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.