BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
[1] On this point cf. M. Solovieff, La Terre Sainte et la société impériale de Palestine (Petrograd, 1892). The society there referred to was said to be liberally patronized by the Tsar and other members of the imperial family.
[2] For details of the Kapnist plan see The Times (London), December 17, 1898; The Euphrates Valley Railway—a prospectus (London, 1899).
[3] In a memorandum of June 10, 1899, to the Sultan, Dr. Kurt Zander, General Manager of the Anatolian Railway Company, said that, in accordance with the wishes of the Sultan—and “to avoid all obstacles and avert every possibility of opposition”—his Company sought to arrive at a satisfactory understanding with the Smyrna-Aidin and Smyrna-Cassaba railways. All proposals to the Smyrna-Aidin Company, however, “met with evasive answers, which finally resulted in a termination of negotiations.” Cf., also, E. Aublé, Bagdad—son chemin de fer, son importance, son avenir (Paris, 1917), pp. 9 et seq.
[4] For a copy of the text of this agreement the author is indebted to Mr. E. Rechnitzer. Summaries were published in The Times, August 10, 1899; Le Temps (Paris), August 15, 1899; Corps de droit ottoman, Volume IV, pp. 155–156.
[5] In June, 1899, the Anatolian Railway Company elected to its Board of Directors M. L. Rambert, of the Imperial Ottoman Bank, and in June, 1900, M. Gaston Auboyneau, of the same institution. The new directors replaced Mr. George Henry Maxwell Batten, of London, and Sir Edward F. G. Law, of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration. The refusal of the Smyrna-Aidin line to come to a working agreement with the Anatolian Company thus removed the last British directors from the board of the latter. Cf. Reports of the Anatolian Railway Company, 1898–1900, passim.
[6] A letter from Mr. E. Rechnitzer to the Sultan, dated August 16, 1899, accuses M. Constans of having publicly referred to the “accord” between French and German interests in Turkish railways. Dr. Karl Helfferich states that the agreement between the two railway companies was supplemented by a gentlemen’s agreement between the two ambassadors. Die Vorgeschichte des Weltkrieges (Berlin, 1919), p. 127. This would seem to be confirmed by André Chéradame, op. cit., pp. 48 et seq.
[7] The proposals previously made called for an absolute guarantee of several thousands of francs income per kilometre per annum. Mr. Rechnitzer’s plan called for “an annual guarantee of 15,000 francs in gross receipts per kilometre, the said guarantee to be paid exclusively out of the excess of the tithes of the vilayets through which the railway is to pass; it being understood that in the event that the excess of such tithes be not sufficient to defray the kilometric guarantee, the concessionaire shall have no redress against the Imperial Government on account of the insufficiency.” Memorandum of May 14, 1899, from Mr. Rechnitzer’s files. Although this plan had the great advantage of requiring no immediate payments from the Ottoman Treasury, it probably would have cost Turkey more in the long run, for the guarantee specified was excessively high. Compare with provisions of the Bagdad Railway concession of March, 1903, infra. Mr. Rechnitzer also asked for extensive port privileges in Alexandretta and in the port to be determined on the Persian Gulf. The chief features of the plan were outlined in a pamphlet published in London, July 29, 1899, entitled The Euphrates Valley Railway.
[8] Mr. Rechnitzer now has in his possession a beautiful watch—inlaid with a map of the Ottoman Empire, in precious stones, showing the route of the proposed Euphrates Valley Railway—which he presented to Abdul Hamid in 1899. He repurchased it at a public auction held in Paris after the Young Turk revolution of 1909.
[9] In a letter dated September 30, 1922, to the author Mr. Rechnitzer outlines the situation as follows: “My offer being much more favorable than that of the Germans, it seemed likely in August, 1899, that it would be accepted. Unfortunately the Transvaal War broke out in the autumn of that year, and the German Emperor, a few days after the declaration of war, specially came to London to ask our Government to give him a free hand in Turkey. It appears that there was an interview between the Emperor and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, who was more interested in Cecil Rhodes’ scheme in Africa than in my scheme in Turkey. As a consequence Sir Nicholas O’Connor was instructed to inform the Turkish Government that the British Government’s support was withdrawn from my offers.” It is only fair to add, however, that there may have been other factors in the situation. The Financial News (London), of August 17, 1899, intimated that Mr. Rechnitzer’s proposal did not have sufficiently strong financial backing; that it was more Austrian than British; that the support of the British Government was more formal than whole-hearted.
[10] Report of the Anatolian Railway Company, 1899, pp. 9–10; The Annual Register, 1899, p. 292. Simultaneously the Sultan granted the Deutsche Bank group a concession for the construction of port and terminal facilities at Haidar Pasha, across the Straits from Constantinople. Sweeping privileges were granted for the building of docks, stations, sidings, and quays to a subsidiary of the Anatolian Railway, the Haidar Pasha Port Company. The latter company completed a handsome station and terminal at Haidar Pasha in 1902, the year before the definitive Bagdad Railway concession. Furthermore, it entered into close coöperation with the Mahsoussie Steamship Company, a Government-owned company operating a ferry service between Constantinople and the Asiatic side of the Straits; in this manner adequate service was assured passengers and freight from European to Asiatic points. The text of the concession is to be found in Corps de droit ottoman, Volume III, pp. 342–351. Cf., also, Report of the Anatolian Railway Company, 1902, p. 8.
[11] Supra, pp. 31–34.
[12] The single exception was Mr. Rechnitzer’s plan, which provided that within five years of the award of the concession, the Sultan might require the construction of a spur from Alexandretta to Konia, on terms to be agreed upon between the Government and the concessionaire. The chief feature of Mr. Rechnitzer’s plan, however, unquestionably was the railway from Alexandretta to the Persian Gulf—i.e., the Syrian and Mesopotamian, not the Anatolian and Cilician, sections. Furthermore, there were political objectives connected with the Rechnitzer proposal which, however attractive to British imperialists, could not have been regarded with equanimity by the Sultan. The following are typical quotations from Mr. Rechnitzer’s prospectus: “It has long been the object of English statesmen to consolidate the position of England in the Persian Gulf, where British interests (both political and commercial) are now paramount. With a railway in this region controlled by British interests ... a very strong foothold would accrue to British influence” (p. 12). Among the advantages of the proposed railway are listed the following (pp. 17–18): “It will place under British control two important ports, one on the Mediterranean and the other on the Persian Gulf; it will strengthen British influence in Turkey and in the Persian Gulf, and indirectly, in Persia and Afghanistan; it will afford England powerful means of exercising her influence over the territory of Central Persia, and of establishing new commercial enterprises over an enormous area of unexploited country of exceptional wealth.”
[13] Quoted by A. D. C. Russell, “The Bagdad Railway,” in The Fortnightly Review, Volume 235 (1921), p. 312. Cf., also, Corps de droit ottoman, Volume IV, pp. 153 et seq.
[14] Pan-Islamism started as a religious and cultural revival but rapidly took on political and economic significance. Later, in connection with Turkish nationalism (see infra, Chapter IX), it became a serious international problem. A short, popular discussion of the rise of Pan-Islamism is Lothrop Stoddard’s The New World of Islam (New York, 1921), Chapters I, II, V. Cf., also, Mohammedan History, No. 57 of the Foreign Office Handbooks (London, 1920), Part I; G. Charmes, L’avenir de la Turquie: le pan-islamisme (Paris, 1883); A. J. Toynbee, Nationality and the War (London, 1915), pp. 399–411, and Turkey: a Past and a Future (New York, 1917); Tekin Alp, Türkismus und Pantürkismus (Weimar, 1915); C. Snouck Hurgronje, The Holy War, “Made in Germany” (New York, 1917). Regarding Abdul Hamid’s place in the Pan-Islamic movement cf. Mohammedan History, pp. 42–46.
[15] Great Britain, characteristically enough, took steps to protect her interests by reviving the Arabian caliphate—i.e., by supporting the claims of the Sherif of Mecca to the caliphate.
[16] Infra, pp. 127–128.
[17] Regarding British activities in Koweit, cf. infra, pp. 197–198.
[18] Infra, p. 149.
[19] Infra, pp. 155–157; Chéradame, op. cit., pp. 267 et seq.; K. Helfferich, Die Vorgeschichte des Weltkrieges (Berlin, 1919), pp. 124 et seq.
[20] The Times, October 28, 1898
[21] Annual Register, 1899, pp. 289–291; Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, Volume 120 (1903), p. 1247, Volume 126 (1903), p. 108; W. von Hohenzollern, My Memoirs, 1887–1918, pp. 84–86, 101–103.
[22] The Globe, August 10, 1899. Cf., also, The Morning Herald, August 10, 1899, and The Westminster Gazette, August 11, 1899.
[23] No attempt is made here to analyze the convention of March 18, 1902 (which had been preceded by a draft convention of January 8, 1902), as it was superseded by the convention of March 5, 1903. Cf. infra, pp. 70–71, 77–84. The text of the convention of 1902 is to be found as an appendix to R. LeCoq, Un chemin de fer en Asie Mineure (Paris, 1907). George von Siemens (1839–1901) did not live to see the consummation of his great plans for the development of Turkish railways. After his death in 1901 his work was taken up by his successor as Managing Director of the Deutsche Bank, Dr. Arthur von Gwinner. For a short account of the life of von Siemens see an obituary by Professor J. Riesser, in Bank-Archiv, No. 2, November, 1901. The work of von Siemens in the development of German economic enterprises in the Near East is told in a biography by his son-in-law, Dr. Karl Helfferich; Georg von Siemens (Leipzig, 1923).
[24] The Times, January 25, 1902.
[25] Journal officiel, Débats parlementaires, Chambre des députés, 1902, pp. 1468 et seq.
[26] The Times, January 25, 1902.
[27] Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, Volume 101, pp. 129, 597, 628, 669, Volume 120 (1903), p. 1371.
[28] Report of the Anatolian Railway Company, 1901, p. 17; The Times, January 25, 1902.
[29] Annual Register, 1902, pp. 290–291; Report of the Bagdad Railway Company, 1904, p. 7.
[30] La Société Impériale Ottomane du Chemin de Fer de Bagdad-Firman, Convention, Cahier des Charges, Statuts, in French and Turkish (Constantinople, 1905); translated into English in Parliamentary Papers, No. Cd. 5635, Volume CIII (1911), No. 1. Where references are here given to the convention itself, no preceding identifying word will be given, the citation being merely, e.g., Article I. The Statuts will be referred to as “By-Laws” and the Cahier des Charges as “Specifications.”
[31] Turco-German control of the Board of Directors was not inconsistent with the agreement of 1899 between the Deutsche Bank and the Imperial Ottoman Bank, which assured French interests only 40% of the shares of the Bagdad Railway Company. For details of the organization of the Company see the Report of the Anatolian Railway Company, 1903, pp. 4–7; By-Laws, passim.
[32] Articles 1–4, 7, 12, 37–39; Specifications, Article 30.
[33] In this connection see Sir W. M. Ramsay, The Historical Geography of Asia Minor (London, 1890); D. G. Hogarth, The Nearer East (London, 1902); Jastrow, op. cit., Chapter II; Sir C. W. Wilson, Murray’s Handbook for Asia Minor (London, 1895 and 1900); R. Fitzner, Anatolien-Wirtschaftsgeographie (Berlin, 1902); F. Dernburg, Auf deutscher Bahn in Kleinasien (Berlin, 1892). Good general accounts of the regions through which the Bagdad Railway was to run are: Baron E. von der Goltz, Reisebilder aus dem griechisch-türkischen Orient (Halle, 1902); R. Oberhummer and H. Zimmerer, Durch Syrien und Kleinasien (Berlin, 1899); E. Banse, Die Türkei; eine moderne Geographie (Berlin, 1916); Sir Mark Sykes, The Caliph’s Last Heritage—A Short History of the Turkish Empire (London, 1915), Part 2, Chapters II and IV. A well-informed article describing the projected route of the Bagdad railway is one by a member of the German technical commission, “Die anatolischen Eisenbahnen und ihre Fortsetzung bis zum persischen Golf,” in Archiv für Eisenbahnwesen, Volume 26 (1903), pp. 75–90.
[34] For a description of the line from Konia to Adana, including an historical sketch of the principal towns served by the railway, cf. Karl Baedeker, Konstantinopel und das westliche Kleinasien (Leipzig, 1905), pp. 156–172, and Konstantinopel, Balkanstaaten, Kleinasien, Archipel, Cypern (second edition, Leipzig, 1914), pp. 270–306, generously supplied with excellent maps.
[35] A popular account of the engineering difficulties facing the construction of the railway from Adana to Aleppo is to be found in The Scientific American, supplement, Volume 51 (1901), pp. 21248–21249.
[36] Cf. W. H. Hall (of the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut), The Near East (New York, 1920), particularly an interesting map, p. 174. According to the convention of 1903, Article 1, Aleppo was to be connected with the main line by a branch from Tel-Habesh, but in 1910 the route was changed, on petition of the inhabitants, to include Aleppo as a station on the Bagdad line itself. Report of the Bagdad Railway Company, 1910, p. 8. Statistics regarding the population of Aleppo and other cities along the line are taken, unless otherwise indicated, from the Statesman’s Year Book, 1903, passim.
[37] Article 38; “The Trade of the Mesopotamian Valley,” in Commerce Reports, No. 280 (Washington, 1912), pp. 1050–1065, and No. 256 (1913), pp. 350–358; Karl Baedeker, Palestine and Syria, with the chief routes through Mesopotamia and Babylonia (fourth edition, Leipzig, 1906), pp. 351–411.
[38] Valentine Chirol, The Middle Eastern Question, or Some Political Problems of Indian Defence (New York, 1903), pp. 179–182.
[39] This is the distance by the Tigris and the Shatt-el-Arab; as the crow flies, the distance is about 150 miles shorter.
[40] Regarding the Lynch Brothers see David Fraser, The Short Cut to India (London, 1909), pp. 42 et seq.; Mesopotamia, p. 30; The Near East, August 11, 1916, p. 358; infra, pp. 190–191.
[41] Article 1, which describes in detail the route of the Bagdad Railway and its branches.
[42] Chirol, op. cit., p. 179; Supplement to Daily Consular and Trade Reports, Annual Series (Washington, 1915).
[43] The distances on the Bagdad Railway may be estimated as follows:
| Haidar Pasha to Ismid | 91 | kilometres |
| Ismid to Eski Shehr | 174 | ” |
| Eski Shehr to Konia | 444 | ” |
| Konia to Basra | 2,264 | ” |
| Branch lines, about | 800 | ” |
| -—- | ||
| Total | 3,773 | kilometres |
or approximately 2,400 miles. This does not include the section of the Anatolian Railway from Eski Shehr to Angora, a distance of 311 kilometres, or 194 miles additional. The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railway from Chicago to Los Angeles is 2,246 miles in length. The distance from Chicago to San Francisco via the Chicago and Northwestern-Union Pacific system is 2,261 miles. Official Guide of the Railways of the United States October, 1921, pp. 679, 825.
[44] Cf., e.g., T. W. Overlach, Foreign Financial Control in China (New York, 1919), passim; La Gaceta Oficial of the Republic of Cuba for the years 1911 and 1912, regarding the Ferrocarril de la Costa Norte de Cuba; the Statesman’s Year Book, 1903, p. 1044.
[45] The average population per square mile in eastern Anatolia was 27, in northern Syria 31, in Mesopotamia 13.
[46] Diplomatic and Consular Reports, 1903, No. 3140, pp. 26–27; Sir William Willcocks, The Recreation of Chaldea (Cairo, 1903).
[47] This financial assistance was granted at the rate of 11,000 francs per kilometre, payable annually throughout the ninety-nine years of the concession. The obligation was capitalized and met by the issue of 4% bonds as here described.
[48] Bagdad Railway Loan Contract, March 5, 1903. M. Léon Berger, President of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, and a French citizen, was one of the signatories of this document. The bonds of the loan were issued in denominations of 500 francs, 408 marks, 20 pounds sterling, 22 pounds Turkish, and 245 Dutch florins, in order to facilitate their sale in the international securities markets. The Deutsche Bank was made fiscal agent for all transactions in connection with the loan, with the single qualification that it was to appoint as its Paris agent the Imperial Ottoman Bank, representing the French interests in the enterprise. The syndicate apparently made a profit of over 2,500,000 francs on the transaction, as the bonds were delivered to the concessionaires, under Article 35 of the Convention, valued at 81–1/2% of par but were sold at 86.40.
[49] Articles 35 and 37.
[50] Articles 6, 10, 22, 27.
[51] Cf. W. A. Dunning, Reconstruction, Political and Economic, 1865–1877 (New York, 1907), pp. 145, 227; H. V. Poor, Manual of the Railroads of the United States (New York, 1869), pp. xlvi-xlvii.
[52] Supra, p. 11.
[53] Articles 13, 24, 25, 33; Specifications, Article 4.
[54] Articles 9 and 23.
[55] Infra, pp. 190–191.
[56] Articles 5, 18, 29, 34.
[57] Article 29; Specifications, Articles 21, 24, 25, 29, 30.
[58] Articles 15, 26, 45; Specifications, Article 26.
[59] Articles 20 and 21. Another sop to Turkish pride was Article 46, which required the Company to contribute annually to the Constantinople Poorhouse the sum of £500.
[60] The Times, March 14, 1903, contained a report of this secret appendix. A denial was issued by the Berlin National Zeitung of March 18, 1903, but the existence of the supplementary agreement was confirmed by Dr. von Gwinner in 1909 (op. cit., p. 1092). Djavid Bey, in a memorandum to the author, has stated that the Ottoman Government considered this appendix of the utmost importance.
[61] A proviso of the concession of 1903 was that the Deutsche Bank was to float an Ottoman Four Per Cent Loan of March, 1903, to an amount of about $10,000,000. Parliamentary Papers, 1920, No. Cmd. 964, pp. 57–58.