Russia Voices Her Displeasure
Russian objections to the Bagdad Railway were put forth as early as 1899, the year in which the Sultan announced his intention of awarding the concession to the Deutsche Bank. The press of Petrograd and Moscow roundly denounced the proposed railway as inimical to the vital economic interests of Russia. It was claimed that the new line would offer serious competition to the railways of the Caspian and Caucasus regions, that it would menace the success of the new Russian trans-Persian line, and that it might prove to be a rival even of the Siberian system.[1] The extension of the existing Anatolian Railway into Syria, it was asserted, would interfere with the realization of a Russian dream of a railway across Armenia to Alexandretta—a railway which would give Russian goods access to an all-year warm water port on the Mediterranean. The Mesopotamian sections of the line, with their branches, might open to German competition the markets of Persia and, later, of Afghanistan. If German capital should develop the grain-growing possibilities of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, what would happen to the profits of the Russian landed aristocracy? And if the oil-wells of Mesopotamia were as rich as they were said to be, what would be the fate of the South Russian fields? The Tsar was urged to oppose the granting of the kilometric guarantee to the concessionaires, on the ground that the increased charges on the Ottoman Treasury would interfere with payment of the indemnity due on account of the War of 1877.[2]
Russian objections to the Bagdad Railway did not meet with a sympathetic reception in England. The Engineer, of August 11, 1899, in an editorial “Railways in Asia Minor,” for example, expressed its firm opinion that many of the demands for the protection of Russian economic interests in Turkey were specious. “The world has yet to learn,” ran the editorial, “that Russia allows commercial considerations to play any great part in her ideas of constructing railways; the Imperial authorities are influenced mainly by the policy of political expediency. The commercial competition thus foreseen by Russia is put forward merely as a stop-gap until Russia can get time and money to repeat in Asia Minor the methods of which she has made such success in Persia and the Far East.” Other British opinion was of like character.
The Russian claim for exclusive control of railway construction in northern Anatolia met with equally bitter denunciation. The London Globe, of August 10, 1899, characterized as “impudence” the intention of the Russian Government “to regard Asiatic Turkey as a second Manchuria, on the pretence that the whole country has been mortgaged to Russia for payment of the Turkish war indemnity. If this preposterous claim were admitted, not only the development of Asia Minor but the opening of another short-cut to the East might be delayed until the end of the next century. Russia had so many ambitious and costly projects on hand at present that her nearly bankrupt treasury could not meet any fresh drain, and especially one of such magnitude as that in question. The policy of her Government, therefore, is to preserve Asia Minor as a tabula rasa on which the Russian pen can write as it pleases hereafter. It is a cool project, truly, but the success which has attended similar Russian endeavors in the Far East will not, we undertake to predict, meet with repetition.”
The Russian Government, meanwhile, was interposing serious objections to the Bagdad Railway. M. Zinoviev, the Tsar’s minister at Constantinople, informed the Sublime Porte that the proposed extension of the Anatolian Railways from Angora across Armenia to Mosul and Bagdad would be a strategic menace to the Caucasus frontier and, as such, could not be tolerated. If Russian wishes in the matter were not respected, immediate measures would be taken to collect all arrears—amounting to over 57,000,000 francs—of the indemnity due the Tsar under the Treaty of Berlin (1878). The outcome of these demands was submission by the Sultan’s Government. The proposed Angora-Kaisarieh-Diarbekr route was abandoned in favor of one extending from Konia, through the Cilician Gates of the Taurus Mountains, to Adana, Aleppo, and Mosul—the latter being the route over which the Bagdad Railway actually was constructed. The discussions between the Russian and Ottoman Governments subsequently were crystallized and confirmed by the so-called Black Sea Agreement of 1900, which pledged the Sultan to award no further concessions for railways in northern Anatolia or Armenia except to Russian nationals or to syndicates approved by the Tsar, and, furthermore, to award such Russian concessionaires terms at least as favorable as those to be granted the Bagdad Railway Company.[3]
The agreement thus reached, however, satisfied Russia only temporarily. In December, 1901, M. Witte, Imperial Minister of Finance at Petrograd, stated categorically that he considered the construction of the Bagdad Railway by any Power other than Russia a menace to the imperial interests of the Tsar. Proposals for the internationalization of the line he asserted to be chimerical; in his opinion the nationals of one Power would be certain to control the administration of the enterprise. The Tsar was determined that Russian capitalists should have nothing to do with the Railway; Russian capital, for a time at least, should be conserved for industrial development at home. “The Government of Russia,” he concluded, “is more interested in devoting its available resources to the construction of new railways within the Empire than it is in promoting an enterprise destined to offer competition to Russia’s railways and industries.”[4] In 1902 and again in 1903, M. Witte made similar statements, asserting that he saw no reason for changing his point of view.[5]
Witte’s words carried weight in Russia. As an erstwhile railway worker he knew the great economic importance of railways. During his régime as Minister of Finance (1893–1903) an average of 1,400 miles of rails was laid down annually in Russia; the Transcaspian and Transcaucasian systems were constructed, and the Siberian Railway was pushed almost to completion. He foresaw that one day these railways would be powerful weapons in the commercial and political expansion of an industrialized Russia. As an official in charge of troop movements during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 he had learned to understand the function of railways in offensive and defensive warfare. Although he considered it wasteful to construct railways for military purposes alone, he believed that every railway was of strategic value; in fact, he looked upon railways as the most important single factor in national preparedness. As the foremost protagonist of Russia’s tariff war with the German Empire he was opposed to any plan which promised to promote German commerce and to open up new resources and new markets to German industry. As a native of the Caucasus region and as an ardent advocate of colonial expansion Witte looked forward to the time when Russia herself— possessed of capital for the purpose—should dominate the transportation system of Asiatic Turkey.[6]
It is questionable, however, if the Bagdad Railway really threatened any important Russian economic interests. The railways of southern Russia, so far from being injured by competition with the proposed new railways of Turkey, would be almost certain to profit from any increase of trade in the region of the Black Sea. The Russian dream of a railway to Alexandretta was still very much of a dream; but even if the contrary had been the case, its construction for peaceful purposes would not have been hindered by the Bagdad plan. The claim that a trans-Mesopotamian railway would compete with the Far Eastern traffic of the Siberian Railways was purely fantastic; it overlooked the obvious fact that an ideal shipping route, like a straight line, is the shortest distance between two points. It would be at least a generation before Mesopotamian grain and oil could play a prominent part in the Russian market.[7]
But with Russian political interests the case was different. Ever since the days of Peter the Great, the Russian Tsars had persistently and relentlessly continued their efforts to obtain a “window” on the Mediterranean. This historical trend toward the open sea led to a well-defined intention on the part of Russia, in one way or another, to take Constantinople from the Turks. The dynastic interests of Russia were reënforced by commercial considerations. “Most of Russia’s southern trade is bound to pass through the Bosporus. Her wheat and hides, her coal and oil cannot reach the European markets any other way; her manganese and petroleum are inaccessible to other nations if they cannot find an outlet from the Caucasus to the Dardanelles.” During the Turco-Italian War the closing of the Straits for a few days was said to have cost Russian shipping about eight million francs.[8] Bonds of religion and race enlisted Russian sympathy in the struggle of the Balkan states to win independence from Turkey—a cause which harmonized with the Russian ambition to bring about the disintegration of Turkey-in-Europe. The rise of German influence at Constantinople—of which the Anatolian and Bagdad Railway concessions were a tangible manifestation—had been a source of annoyance to Russia, not only because it prevented Russian domination of Turkish affairs and because it strengthened the position of Austria-Hungary in the Balkans, but also because it tended to strengthen Turkish military power. It was annoying enough to witness the rising political and economic power of Germany in the Near East; it was more annoying to realize that, under German guidance, the Turks might experience an economic and military renaissance which would end once and for all the Russian hope of possessing ancient Byzantium.
Strategically the construction of the Bagdad Railway was a real menace to Russian ambitions in the Near East. The completion of the line would enable the Ottoman Government to effect a prompt mobilization along the Armenian front. For example, the Fifth Turkish Army Corps, from Damascus, and the Sixth Corps, from Bagdad—which in the War of 1877 arrived on the field after a series of forced marches, minus a large number of its effectives, too late to save Kars or to raise the siege of Erzerum—could be brought quickly by rail from Syria and Mesopotamia to Angora for the defence of northern Anatolia. In the event of a Russo-Turkish war such a maneuver would render extremely precarious a Russian invasion of Armenia or a Russian advance on Constantinople along the south shore of the Black Sea. In a general European war in which both Russia and Turkey might be involved the existence of this railway line would make possible a Turkish stroke at the southern frontier of Russia, thus diverting troops from the European front. That the German General Staff was not ignorant of these possibilities is certain because of the presence in Turkey, during this time, of General von der Goltz.[9]
The Russian Government and the Russian press were fully aware of the menace of the Bagdad Railway to Russian imperial interests. That the Tsar did not offer serious resistance to the construction of the line was due to the rise of serious complications in the Far East, the crushing defeats of his army and navy in the War with Japan, friction with Great Britain in Persia and in Central Asia, and the outbreak of a revolutionary movement at home. But the Russian press called upon French citizens to show their loyalty to the Alliance by refusing to participate in the financing of the Railway.[10]
The plaintive call of the Russians, however, did not fall on altogether sympathetic ears in the Republic; a conflict of interests led some French citizens to invest in the Railway even though it was denounced by their Government.