Baghdad Railway

“ The extension, therefore, was likely to be a costly business, the total length of the Baghdad Railway proper, apart from the Anatolian system, being, as projected, about 1,350 miles, of [336] which, however, only about 600 miles were, in June, 1915, available for traffic. [76] Admitting the desirability of opening up Mesopotamia to commercial and agricultural development, it may, nevertheless, be asked, were there other motives—and motives to which still greater weight might have been attached—for this expansion of the earlier designs? ”

“ I shall have no intelligent remarks to make on the historic spots we passed, journeying slowly through this country so rich with still undiscovered monuments of ancient times; a country which is also destined to become, as civilisation advances with the Baghdad Railway, the centre of future political interest. ”

“ Some portions of these railways have been more or less dismantled during the war, viz., the line between Alexandretta and Erzin on the branch of the Baghdad Railway, the Damascus-Mzerib section, the TripoliHoms line, the Jaffa-Jerusalem line between Jaffa and Ramle, and the Deraa-Ma'an section, and the greater portion of the Deraa-Bosra eski Sham section on the Hejaz main line. ”

“ Germany's reasons for seeking to construct the Baghdad Railway, its branches and connections, to the full extent of the programme laid down, were, not simply the development of new trade routes, as certain inspired representations have sought to make the world believe, and not simply the gain of various other economic advantages, but (1) a desire to increase German influence over Turkey; to strengthen her military and other resources with a view to employing them eventually in the advancement of Germany's own interests ”

“ Germany and the Baghdad Railway.
We cannot, moreover, remain blind to the fact that Russia is no longer the only European power that turns covetous eyes towards the Persian Gulf. The German conquest of Asia Minor by railway may for the present claim to mean nothing more than a policy of 'peaceful penetration.' But the methods of German diplomacy at Constantinople itself, and of German Welt-politik in other parts of the world, bid us be careful how we accept German assurances with regard to the Baghdad Railway. ”

“ While in general the Government furnishes carts, these are far from sufficient, and the railway transportation has in most cases had to be paid for by the people themselves. The local section of the Baghdad Railway was a great convenience, nevertheless, in furthering the march of the exiles, but unfortunately of late its services have been considerably required for military transport purposes, and the Armenians have consequently had to find other means of conveyance or else to walk. ”

“ The journey to Eski-Shehr was pleasant, although the trains were slow and stopped for a considerable time at each station. There are no express trains on the Baghdad Railway. There was, however, no paint on the windows of the carriages, for which I was devoutly thankful, and the carriages themselves were quite comfortable. As we sped along I was much struck by the number of German non-commissioned officers that I saw working and cultivating the land, which between Constantinople and Konia is [Pg 115] for the most part fertile, in co-operation with the Turkish farmers. ”

“ One is thus led to the conclusion that Koweit, as the [343] terminus of the south-eastern branch of the Baghdad Railway, and within four days of Bombay, would have been as vital a point for British interests as the terminus of the south-western branch within about twelve hours of Egypt; while the possession of this further advantage by Germany would have been in full accord with the proposition laid down by Rohrbach and others as to the line of policy Germany should adopt for "bringing England herself into a dangerous position." ”

“ We may see trains at Baghdad in a few years, but the engineers who are constructing the railway keep it{350} enveloped in mystery now, and allow no man to approach without an order from the Governor-General of the town. ”

“ Should there be any intention of eventually making a railway from the coast to Kasvin and Hamadan, there to meet a line to Baghdad, then it would be the best course in every way to connect Resht with Baku by a railway along the coast, passing through Astara and Lenkoran.
The coast country is famous for its rice, which could be extensively cultivated, and the resources in forest and fishery produce are great. There would be considerable local traffic as the country opened up, and the through trade in oil from Baku would be a paying one. ”

“ The most effectual guarantee against such a contingency, and one to which Germany's consent should be readily given if she is really innocent of any political arriere-pensée, is that the eastern section of the great trunk railway—say from the Gulf to Baghdad, together with the proposed branch on to the Persian frontier—should be built, administered, and worked by this country. It is a demand we are fully entitled to make, for the valley of the Tigris and the Euphrates has been opened up exclusively by British enterprise. ”

“ Kafirs anciently in, 132 Lord's and Wood's mission to, 402 Moorcroft's journey to, 444 Railway across uplands to, impracticability of, 523 Routes to, compared, 414 Wood's views on, 436-7 Badakshan (town) (? Jirm) , 273-5 Badakshani transported by Murad Beg, 432, 505 Badghis, 235, 236, 237 Bado river, 338-9 Baghdad: Masson at, 368 Railway from, via Hamadan and Kum, question as to, 322 Baghlan, 90, 261, 421, 505, 511; Greek settlements about, 435 Baghlan river, 434 ”

“ The conquest of Egypt by a Mohammedan Power, such as Turkey, might, in addition, have a dangerous effect on her 60,000,000 Mohammedan subjects in India, besides being to her prejudice in Afghanistan and Persia.
Turkey, however, can never dream of recovering Egypt until she controls a fully-developed railway system in Asia Minor and Syria; until, by the extension of the Anatolian Railway to Baghdad, she can resist an attack by England on Mesopotamia; until her army has been increased and improved ”

“ When that happy consummation is reached, new cities may grow up and flourish beside the ruins of the old centres of Babylonian culture.
With the revival of agriculture will come the revival of commerce. Ancient trade routes will then be reopened, and the slow-travelling caravans supplanted by speedy trains. A beginning has already been made in this direction. The first modern commercial highway which is crossing the threshold of Babylonia's new Age is the German railway through Asia Minor, North Syria, and Mesopotamia to Baghdad. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No road has ever been more carefully or more solidly built than is the Bagdad Railway. Roadbed, culverts, revetments, bridges are of the strongest and most durable materials. The sleepers are of metal, while the steel rails are specially made for sharp curves and fast and heavy trains. German engineers declare that they are the heaviest in existence. At a time when the heaviest rails used in the United States weighed one hundred pounds per lineal yard, those selected for the Bagdad Railroad weighed twenty per cent more. ”

“ Every person and everything destined for the Bagdad front or for the invasion of Egypt has to be transported over these mountains. So also have rails for the completion of the Aleppo-to-Bagdad railway. These tunnels are expected to be finished this year—when it will be too [180] late. From Aleppo the Syrian railway runs south through Damascus to Medina and Mecca in Arabia. Branches reach the Levant seaports of Tripoli, Beirut, and Haifa. Another railway was started from Aleppo to Bagdad shortly before the war, and construction begun at both ends. ”

“ The Government was sincere in its determination that the railway should become a powerful instrument in the economic development of the backward provinces of the empire. A significant clause specified that the section between Bagdad and Basra should not be placed in operation before the section between Konia and Bagdad should have been opened to traffic, although immediate operation of trains on the former section would have enabled the Company to compete with the valuable trade of the Lynch Brothers on the Tigris. ”

“ Similarly, the South African traffic would be diverted at Aleppo down the Syrian corridor to Cairo and on to Khartoum in the Sudan, to be continued some day over whatever rail-and-ferry route is finally chosen for the Cape-to-Cairo system. It is by no means to be assumed that the Bagdad Railway would have proved itself a sound commercial proposition or that the world is in immediate need of those land lines to India and South Africa of which it would have formed a part. ”

“ 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 or194 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 ”

“ 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 the192 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! ”

“ The trains were fitted out with anti-aircraft guns, for the Turkish aeroplanes occasionally tried to "lay eggs," a by no means easy affair with a moving train as a target. Whatever the reason was, and I never succeeded in discovering it, the trains invariably left Baghdad in the wee small hours, and as the station was on the right bank across the river from the main town, and the boat bridges were cut during the night, we used generally, when returning to the front, to spend the first part of the night sleeping on the station platform. ”

“ 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 Osten158d, Cologne, Munich, and Vienna. ”

“ By 1908, nevertheless, Turkish fiscal affairs were in a sufficiently satisfactory state to enable the Government to conclude arrangements for the construction of succeeding sections of the Bagdad Railway. On June 2 of that year an imperial iradé was granted authorizing the extension of the line from Bulgurlu to Aleppo and thence eastward to El Helif (near Nisibin) , a distance of some eight hundred and forty kilometres. ”

“ Every yard of the Bagdad Railway which is laid brings the owner of the railway nearer to India. What Alexander performed and Napoleon undoubtedly planned can be achieved by a third treading in their footsteps. England views the Bagdad Railway as a very real and threatening danger to herself—and rightly so. She can never undo or annul its effects. [176]
The increasingly hostile attitude of the Entente Cordiale toward the Bagdad Railway, the violent ebullitions of the press of the rival powers portended trouble. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Both England and France were offered a minor share in the enterprise, but refused. The Germans thus remained in full control, at the same time obtaining all the French capital they needed through Swiss banks.
The Bagdad Railway has been a nightmare resting heavily on all Europe for eighteen years—ever since the announcement in 1899 of the concession granted to the Anatolian Railway Company. No step ever taken by any European power anywhere has caused so much trouble, given rise to so many complications, and has been such a constant menace to the peace of the world. ”

“ Itself a project of great promise for4 the economic and political regeneration of the Near East, it became the source of bitter international rivalries which contributed to the outbreak of the Great War. It is one of the tragedies of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that the Trans-Siberian Railway, the Suez Canal, and the Bagdad Railway—potent instruments of civilization for the promotion of peaceful progress and material prosperity—could not have been constructed without occasioning imperial friction, political intrigues, military alliances, and armed conflict. ”