Russia does in Manchuria. What vital interests of our own
shall we strengthen by this sudden ardour for railways in Turkey to
counterbalance the certain weakening of our friendly relations with
Russia?”
Violent as was the opposition of the press to any coöperation with the
Germans in the Bagdad Railway, the opposition would have been still
more violent had all of the facts been public property. Mr. Balfour,
however, was keeping the House and the country in complete ignorance
of many of the most important aspects of the situation. Although the
Prime Minister denied that there had been any negotiations between
the British and German Governments regarding the Bagdad enterprise,
he failed to admit that there had been such negotiations between His
Majesty’s Government and German financiers. He made no mention of the
fact, for example, that he and Lord Lansdowne, his Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs, had attended a meeting at the home of Lord Mount
Stephen at which Dr. von Gwinner, on behalf of the _Deutsche Bank_,
and Lord Revelstoke, on behalf of the interested British financiers,
explained the terms of the proposed participation of British capital
in the Bagdad Railway.[7] The plan was to place the Railway, including
the Anatolian lines, throughout its entire length from the Bosporus
to the Persian Gulf, under international control. Equal participation
in construction, administration, and management was to be awarded
German, French, and British interests to prevent the possibility of
preferential treatment for the goods or subjects of any one country.[8]
To this proposal both Mr. Balfour and Lord Lansdowne gave their
approval, assuring the bankers that no diplomatic obstacles would be
offered by Great Britain to the construction of the Bagdad Railway.
Dr. von Gwinner thereupon returned home to obtain the consent of his
associates to the reapportionment of interests and, perhaps, to consult
the German Foreign Office and the Ottoman minister at Berlin. This was
early in April, 1903.[9]
Persistent rumors in the London press that a Bagdad Railway agreement
had been negotiated brought the subject to the attention of the
Cabinet, which heretofore, apparently, had not been consulted by the
Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. It was
decided that the Prime Minister should make a statement to Parliament—a
statement which, perhaps, might serve as a sort of trial balloon to
ascertain the opinion of the country upon the question. Mr. Balfour’s
presentation of the Bagdad Railway affair to the House of Commons, as
we have seen, however, provoked unfriendly comments from the floor and
was subjected to heavy fire from the press. Thereupon a rebellious
element in the Cabinet—led, presumably, by Joseph Chamberlain, who now
was more interested in the development of the economic resources of the
British Empire under a system of protective and preferential tariffs,
than in coöperation with other nations—persuaded Mr. Balfour not to
risk the life of his Ministry on the question of British participation
in the Bagdad enterprise. Accordingly, the agreement with the _Deutsche
Bank_ was repudiated, and on April 23, 1903, Mr. Balfour informed
the House of Commons that His Majesty’s Government was determined to
withdraw all support, financial and otherwise, which Great Britain
might be in a position to lend the Bagdad Railway. He was convinced,
he said, after a careful examination of the proposals of the German
promoters, that no agreement was possible which would compensate the
Empire for its diplomatic assistance and guarantee security for British
interests.[10]
This announcement was a distinct disappointment to the bankers in
Berlin and in London. The directors of the _Deutsche Bank_ were
stunned by the termination of negotiations which they believed
had been progressing satisfactorily. The British financiers were
chagrined at the sudden decision of their Government to oppose their
participation in a promising enterprise. They were convinced that the
terms offered by the German bankers met every condition imposed by the
Prime Minister. They were agreed on the wisdom of British coöperation
with the _Deutsche Bank_, and they were not a little annoyed at what
appeared to be bad faith on the part of Downing Street. They were
convinced that only a bellicose press frustrated the attempt to make
the Bagdad Railway an international highway.[11]
This, in any event, is the diagnosis of the situation furnished by Sir
Clinton Dawkins, of the Morgan group, one of the British financiers
interested in the project. In a letter to Dr. von Gwinner written on
April 23, 1903, but not made public until six years later, he said,
“As you originally introduced the Bagdad business to us, I feel that
I cannot, upon its unfortunate termination, omit to express to you
personally my great regret at what has occurred. After all you have
done to meet the various points raised, you will naturally feel very
disappointed and legitimately aggrieved. But I am glad to think, and
I feel you will be convinced, that your grievance lies not against
the British group but against the British Foreign Office. The fact is
that the business has become involved in politics here and has been
sacrificed to the very violent and bitter feeling against Germany
exhibited by the majority of our newspapers, and shared in by a large
number of people. This is a feeling which, as the history of recent
events will show you, is not shared by the Government or reflected in
official circles. But of its intensity outside these circles, for the
moment, there can be no doubt; at the present moment coöperation in
any enterprise which can be represented, or I might more justly say
_mis_represented, as German will meet with a violent hostility which
our Government has to consider.”
Sir Clinton thereupon asserted that the effort of Mr. Balfour to quiet
the uproar in Parliament was due to the Prime Minister’s complete
satisfaction with the agreement reached by the financiers. Just as
success seemed assured, a bitter attack was launched on the Government
“by a magazine and a newspaper [The _National Review_ and _The Times_]
which had made themselves conspicuous by their criticisms of the
British Foreign Office on the Venezuela affair. Who instigated these
papers, from whence they derived their information, is a matter upon
which I cannot speak with certainty. My own impression is that the
instigation proceeded from Russian sources. The clamour raised by
these two organs was immediately taken up by practically the whole
of the English press, London having really gone into a frenzy on the
matter owing to the newspaper campaign, which it would have been quite
impossible to counteract or influence. It is, I think, due to you that
you should know the _histoire intime_ of what has passed.”[12]
There was only one London newspaper, the _St. James’s Gazette_, which
came out frankly in favor of British participation in the Bagdad
Railway. In the issue of April 14, 1903, the editor ridiculed the
suggestion of the _Spectator_ that the Foreign Office was obliged to
warn bankers of the financial risks involved in the enterprise. “Why
our contemporary should be so anxious to save financiers, British
or foreign, from making a bad investment of their money, we cannot
imagine. Financiers are generally pretty wide-awake, and the City as
a rule requires no advice from Fleet Street, the Strand, or Whitehall
in transacting its business.” In an editorial entitled “Bagdad and Bag
Everything,” April 22, 1903, the _Gazette_ condemned _The Times_ for
the “curious and alarmist deductions” which that journal drew from
the terms of the Bagdad Railway convention. The suggestion that this
was a deliberate attempt on the part of Germany to ruin British trade
was characterized “as much a figment of a fevered imagination as the
mind-picture of Turkey using ‘this enormous line to pour down troops
to reduce the shores of the Persian Gulf to the same happy condition
as Armenia and Macedonia,’ about which _The Times_ is so suddenly and
unaccountably concerned. The concession is a monument to the German
Emperor’s activity, built on the ruins of the influence which we threw
away, and we do not precisely see what our _locus standi_ in the matter
is. If the interests of the Ottoman Government and of the German
concessionaires be served by the construction of the line, constructed
the line will be, and there’s an end. Whether it ever will, or ever can
pay its way, is the affair only of capitalists who are contemplating
investment in it. It is not the slightest use barking when we cannot
bite, and our power of biting in the present instance is excessively
small.... The Emperor William, like Jack Jones, has ‘come into ’is
little bit of splosh’ in Asia Minor, and it is quite useless to be
soreheaded about it. It is childish to be ever carping and nagging and
‘panicking.’ We question whether the Bagdad Railway—while the rule of
the Sultan endures—is going to do much good or much harm to anybody.
The vision which some Germans have of peaceful Hans and Gretchen
swilling Löwenbrau in the Garden of Eden to the strains of a German
band, is little likely of fulfilment. If trade develops, a fair share
of it will come our way, provided we send good wares and such as the
inhabitants want to buy.” This minority opinion, however, was unheeded
in the outburst of anti-German feeling which followed Mr. Balfour’s
first statement to the House of Commons.
As events turned out, the failure of the Balfour Government to
effect the internationalization of the Bagdad Railway was a colossal
diplomatic blunder. If the proposed agreement of 1903 had been
consummated, the _entente_ of 1904 between France and England would
have taken control of the enterprise out of the hands of the Germans,
who would have possessed, with their Turkish collaborators, only
fourteen of the thirty votes in the Board of Directors. Sir Henry
Babington Smith assures the author that there was nothing in the
arrangement suggested by the _Deutsche Bank_ which would have prevented
eventual Franco-British domination of the line. Surely, as Bismarck is
said to have remarked, every nation must pay sooner or later for the
windows broken by its bellicose press!
VESTED INTERESTS COME TO THE FORE
In addition to the pressure which was brought to bear on the Balfour
Cabinet by the newspapers, there were important vested business
interests which quietly, but effectively, made themselves heard at
Downing Street during the critical days of the Bagdad negotiations of
1903.
It already has been noted that in 1888, as part of the plans of the
Public Debt Administration for the improvement of transportation
facilities in Turkey, the British-owned Smyrna-Aidin Railway Company
was granted permission to construct several important branches to
its main line. For a time this new concession thoroughly satisfied
the owners and directors of the Company, and there was no objection
on their part to the extension and development of the German-owned
Anatolian system. By 1903, however, when the Bagdad concession was
under discussion, the Smyrna-Aidin line demanded the protection of the
British Government against the undue extension of German railways in
the Near East. In particular, it objected to the agreement between the
Anatolian Railway and the Smyrna-Cassaba Railway, by which the latter
joined its tracks with the Anatolian system at Afiun Karahissar and
accepted a schedule of tariffs satisfactory to both lines.[13] The
Smyrna-Aidin Company feared that the Bagdad Railway would develop the
ports of Haidar Pasha, Alexandretta, and Mersina at the expense of
the prosperity of Smyrna, thereby decreasing the relative importance
of the Smyrna-Aidin line and cutting down the volume of its traffic.
Finally, it objected to the payment of a kilometric guarantee to the
German concessionaires while there was no likelihood of its being
similarly favored by the custodians of the public purse. The interests
of the shareholders of the railway were well represented in the House
of Commons by “that watchful dragon of imperial interests”, Mr. Gibson
Bowles.
Mr. Bowles (Conservative member from King’s Lynn, 1892–1906, and
Liberal from the same constituency, 1910–1916) was a frank defender
of the interests of the stockholders of the Smyrna-Aidin Railway.
He believed that investors were entitled to governmental protection
of their investments, whether at home or abroad. He left no doubt,
however, that he took his stand on high grounds of patriotism as well.
He informed the House that “he did not object to the railway, because
all railways were good feeders of ships. But this was not a railway;
it was a financial fraud and a political conspiracy—a fraud whereby
English trade would suffer and a conspiracy whereby the political
interests of England would be threatened. It amounted to a military and
commercial occupation by Germany of the whole of Asia Minor.”[14]
Comparable to the interests of the Smyrna-Aidin Railway were those
of the Euphrates and Tigris Navigation Company, Ltd. Under this name
the Lynch Brothers had been operating steamers on the Tigris and the
Shatt-el-Arab since the middle of the nineteenth century. In the trade
between Bagdad and Basra they enjoyed a practical monopoly. In the
absence of competition they were able to render indifferent service at
exorbitant rates, and there was nothing to disturb their tranquillity
except an occasional complaint from a British merchant. But the old
order was about to change. The Bagdad Railway concession of 1903
(articles 9 and 23) destroyed the monopoly of the Lynch Brothers by
granting to the Railway Company limited rights of navigation on the
Tigris. Construction of the Mesopotamian sections of the Railway,
furthermore, would be almost certain to kill, by competition,
profitable navigation between Bagdad and Basra. The course of the
Tigris is shallow and winding, subject to heavy rises and falls, and
constantly changing with the formation and disappearance of sand
shoals. The river journey from Bagdad to Basra is about five hundred
miles and takes from four to five days by steamer, under favorable
conditions. The distance by land is about three hundred miles and
could be traversed by railway in a single day’s journey, regardless
of weather conditions. For passengers and most classes of freight the
Bagdad Railway promised more economical transportation. The Lynch
Brothers were determined, however, to resist such rude encroachment on
their profitable preserves. In defence of their interests they wrapped
themselves in the Union Jack and called upon their home government
for protection; they were patriotic to the last degree and were
determined “that the custody of a privilege highly important to British
commerce would never pass to Germany except over the dead bodies of
the principal partners.”[15] Overcharge their countrymen they might;
surrender this prerogative to a German railway they would not!
British shipping interests, also, were vigorous in their opposition
to the Bagdad Railway. A trans-Mesopotamian railway, they knew, would
absorb some of the through traffic to the East, and the competition
of the locomotive might compel a general readjustment of freight
rates. Furthermore, it was one of the avowed purposes of the Bagdad
line to acquire the profitable Indian mails concession from the
British Government; this would be equivalent to the withdrawal of a
subsidy from the steamship lines operating to the East. It was not for
their own sake, but for the sake of British commerce, however, that
these shipping interests objected to the construction of the Bagdad
line! They warned the British public that the proposed railway would
adversely affect the traffic passing through the Suez Canal; inasmuch
as the United Kingdom was a stockholder in the Canal, this was the
concern of every English citizen. They pointed out that the kilometric
subsidy which had been guaranteed the Railway was to be paid from an
increase in the customs duties; thus, it was charged, British commerce
would be obliged to contribute indirectly to the dividends of the
_Deutsche Bank_. The improvement of communications between Middle
Europe and the Near East would be almost certain to disturb British
trade with Turkey; the feared and hated “Made in Germany” trade-mark
might exert its hypnotic influence in a region where British commerce
heretofore had been preëminent. If, in addition, the German owners
of the Bagdad Railway should choose to grant discriminatory rates
to German goods, a severe body-blow would be dealt British economic
interests in the Ottoman Empire. The completion of this Railway would
bring with it all sorts of German interference in the Near East and
undermine British commercial and maritime interests in the region.[16]
Many of the charges brought against the Bagdad Railway by the British
shipping interests could not have been substantiated. As early as 1892,
Lord Curzon stated emphatically that, for most commercial purposes, a
trans-Mesopotamian railway would be next to valueless. “If I were a
stockholder in the P. & O. [the Peninsular and Oriental, one of the
Inchcape lines touching at Indian and Persian Gulf ports], I would
not,” he said, “except for the possible loss of the mails, be in the
least alarmed at the competition of such a railway.”[17] Informed
Germans, likewise, did not consider the Bagdad Railway a serious
competitor to the Suez Canal. One authority, for example, wrote: “The
Bagdad Railway taken as a whole is of importance only for through
passenger and postal traffic (in which respect, therefore, it is of
greatest value to the British in their communications with India) and
occasionally for fast freight. The great bulk of the freight traffic,
on the other hand, carrying the import and export trade of the East,
hardly can fall to the Bagdad Railway, which, for a long time at least,
must content itself with the local traffic of certain sections of the
line,” particularly in Cilicia, Syria, and northern Mesopotamia.[18]
The assertion that the cost of constructing and operating the line
would be borne by British commerce was based upon specious reasoning.
Higher customs duties would not be paid by the British merchant, but
by the Turkish consumer. The only harmful effect of the increased
duties would be a general increase of prices of imported commodities
in Turkey, leading, perhaps, to a lesser demand for foreign goods. It
was probable, on the other hand, that this slight disadvantage would be
more than offset by the wider prosperity which the Railway was almost
certain to bring the districts traversed. In any event, whatever burden
might be saddled upon the import trade would have to be borne, in
proportion to the volume of business transacted, by the competitors of
British merchants as well as by British merchants themselves.
Many British business men were shrewd enough to foresee that the Bagdad
Railway might prove to be far from disadvantageous to their interests.
Where was the menace to British prosperity in a railway, German or
otherwise, which promised improved communication with the British
colonies in the Orient? The facilitation of mail service to India; the
development of rapid passenger service to the East; the reduction of
ocean freight rates as a result of healthy competition—all of these
injured no one except the vested interests which had handicapped the
expansion of British commerce by inadequate service and exorbitant
rates. There was no indication that the Bagdad Railway Company
proposed to discriminate against non-German shippers; in any event,
such a course was specifically prohibited by the concession of 1903,
which decreed that “all rates, whether they be general, special,
proportional, or differential, are applicable to all travelers and
consignors without distinction,” and which prohibited the Company
“from entering into any special contract with the object of granting
reductions of the charges specified in the tariffs.”[19] As the British
Chamber of Commerce at Constantinople appropriately pointed out, the
most certain means of avoiding discriminatory treatment was to permit
and encourage the participation of British capital in the enterprise
and to assure the presence of British subjects on the Board of
Directors of the Company.[20]
From an economic point of view, it would appear that the British
Empire had a great deal to gain from the construction of the Bagdad
Railway. In proportion as improved methods of transportation shrink the
earth’s surface, the contacts between mother country and dependencies
will become more numerous. An economic community of interest is more
likely to spring up and thrive with the aid of more numerous and
more rapid means of communication. True, certain interests believed
that the Bagdad Railway threatened their very existence. But would
the British people have been willing to sacrifice the wider economic
interests of the Empire to the vested privileges of a handful of
English capitalists? They would not, of course, if the issue had been
put to them in such simple terms. The problem was complicated by the
obvious fact that it was not alone the economic interests of the empire
which were at stake. The political import of the Bagdad enterprise
overshadowed all economic considerations.
IMPERIAL DEFENCE BECOMES THE PRIMARY CONCERN
British journalists and statesmen, as well as the ordinary British
patriot, have been accustomed to judge international questions from
but one point of view—the promotion and protection of the interests of
that great and benevolent institution, “the noblest fabric yet reared
by the genius of a conquering nation,” the British Empire.[21] Imperial
considerations have been the determining factors in the formulation of
diplomatic policies and of naval and military strategy. The possession
of a far-flung empire has required further imperial conquests to insure
the defence of those already acquired. Strategic necessities have
constituted a “reason for making an empire large, and a large empire
larger.”[22]
India, an empire in itself, is the keystone of the British imperial
system. To defend India it has been considered necessary for Great
Britain to possess herself of vital strategic points along the routes
of communication from the Atlantic seaboard to the Indian Ocean. The
acquisition of Cape Colony from the Dutch at the conclusion of the
Napoleonic Wars enabled the British fleet to dominate the old route to
India, around the Cape of Good Hope. Judiciously placed naval stations
at Gibraltar, Malta, and Cyprus assured the safety of British trade
with the East _via_ the Mediterranean. After a futile attempt to
prevent the construction of the Suez Canal, which temporarily placed
a new and shorter all-water route to India in the hands of the French,
Great Britain proceeded to acquire the Canal for herself. To assure
the protection of the Suez Canal, in turn, it was necessary to occupy
Egypt and the Sudan. Control of Somaliland and Aden, together with
friendly relations with Arabia, turned the Red Sea into a British lake.
Menaced by the Russian advance toward India, Great Britain proceeded
to dominate the entire Middle East: the foreign affairs of Afghanistan
were placed under British tutelage and protection; Baluchistan was
compelled to submit to the control of British agents; parts of Persia
were brought within the sphere of British influence.[23]
Great Britain, apparently, was determined to control every
important route to India. What, then, would be her attitude toward
a trans-Mesopotamian railway, terminating at the only satisfactory
deep-water port on the Persian Gulf? Was the possession of such a
short-cut to India consistent with the exigencies of imperial defence?
Without a satisfactory terminus on the Persian Gulf the Bagdad Railway
would lose its greatest possibilities as a great transcontinental
line; with such a terminus it might become a menace to vital British
interests in that region. British imperialists had been interested in
control of the Persian Gulf since the seventeenth century, when the
East India Company established trading posts along its shores. The
British navy cleared the Gulf of pirates; it buoyed and beaconed the
waters of the Gulf and the Shatt-el-Arab. A favorable treaty with the
Emir of Muscat, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, provided
Great Britain with a “sally port” from which to organize the defence
of the entrance to the Gulf; later, Muscat became a protectorate of
Great Britain. From time to time treaties were negotiated with the Arab
chieftains of southern Mesopotamia, extending British influence up
the Shatt-el-Arab and the Tigris and Euphrates to Bagdad. Under these
circumstances, it was apparent from the very beginning that, whether
or not the Balfour Government consented to British participation in
the Bagdad enterprise, there would be no surrender of the privileged
position enjoyed by Great Britain in the Persian Gulf. Foreign
merchants might be admitted to a share in the Gulf trade, but the
existence of a port under foreign control hardly could be approved.[24]
Lord Lansdowne, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, speaking before
the House of Lords, on May 5, 1903, made the position of the Government
clear: “I do not yield to the noble Lord [Lord Ellenborough] in the
interest which I take in the Persian Gulf or in the feeling that this
country stands, with regard to the navigation of the Persian Gulf, in a
position different from that of any other power.... The noble Lord has
asked me for a statement of our policy with regard to the Persian Gulf.
I think I can give him one in a few simple words. It seems to me that
our policy should be directed in the first place to protect and promote
British trade in those waters. In the next place I do not think that
he suggests, or that we would suggest, that those efforts should be
directed towards the exclusion of the legitimate trade of other powers.
In the third place—I say it without hesitation—we should regard the
establishment of a naval base, or of a fortified port, in the Persian
Gulf by any other power as a very grave menace to British interests,
and we should certainly resist it with all the means at our disposal.
I say that in no minatory spirit, because, as far as I am aware, no
proposals are on foot for the establishment of a foreign naval base in
the Persian Gulf.”[25]
Lord Lansdowne might have reminded his hearers that, although the
British Government was disposed to be friendly toward the Bagdad
Railway, measures already had been taken which effectively precluded
any possibility of the construction by the concessionaires, without
British consent, of terminal and port works at Koweit. In 1899,
when the first announcements came from Constantinople regarding the
Bagdad project, Lord Curzon, then Viceroy of India, became alarmed
at the construction of a railway which would link the head of the
Persian Gulf with the railways of Central Europe. Lord Curzon was a
trained imperialist. It was his custom to utter few words; to make no
proclamations from the housetops; to act promptly—and in secret. It
was at the instigation of the Indian Government that Colonel Meade,
British resident in the Persian Gulf region, proceeded to Koweit and
negotiated with the Sheik a clandestine agreement by which the latter
accepted the “protection” of the British Government and agreed to enter
into no international agreements without the consent of a British
resident adviser.[26] When a German technical commission visited Koweit
in 1900 to negotiate for terminal and port facilities, they found the
Sheik suspiciously intractable to their wishes. Thereupon Abdul Hamid
despatched an expedition to Koweit to assert his sovereignty over the
Sheik’s territory, but the presence of a British gunboat rendered both
reason and force of no avail.[27]
“Protection” of Koweit by Great Britain served notice on both Turkey
and Germany that the construction of a railway, owned and controlled by
Germans, to a deep-water port on the Persian Gulf was deemed contrary
to the interests of the British Empire. From first to last British
officials persistently refused to accede to any arrangement which would
thus jeopardize imperial communications. Control of the Persian Gulf,
an outpost of Indian defence, became the keynote of British resistance
to the Bagdad Railway.
During the visit of William II to England in 1907, he was informed by
Lord Haldane, Sir Edward Grey, and other responsible British statesmen,
that their objections to the Bagdad enterprise would be removed if
the sections of the Railway from Bagdad to Basra and the Persian Gulf
were under the administration of British capitalists.[28] In March,
1911, shortly after the Kaiser and the Tsar had reached an agreement
at Potsdam on the Bagdad Railway question, Lord Curzon vigorously
denounced the enterprise as a blow at the heart of Britain’s empire in
India and called upon the Foreign Office to persist in its policy of
blocking construction of the final sections of the line.[29] This was
in accord with a caustic criticism of German and Russian activities in
the Near East, delivered by Mr. Lloyd George to the House of Commons,
during which the future Premier made it plain that, whatever course
Russia might pursue, Great Britain would not compromise her vital
imperial interests in the region of the Persian Gulf.[30] The German
concessionaires learned, to their disappointment and chagrin, that,
on this point, in any event, the British Government stood firm. Even
in 1914, when an international agreement was reached permitting the
construction of the Bagdad Railway, Great Britain subscribed to the
arrangement with the express proviso that the terminus of the line
should be Basra and that the port to be constructed at Basra should
be jointly owned and controlled by German and British capitalists.
Construction of the line beyond Basra was not to be undertaken without
the permission of the British Government.[31]
Although fear of foreign interference in the Persian Gulf region
was the chief political objection raised by Great Britain to the
construction of the Bagdad Railway, it was supplemented by a number
of other objections—all associated, directly or indirectly, with the
defence of India. The Bagdad Railway concession of 1903 provided for
the construction of a branch line from Bagdad to Khanikin, on the
Turco-Persian border. This proposed railway not only would compete
with the British caravan trade between these cities, amounting to
about three-quarters of a million pounds sterling annually, but would,
perhaps, lead to the introduction into the Persian imbroglio of the
influence of another Great Power. Persia lay astride one of the natural
routes of communication to India. The uncertainty of the situation in
Persia already was such as to cause grave concern in Great Britain,
and there were few British statesmen who would have welcomed German
interference in addition to Russian intrigue.[32]
British imperialists, too, had excellent reason to fear that any
increase in the power of the Sultan, such as would be certain to
follow the construction of adequate rail communications in the Ottoman
Empire, might be but the first step in a renaissance of Mohammedan
political ambitions, and, perhaps, a Moslem uprising everywhere against
Christian overlords. Such a situation—had it been sufficiently matured
before the outbreak of the War of 1914—might have been disastrous to
the British position in the East: a rejuvenated Turkey, supported by
a powerful Germany, might have been in a position to menace the Suez
Canal, “the spinal cord of the Empire,” and to lend assistance to
seditious uprisings in Egypt, India, and the Middle East. Why should
Britain not have been disturbed at such a prospect, when prominent
German publicists were boastfully announcing that this was one of the
principal reasons for official espousal of the _Bagdadbahn_?[33] Why
should British statesmen have closed their eyes to such a possibility,
when the recognized parliamentary leader of the Social Democratic Party
in Germany warned the members of the Reichstag that limits must be
placed upon the political ramifications of the Bagdad enterprise, lest
it lead to a disastrous war with Great Britain?[34]
Furthermore, British statesmen were too intimately acquainted with
the dynamics of capitalistic imperialism to accept the assurances
of Germans that the Bagdad Railway, and other German enterprises in
Turkey, were business propositions only. They knew that promises to
respect the sovereignty of the Sultan were courteous formalities of
European diplomatists to cloak scandalous irregularities—it was in
full recognition of the sacred and inviolable integrity of Turkey that
Disraeli had taken possession and assumed the “defence” of Cyprus
in 1878! Furthermore, experienced imperialists knew full well that
economic penetration was the foundation of political control. As Mr.
Lloyd George informed the House of Commons in 1911, the kilometric
guarantee of the Bagdad Railway gave German bankers a firm grip on the
public treasury in Turkey, and such a hold on the imperial Ottoman
purse-strings might lead no one could prophesy where.[35]
British experience in Egypt, however, indicated one direction in which
it might possibly lead. English control in Egypt had been acquired by
the most modern and approved imperial methods. It was no old-fashioned
conquest; the procedure was much more subtle than that. First, Egypt
was weighted down by a great burden of debt to British capitalists;
then British business men and investors acquired numerous privileges
and intrenched themselves in their special position by virtue of the
Anglo-French control of Egyptian finance; the “advice” of British
diplomatists came to possess greater force of law than the edicts
of the Khedive; “disorders” always could be counted upon to furnish
an excuse for military conquest and annexation, should that crude
procedure eventually become necessary.[36] Might not _Wilhelmstrasse_
tear a leaf out of Downing Street’s book of imperial experience?
There is a seeming inconsistency in this description of the British
interests involved in the Bagdad Railway question. If British shipping
might be seriously injured, if the imperial communications were to be
endangered, if undisputed control of the Persian Gulf was essential
to the safety of the Empire, if the defence of India was to be
jeopardized, if a German protectorate might be established in Asia
Minor—if all these were possibilities, how could the Balfour Government
afford to temporize with the German concessionaires, holding out
the hope of British assistance? Were Mr. Balfour and Lord Lansdowne
less fearful for the welfare and safety of the Empire than were the
newspaper editors? Rather, of course, were they convinced that the
very best way of forestalling any of these developments was to permit
and encourage British participation in the financing of the Bagdad
Railway Company.[37] Only thus could British trade hope to share in
the economic renaissance of the Ottoman Empire; only thus could there
be British representatives on the Board of Directors to insist that
the _Deutsche Bank_ confine its efforts to the economic development
of Turkey, excluding all political _arrières pensées_. And it would
not have required an imperialist of the experience of Mr. Balfour to
imagine that dual ownership of the Bagdad Railway might have the same
ultimate outcome as the Dual Control in Egypt. But blind antagonism
toward Germany prevented the average Englishman from seeing the obvious
advantages of not abandoning the Bagdad Railway to the exclusive
control of German and French capitalists.
BRITISH RESISTANCE IS STIFFENED BY THE ENTENTE
One year after the failure of the Bagdad Railway negotiations of
1903, the age-old colonial rivalry of France and Great Britain was
brought to a temporary close by the _Entente Cordiale_. It is not
possible, with the information now at our disposal, to estimate with
any degree of accuracy the influence which the Bagdad Railway exerted
upon British imperialists in the final determination to reach an
agreement with France. One may agree with an eminent French authority,
however, that “neither in England nor in France is the principle of the
understanding to be sought. Rather was it the fear of Germany which
determined England—not only her King and Government, but the whole of
her people—to draw nearer France.”[38] British fear and dislike of
Germany were founded upon the phenomenal growth of German industry and
overseas commerce, the rapid expansion of the German mercantile marine,
the construction of the German navy, and the insistence of German
diplomatists that Germany be not ignored in colonial matters. The
Bagdad Railway did nothing to quiet those fears. It served, rather, to
render precarious Britain’s position in the East.
In March, 1903, when the definitive Bagdad Railway concession was
granted, British imperial affairs were in a far from satisfactory
state. The termination of the Boer War had ended the fear that the
British Empire might lose its hold on South Africa, but the sharp
criticism of British conduct toward the Boers—criticism which came
not only from abroad, but from malcontents at home—had dealt a severe
blow to British prestige. The relentless advance of Russia in China,
Persia, and Afghanistan gave cause for anxiety as to the safety of
Britain’s possessions in the Middle and Far East. And although France
had withdrawn gracefully from the Fashoda affair, it was by no means
certain that Egypt had seen the last of French interference. Added
to all of these difficulties was the proposed German-owned railway
from Constantinople to the Persian Gulf, flanking the Suez Canal and
reaching out to the back door of India.
Under such circumstances it was small wonder that Great Britain took
stock of her foreign policies. The Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902
already had ended the British policy of aloofness, and there appeared
to be no sound reason against the negotiation of other treaties
which similarly would strengthen the British position in the East.
The Bagdad Railway negotiations collapsed, but the agreement with
France—which seemed far more difficult of achievement—was consummated
without further delay. Three years later, in 1907, Great Britain
came to an agreement with another of her rivals in the East—Russia.
The Tsar, chastened by military defeat abroad and by revolution at
home, recognized a British sphere of interest in Persia, relinquished
all claims in Afghanistan, and acknowledged the suzerainty of China
over Tibet.[39] The understanding with France had assured the safety
of the Suez Canal from an attack from the Sudan; the agreement with
Russia removed the menace of an attack upon India from the north and
northwest. Germany became Great Britain’s only formidable rival in the
Near East.
Thus the Germans found themselves facing a powerful diplomatic
obstacle to the construction of the Bagdad Railway. Here was another
instance, in their minds, of the “encirclement” of Germany by a hostile
coalition—an “encirclement” not only on the Continent, but in a German
sphere of imperial interest as well. A conspicuous German Oriental
scholar said that the attitude of the other European powers toward
the Bagdad Railway was the best proof of their enmity toward Germany.
“Every single kilometre had to be fought for against the unyielding
opposition of Great Britain, Russia, and France, who desired to
frustrate any increase in the power of Turkey. Great Britain led and
organized this opposition because she feared that India and Egypt
were threatened by the Bagdad Railway.” If one wishes to understand
the diplomatic history of the War, “he needs only to study the
struggle for the Bagdad Railway—he will find a laboratory full of rich
materials.”[40] Here was the tragedy of the Bagdad Railway—it was
one of a number of imperial enterprises which together constituted a
principal cause of the greatest war of modern times!
There were some ardent British imperialists who were out of sympathy
with the popular opposition to the Bagdad Railway and with the
policy of the _Entente_ in obstructing the building of the line. Few
Englishmen were more thoroughly acquainted with the Near East than
Sir William Willcocks.[41] Basing his opinions upon an intimate,
scientific study of conditions in Mesopotamia, he advocated full
British coöperation with the _Deutsche Bank_ in the construction
of the Bagdad Railway, which he considered was the best means of
transportation for Irak. He criticized the British Government for its
short-sighted policy in the protection of the Lynch Brothers and their
antiquated river service; “rivers,” he said, “are for irrigation,
railways for communications.” Furthermore, “You cannot leave the waters
of the rivers in their channels and irrigate the country with them.
For navigation you may substitute railway transport; for the purpose
of irrigation nothing can take the place of water.”[42] He believed
that adequate irrigation of the Mesopotamian Valley would result
in such a wave of prosperity for the country that it would induce
immigration, particularly from Egypt and British India. It was not
inconceivable, under such conditions, that Britain would fall heir to
ancient Mesopotamia when the Ottoman Empire should disintegrate.[43]
Sir William Willcocks was neither pacifist nor visionary; he, himself,
was an empire-builder.
Another British imperialist who believed that Great Britain was
pursuing entirely the wrong course in obstructing German economic
penetration in Turkey was Sir Harry Johnston, novelist, explorer,
lecturer, former member of the consular service. He believed in “The
White Man’s Burden,” in the inevitable overrunning of the habitable
globe by the Caucasian race. But he believed that the task of spreading
white civilization to the four corners of the earth was such an
herculean task, that “what we white peoples ought to strive for, with
speech and pen, is unity of purpose; an alliance throughout all the
world in this final struggle for mastery over Nature. We ought to
adjust our ambitions and eliminate causes of conflict.” His program
for the settlement of the Near Eastern question was: “the promotion of
peace and goodwill among white nations, to start with; and when the
ambitions and the allotment of spheres of influence have been nicely
adjusted, then to see that the educational task of the Caucasian is
carried out in a right, a Christian, a practical, and sympathetic
fashion towards the other races and sub-species of humanity.” Sir
Harry believed that Great Britain was the last country in the world
which ought to oppose the legitimate colonial aspirations of any other
nation. There was every reason for the recognition of the economic and
moral bases of German expansion, and any dog-in-the-manger attitude on
the part of British statesmen, he was sure, would defeat the highest
interests of the Empire.[44]
Applying his principles to the problem of Teutonic aggrandizement in
the Ottoman Empire, Sir Harry Johnston advocated that the western
European nations should acknowledge the Austrian _Drang nach Osten_
as a legitimate and essential part of the German plans for a Central
European Federation and for the economic development of Turkey.
“The Turkish Sultanate would possibly not come to an end, but would
henceforth, within certain limits, be directed and dominated by German
councils. Germany in fact would become the power with the principal
‘say’ as to the good government and economic development of Asia Minor.
Syria might be constituted as a separate state under French protection,
and Judea might be offered to the Jews under an international
guarantee. Sinai and Egypt would pass under avowed British protection,
and Arabia (except the southern portion, which already lies within the
British sphere of influence) be regarded as a federation of independent
Arab States. For the rest, Turkey-in-Asia—less Armenia, which might
be handed over to Russia—would, in fact, become to Germany what Egypt
is to England—a kingdom to be educated, regenerated, and perhaps
transfused and transformed by the renewed percolation of the Aryan
Caucasian. Here would be a splendid outlet for the energies of both
Germany and Austria, sufficient to keep them contented, prosperous,
busy, and happy, for at least a century ahead.” Sir Harry believed
that obstructionist tactics on the part of Great Britain would promote
Prussianism within Germany, whereas, on the other hand, a frank
recognition of Germany’s claims in the Near East would provide Central
Europe with a safety valve which would “relieve pressure on France,
Belgium, and Russia, paving the way for an understanding on Continental
questions. Let us—if we wish to be cynical—welcome German expansion
with Kruger’s metaphor of the tortoise putting out his head. Germany
and Austria are dangerous to the peace of the world only so long as
they are penned up in their present limits.”[45]
One obvious disadvantage of the solution suggested by Sir Harry
Johnston was its total indifference to the wishes of the Ottoman Turks.
Apparently it was out of place to consider the welfare of Turkey in
a discussion of the Bagdad Railway question! Certainly there were
very few European statesmen who cared the least about the opinions
of Turks in the disposition of Turkish property. Among the few was
Viscount Morley, one of the old Gladstonian Liberals. Answering Lord
Curzon, in the House of Lords, March 22, 1911, Lord Morley, a member
of the Asquith cabinet, asserted the right of the Turks to determine
their own destinies: “A great deal of nonsense,” he said, “is talked
about the possible danger to British interests which may be involved
some day or other when this railway is completed, and there have been
whimsical apprehensions expressed. One is that it will constitute a
standing menace to Egypt ... because it would establish [by junction
with the Syrian and Hedjaz railways] uninterrupted communication
between the Bosporus and Western Arabia. _That would hardly be an
argument for Turkey to abandon railway construction on her own soil_,
whereas it overlooks the fact that the Sinai Peninsula intervenes. You
cannot get over this plain cardinal fact, that this railway is made on
Turkish territory by virtue of an instrument granted by the Turkish
Government.... I see articles in newspapers every day in which it is
assumed that we have the right there to do what we please. That is not
so. It is not our soil, it is Turkish soil, and the Germans alone are
there because the Turkish Government has given them the right to be
there.”[46]
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
[1] Sir William Andrew, _Memoir on the Euphrates Valley Route_ (London,
1857), _passim_; also _The Euphrates Valley Route to India_ (London,
1882); F. R. Chesney, _Narrative of the Euphrates Expedition_ (London,
1868); _The Proposed Imperial Ottoman Railway_, a prospectus issued by
the promoters (London, 1857); F. von Koeppen, _Moltke in Kleinasien_
(Hanover, 1883).
[2] _Cf._ article “Suez Canal” in _Encyclopedia Britannica_, Volume
26, p. 23. How similar were these objections to those subsequently
advanced in opposition to the Bagdad Railway! _Cf._, _e. g._, a
statement by Lord Curzon, _Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords, fifth
series_, Volume 7 (1911), pp. 583 _et seq._
[3] Andrew, _Memoir on the Euphrates Valley Route_, p. 225.
[4] _Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords_, fourth series, Volume 121
(1903), p. 1345; “The Bagdad Railway Negotiations,” in _The Quarterly
Review_, Volume 228 (1917), pp. 489–490; Baron Kuhn von Kuhnenfeld,
_The Strategical Importance of the Euphrates Valley Railway_ (English
translation by Sir C. W. Wilson, London, 1873); V. L. Cameron, _Our
Future Highway to India_, 2 volumes (London, 1880); A. Bérard, _La
route de l’Inde par la vallée du Tigre et de l’Euphrate_ (Lyons, 1887);
F. Jones, _The Direct Highway to the East considered as the Perfection
of Great Britain’s duties toward British India_ (London, 1873).
[5] _Supra_, pp. 66–67.
[6] _Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons_, Volume 120 (1903), pp.
1247–1248, 1358, 1361, 1364–1367, 1371–1374.
[7] Lord Mount Stephen had been president of the Canadian Pacific
Railway and of the Bank of Montreal. Lord Revelstoke was senior partner
in the firm of Baring Brothers & Company and a director of the Bank of
England.
[8] The participation of the three Great Powers was to be on the
basis of 25–25–25%, 15% was to be reserved for minor groups, and 10%
for the Anatolian Railway Company. The provisions of Article 12 of
the concession of 1903 were to be amended to establish a board of
directors of 30, upon which each of the principal participants should
be represented by 8 members. The remaining 6 members of the board were
to be designated by the Ottoman Government and the Anatolian Railway
Company. The directors were to be appointed by the original subscribers
so that sale or transfer of shares could not alter the proportionate
representation thus agreed upon.
[9] For the facts in this and the succeeding paragraph the author is
indebted to Dr. Arthur von Gwinner, managing director of the _Deutsche
Bank_; and to Sir Henry Babington Smith, erstwhile chairman of the
Ottoman Public Debt Administration, a partner of Sir Ernest Cassel,
president of the National Bank of Turkey, and a director of the Bank of
England. Dr. von Gwinner placed at the disposal of the author many of
the records of the _Deutsche Bank_ and of the Bagdad Railway Company,
and Sir Henry Babington Smith graciously volunteered to answer many
puzzling questions.
[10] _Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons_, Volume 121 (1903), pp.
271–272.
[11] The British banking houses interested in the Bagdad enterprise
were Baring Brothers, Sir Ernest Cassel, and Morgan-Grenfell Company.
_Cf._ _The Westminster Gazette_, April 24, 1903; _Stenographische
Berichte, XII Legislaturperiode, 2 Session_, Volume 260 (1910), p.
2181d. The bankers, of course, were not bound by the decision of the
Cabinet to withdraw from the negotiations; they still would have been
at liberty to invest in Bagdad Railway securities, as did the French
bankers. However, it has been the practice of British financiers
to accept the “advice” of the Foreign Office in the case of loans
which may lead to international complications. An analogous case in
American experience was the decision of prominent New York financial
institutions to withdraw from the Chinese consortium in 1913 because
of the avowed opposition of President Wilson to the terms of the loan
contract.
[12] _The Nineteenth Century_, Volume 65 (1909), pp. 1090–1091.
[13] _Supra_, pp. 30, 59–60.
[14] _Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons_, Volume 120, pp.
1360–1361; Volume 126, p. 108. The opinions of Mr. Gibson Bowles were
not cordially received by _The Scotsman_, which said, April 9, 1903,
“Mr. Gibson Bowles carried the House in imagination to the banks of the
Euphrates and Tigris. Germany is there seeking by means of a railway to
supersede our trade, and to serve herself heir to the wealth and empire
of ancient Babylon and Assyria. The member for King’s Lynn was, as
usual, not very well posted up on his facts. On this occasion he was so
entirely wrong-headed that no one on the opposition bench would agree
with him.... The outstanding moral of the debate was, indeed, that the
honorable member for King’s Lynn was much in want of a holiday.”
[15] Fraser, _op. cit._, pp. 42–43. The senior member of the firm of
Lynch Brothers was H. F. B. Lynch (1862–1913), who was widely known
as an authority on the Near East and who, as a Liberal member of
Parliament, 1906–1910, was able to call official attention to the
necessity for safeguarding British interests in Persia and Mesopotamia.
That he succeeded in convincing the Government of the importance
of his navigation concession is evidenced by the vigorous protests
filed by the British Government with the Young Turks in 1909, when
the latter attempted to operate competing vessels on the Tigris and
the Shatt-el-Arab. On this point see _Stenographische Berichte, XII
Legislaturperiode, 2 Session_, Volume 260 (1910), pp. 2174d _et seq._
Again in 1913–1914, the British Government refused to consider any
settlement of the Bagdad Railway question which did not adequately
protect the interests of the Lynch Brothers. _Infra_, pp. 258–265. Mr.
Lynch, however, was not an irreconcilable opponent of the _Deutsche
Bank_. He took the point of view that the Germans had rendered Turkey
a great service by the construction of the Anatolian Railways because
of the total lack of natural means of communication in the Anatolian
plateau. He urged that they were making a great mistake, however, to
extend the Anatolian system into Mesopotamia, where the Tigris and
Euphrates provided natural and logical avenues of trade for the Valley
of the Two Rivers. In Mesopotamia, he maintained, what was needed was
a development of the river traffic, not the construction of railways.
_Cf._ H. F. B. Lynch, “The Bagdad Railway,” _Fortnightly Review_, March
1, 1911, pp. 384–386.
[16] It will be recalled that the Hamburg-American Line established
a Persian Gulf service in 1906. _Supra_, pp. 108–109. Regarding the
activities of British shipping and commercial interests in opposing the
Bagdad Railway see _Diplomatic and Consular Reports_, No. 2950 (1902),
pp. 25 _et seq._, No. 3140 (1904), pp. 24 _et seq._; _The Times_, April
24, 1903.
[17] G. N. Curzon, _Persia and the Persian Question_ (2 volumes,
London, 1892), Volume I, p. 635; a similar view was set forth by Sir
Thomas Sutherland, of the P. & O., in a letter to _The Times_, April
27, 1903.
[18] E. Banse, _Auf den Spuren der Bagdadbahn_ (Weimar, 1913), Chapter
XI, _Die Wahrheit über die Bagdadbahn_, a critical analysis of the
value of the Railway in Eastern trade, pp. 145–146. _Cf._, also,
Dr. R. Hennig, “Der verkehrsgeographische Wert des Suez- und des
Bagdad-Weges,” in _Geographische Zeitschrift_, Volume 22 (1916), pp.
649–656.
[19] _Specifications_, Articles 24–25. It might be added that the
Company loyally observed this restriction; C. W. Whittall & Co.,
largest British merchants in Turkey so testified. _Anatolia_, p. 103;
von Gwinner, _loc. cit._, p. 1090. Sir Edward Grey said no complaints
of discrimination against British goods had come to the attention
of the Foreign Office. _Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons,_ 5
Series, Volume 53 (1913), pp. 392–393.
[20] _Diplomatic and Consular Reports_, No. 3140, p. 30.
[21] Consider the dedication of Lord Curzon’s _Persia and the Persian
Question_: “To the officials, military and civil, in India, whose hands
uphold the noblest fabric yet reared by the genius of a conquering
nation, I dedicate this work, the unworthy tribute of the pen to a
cause, which by justice or the sword, it is their high mission to
defend, but whose ultimate safeguard is the spirit of the British
people.”
[22] Woolf, _op. cit._, p. 24.
[23] Regarding the Anglo-Russian rivalry in the Middle East, _cf._
Rose, _op. cit._, Part II, Chapters I-IV; Curzon, _Persia and the
Persian Question_, Volume II, Chapter XXX.
[24] See a statement by Lord Lansdowne, in the House of Lords,
_Parliamentary Debates_, fourth series, Volume 121 (1903), p. 1347, and
a statement by Lord Curzon, _ibid._, fifth series, Volume 7 (1911),
pp. 583–587; also Curzon, _Persia and the Persian Question_, Volume
II, Chapter XXVII. The strategic importance of the Persian Gulf to the
British Empire was realized by foreign observers, as well as by English
statesmen. Writing in 1902, Admiral A. T. Mahan, an American, said,
“The control of the Persian Gulf by a foreign state of considerable
naval potentiality, a ‘fleet in being’ there based upon a strong
military port, would reproduce the relations of Cadiz, Gibraltar,
and Malta to the Mediterranean. It would flank all the routes to
the farther East, to India, and to Australia, the last two actually
internal to the Empire, regarded as a political system; and although
at present Great Britain unquestionably could check such a fleet, so
placed, by a division of her own, it might well require a detachment
large enough to affect seriously the general strength of her naval
position.” A. T. Mahan, _Retrospect and Prospect_ (New York, 1902),
pp. 224–225. Lord Curzon is said to have remarked that he “would not
hesitate to indict as a traitor to his country any British minister who
would consent to a foreign Power establishing a station on the Persian
Gulf.” A. J. Dunn, _British Interests in the Persian Gulf_ (London,
1907), p. 7. See also _The Persian Gulf_ (No. 76 of the Foreign Office
Handbooks); _Handbook of Arabia_, Volume I (Admiralty Intelligence
Division, London, 1916); Lovat Fraser, _India under Curzon and After_
(London, 1911).
[25] _Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords_, fourth series, Volume
121 (1903), pp. 1347–1348. Two observations should be made regarding
this quotation. First, it is included in every book I have consulted
on the Bagdad Railway, written since 1903, but in every instance the
last sentence has been omitted—a sentence which considerably alters
the spirit of the statement. Second, the German press, at the time,
considered that the warning was directed, not at the Bagdad Railway,
but at the rapid and alarming advance of Russia in Persia. _Cf._ an
analysis of foreign press comments in an article by J. I. de La Tour,
“Le chemin de fer de Bagdad et l’opinion anglaise,” in _Questions
diplomatiques et coloniales_, Volume 15 (1903), pp. 609–614—an
excellent digest.
[26] _Cf._ a statement by Lord Cranborne, Under-Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs, in _Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons_,
fourth series, Volume 101 (1902), p. 129. Although he was less than
forty years of age at the time of his appointment as Governor-General
of India (1898), the Right Honorable George Nathaniel Curzon, Baron
Curzon of Kedleston, even at that early age, had had wide experience
and training of the type so common among the masters of British
imperial destiny. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, and he traveled
widely in the Near East. He served as a member of Parliament from 1886
until 1898. He was Under-Secretary of State for India, 1891–1892;
Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1895–1898; Privy
Councillor, 1895.
[27] _Supra_, p. 34; _The Annual Register_, 1901, pp. 304–305; K.
Helfferich, _Die Vorgeschichte des Weltkrieges_, p. 129.
[28] Viscount Haldane, _Before the War_ (London, 1920), pp. 48–51;
Viscount Morley, _Recollections_ (New York, 1917), p. 238.
[29] _Infra_, pp. 239–244; _Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords_,
fifth series, Volume 7 (1911), pp. 583–587, 589. It is interesting to
contrast this opinion of a German trans-Mesopotamian railway with that
held by the same man when it was proposed that British capitalists
should construct such a line. Writing in 1892, Lord Curzon had this to
say regarding the project: “Its superficial attractions judiciously
dressed up in a garb of patriotism, were such as to allure many
minds; and I confess to having felt, without ever having succumbed
to, the fascination. Closer study, however, and a visit to Syria and
Mesopotamia have convinced me both that the project is unsound, and
that it does not, for the present, at any rate, lie within the domain
of practical politics.” Lord Curzon believed that a Mesopotamian
railway would be practically valueless for military purposes: “The
temperature of these sandy wastes is excessively torrid and trying
during the summer months and I decline to believe that during half the
year any general in the world would consent to pack his soldiers into
third class carriages for conveyance across those terrible thousand
miles, at least if he anticipated using them in any other capacity than
as hospital inmates at the end.” _Persia and the Persian Question_,
Volume I, pp. 633–635.
[30] _Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons_, fifth series, Volume 21
(1911), pp. 241–242.
[31] _Infra_, pp. 258–265.
[32] For the views of a typical British imperialist on the Persian
situation, _cf._, Curzon, _Persia and the Persian Question_, Volume
II, Chapter XXX; a later account is that of the American, W. Morgan
Shuster, _The Strangling of Persia_ (New York, 1912); _cf._, also, H.
F. B. Lynch, “Railways in the Middle East,” in _Proceedings of the
Central Asian Society_ (London), March 1, 1911.
[33] See P. Rohrbach, _Die Bagdadbahn_, p. 18; Reventlow, _op. cit._,
pp. 338–343. That Rohrbach’s frank avowal of the menace of the Bagdad
Railway to India and Egypt was not without influence in Great Britain
is evidenced by the fact that long quotations from _Die Bagdadbahn_
were read into the records of the House of Commons by the Earl of
Ronaldshay, on March 23, 1911. _Parliamentary Debates_, fifth series,
Volume 23, p. 628.
[34] Herr Scheidemann, in an eloquent speech to the Reichstag, March
30, 1911, pleaded with the German Government to be sympathetic with
the position in which Great Britain found herself. No nation with the
imperial responsibilities of Great Britain could afford to neglect to
take precautionary steps against the possibility of the Bagdad Railway
being used as a weapon of offense against Egypt, the Suez Canal, and
India. “Complications upon complications,” he said, “are certain to
arise as a result of the construction of the Bagdad Railway. But
we expect of our Government, at the very least, that in the course
of protecting the legitimate German economic interests which are
involved in the Bagdad Railway, it will leave no stone unturned to
prevent the development of Anglo-German hostility over the matter.
We want to do everything possible to effect a thorough understanding
with England. Only by such a policy can we hope to quiet the fears
of British imperialists that the Railway is a menace to the Empire.”
_Stenographische Berichte, XII Legislaturperiode, 2 Session_, Volume
266 (1911), pp. 5980c-5984b.
[35] _Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons_, fifth series, Volume 21
(1911), pp. 241–242.
[36] _Cf._ H. N. Brailsford, _The War of Steel and Gold_, Chapter III,
“The Egyptian Model.”
[37] _Supra_, pp. 181–182.
[38] André Tardieu, _France and the Alliances_ (New York, 1908), p. 46.
For M. Tardieu’s analysis of the causes of the growing Anglo-German
hostility, _cf._ pp. 48–57. It was in the latter part of April, 1903,
that the Bagdad Railway negotiations fell through. In May, Edward VII
paid an official visit to Paris; in October, an arbitration agreement
was signed by France and Great Britain. The following spring the
treaties constituting the Entente Cordiale were executed. Sir Thomas
Barclay, _Thirty Years’ Reminiscences_ (London, 1906), pp. 175 _et
seq._ For the text of these agreements _cf._ _Parliamentary Papers_,
Volume 103 (1905), No. Cd. 2384.
[39] For the text of the Anglo-Russian Entente, _cf._ _British and
Foreign State Papers_, Volume 100, pp. 555 _et seq._ Regarding the
nature of the Anglo-Russian rivalry in the Middle East and the effect
of the Bagdad Railway in hastening a settlement of that rivalry, _cf._
Edouard Driault, _La question d’Orient depuis ses origines jusqu’à la
paix de Sèvres_ (Paris, 1921), Chapter VIII, and pp. 273 _et seq._;
also Tardieu, _op. cit._, pp. 239–252, and Curzon, _op. cit._, Volume
II, Chapter XXX.
[40] Ernst Jäckh, _Die deutsch-türkische Waffenbrüderschaft_
(Stuttgart, 1915), pp. 17–18.
[41] Sir William Willcocks (1852- ) is one of the foremost authorities
on Egypt, India, and Mesopotamia. As a young man he was employed in
India by the Department of Public Works and for a period of eleven
years, 1872–1883, was engaged in the construction of the famous
irrigation works there. From 1883–1893, he was employed in a similar
capacity by the Egyptian Public Works and was largely responsible for
the development of irrigation in the Nile Valley. In 1898, he planned
and projected the Assuan Dam, which turned out to be the greatest
irrigation work in the East. In 1909, Sir William Willcocks became
consulting engineer to the Ottoman Ministry of Public Works, and was
responsible for the construction, 1911–1913, by the British firm of Sir
John Jackson, Ltd., of the famous Hindie barrage, the first step in the
irrigation of the Valley of the Two Rivers.
[42] _Mesopotamia_, p. 54, and _The Geographical Journal_, August, 1912.
[43] _The Recreation of Chaldea_ (Cairo, 1902). This suggestion led
to the absurd charge by Dr. Rohrbach that Sir William Willcocks was
actively promoting the establishment of a British colonial empire in
southern Mesopotamia. _German World Policies_, pp. 160–161. _Cf._,
also, _Diplomatic and Consular Reports_, No. 3140 (1903), p. 27.
[44] H. H. Johnston, _Common Sense in Foreign Policy_ (London, 1913),
pp. v-vii. A similar opinion was expressed by Colonel A. C. Yate, at
a meeting of the Central Asian Society, May 22, 1911. In answer to an
alarmist paper on the Bagdad Railway which had been read to the society
by André Chéradame, Colonel Yate made a spirited speech in which he
warned his countrymen that M. Chéradame proposed that they should
follow the same mistaken policy which had guided Lord Palmerston in
resistance to the construction of the Suez Canal. “We cannot pick up
every day,” he said, “a Lord Beaconsfield, who will repair the errors
of his blundering predecessors.... Because the German Emperor and his
instruments have adopted and put into practice the plans which Great
Britain rejected [for a trans-Mesopotamian railway], we are now,
forsooth, to pursue a policy which savours partly of ‘sour grapes’
and partly of ‘dog-in-the-manger,’ and which in either aspect will do
nothing to strengthen British hands and promote British interests.”
_Proceedings of the Central Asian Society_ (London), May 22, 1911, p.
19.
[45] Johnston, _op. cit._, pp. 50–51, 61. Sir Harry Johnston made an
extended lecture tour through Germany during 1912 for the purpose
of promoting Anglo-German friendship. For details of this trip see
Schmitt, _op. cit._, pp. 355–356. It is interesting to note how nearly
Sir Harry’s proposals corresponded with the terms of the treaties of
1913–1914. _Infra_, Chapter X. For a similar point of view, _cf._
Angus Hamilton, _Problems of the Middle East_ (London, 1909), pp.
178–180.
[46] _Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords_, fifth series, Volume 7
(1911), pp. 601–602. The italics are mine.