Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Bagdad Railway: A study in imperialism

by Edward Mead Earle

The Young Turks Conciliate Great Britain

The Bagdad negotiations of 1910–1911 between Sir Ernest Cassel and Dr. von Gwinner, on the one hand, and the British and Ottoman Governments, on the other, came to naught, it will be recalled, because of the refusal of Sir Edward Grey to consent to an increase in the Turkish customs duties. The Sublime Porte was unwilling to grant the economic concessions demanded by Great Britain as the price of her assistance in Ottoman financial stabilization. But the Young Turks were shrewd enough to keep the door open for further negotiations by removing the chief political objection of England to the Bagdad enterprise—namely, that it menaced British imperial interests in the region of the Persian Gulf. In the convention of March 21, 1911, with the Bagdad Railway Company, the Ottoman Government reserved to itself considerable latitude in the disposition of the sections of the line beyond Bagdad.[20]

Conversations were resumed in July, 1911, when the Turkish minister in London solicited of the Foreign Office a further statement of the conditions upon which British objections to the Bagdad Railway might be waived. He was informed that English acquiescence might be forthcoming if the Bagdad-Basra section of the railway were constructed by a company in which British, French, German, Russian, and Turkish capital should share equally; if adequate guarantees were obtained regarding the protection of British imperial interests in southern Mesopotamia and Persia; if English capital were granted important navigation rights on the Shatt-el-Arab, including complete exemption of British ships and British goods from Ottoman tolls; if safeguards were provided against discriminatory and differential tariffs on the Bagdad system.

These proposals met with only partial acceptance by the Ottoman Government. Turkey was willing to internationalize the southernmost sections of the Bagdad Railway, but under no circumstances would she permit Russian participation in an enterprise which was so vital to the defence of the Sultan’s Empire. Turkey was prepared to discuss with England measures for the protection of legitimate British interests in the Middle East, provided there be no further infringement on the sovereign rights of the Sultan in southern Mesopotamia. Turkey agreed that the principle of the economic open door should be scrupulously observed throughout the Ottoman Empire; therefore she could not agree to discriminatory treatment in favor of British commerce on the Shatt-el-Arab, the Tigris, and the Euphrates. Upon these conditions the Ottoman minister at London was authorized to continue negotiations in the most friendly spirit.[21]

The Agadir crisis, which threatened war between England and Germany, and the Tripolitan War, which diverted Turkish attention from domestic reform to defence of the Empire, unfortunately led to a suspension of the Anglo-Turkish conversations. They were not resumed until 1913, when Turkey found a breathing spell between the first and second phases of the First Balkan War.

During the interim, however, steps were taken to remove the obstacles which stood in the way of an Anglo-German understanding. In February, 1912, Lord Haldane visited Berlin as the guest of the Kaiser to discuss curtailment of the naval programs of the two Powers and to agree upon other measures which would effect a rapprochement between Wilhelmstrasse and Downing Street. As regards the Bagdad Railway, Lord Haldane informed the German Government that he stood upon the position he had taken in 1907—that Great Britain was prepared to grant its consent to the enterprise if British political interests in Mesopotamia were adequately safeguarded.[22] A few months later, Baron Marschall von Bieberstein—who for fifteen years had guided Germany’s destiny in the Near East—was transferred from Constantinople to the embassy at London, as the first step in an attempt to reconcile British imperial interests with German diplomatic hegemony in Turkey. Almost simultaneously, Sir Harry Johnston, whose enthusiasm for German ventures in Asia Minor has already been mentioned,[23] began a quasi-official lecture tour in Germany to urge a sane settlement of the Near Eastern tangle. Another important development was the appointment as German Minister of Foreign Affairs, in January, 1913, of Herr von Jagow, who believed that a great European war was inevitable unless England and Germany could come to terms on the Turkish question.[24]

In this manner the stage was set for a resumption of Anglo-Turkish conversations on the Bagdad Railway. In February, 1913, Hakki Pasha, minister plenipotentiary and extraordinary of the Ottoman Government, arrived in London with instructions to leave no stone unturned to settle outstanding differences with Great Britain. For almost four months Hakki Pasha and Sir Edward Grey discussed the problems of the Near East and conferred with Herr von Kühlmann and Prince Lichnowsky, of the German embassy at London, regarding the general terms of a tripartite settlement of the economic and political questions at issue. In May, 1913, a full agreement was reached upon the following wide range of subjects: regularization of the legal position in Turkey of British religious, educational, and medical institutions; pecuniary claims of Great Britain against the Ottoman Empire; the Turkish veto on the borrowing powers of Egypt; Turco-Persian boundary disputes, particularly in so far as they affected oil lands; navigation of the Tigris, Euphrates, and Shatt-el-Arab; irrigation of the Mesopotamian valley; the status of Koweit. The settlements agreed upon were ratified by a series of treaties between Great Britain and Turkey, notably those of July 29, and October 21, 1913, and of June, 1914. Reconciliation of British and German interests was reserved for discussion between London and Berlin.[25]

In so far as concerned the Bagdad Railway, the substance of the Anglo-Turkish agreements of 1913 is as follows:

1. Turkey recognized the special position of Great Britain in the region of the Persian Gulf. Therefore, although Great Britain acknowledged the suzerainty of the Sultan over Koweit, the Ottoman Government pledged a policy of non-interference in the affairs of the principality. The existing treaties between the Sheik and Great Britain were confirmed.

2. The terminus of the Bagdad Railway was to be Basra, unless and until Great Britain should give consent to an extension of the line to the Persian Gulf.

3. In order to assure equality of treatment for all, regardless of nationality or other considerations, the Ottoman Government agreed that two British citizens should be elected to the Board of Directors of the Bagdad Railway Company.

4. Exclusive rights of navigation by steamers and barges on the Tigris, Euphrates, and Shatt-el-Arab were granted to the Ottoman River Navigation Company, to be formed by Baron Inchcape, chairman of the Peninsular and Oriental and the British India Steam Navigation Companies. The Navigation Company, in which Turkish capital was to be offered a fifty per cent participation, was to have wide powers for the improvement and regulation of all navigable streams in Mesopotamia, in cooperation with a commission to be appointed by the Ottoman Government. Lord Inchcape’s concession was for a period of sixty years, with optional renewals for ten-year periods.

5. It was agreed, however, that the Bagdad Railway and Inchcape concessions were without prejudice to the rights of the Lynch Brothers, which were specifically reaffirmed. The Lynch Brothers, in fact, were granted the privilege of adding another steamer to their equipment, with the single restriction that it fly the Turkish flag.

6. The British Government agreed that no navigation rights of its nationals would be construed as permitting interference with the development of Mesopotamia by irrigation, and the Ottoman Government guaranteed that no irrigation works would be permitted to divert navigable streams from their course.

7. In return for these, and other, assurances and concessions, Great Britain consented to support an increase of 4% in the customs duties of the Ottoman Empire.

The terms of this settlement were hailed by the English press as an admirable solution of the Mesopotamian imbroglio. The Times of May 17, 1913, for example, said: “Great Britain will have no further reason for looking askance at a project which should do much for the development of Asiatic Turkey. Our interests will be safeguarded; we have always said that a terminus at Basra offered no menace to specific British interests in the Persian Gulf; and the German promoters will be free to complete their great project with the benevolent acquiescence of Great Britain. There will be no official participation in the construction of the line, but there will also be nothing to deter British capital from being associated with the scheme. We believe that if some such solution is adopted, a fertile source of international misunderstanding will disappear. It is a solution which should receive the approval of France and Russia and should give gratification to Germany. It appears to leave no room for subsequent differences of opinion, while it wipes out a whole series of obscure disputes. It will be a further demonstration of that spirit of coöperation among the Great Powers which has done so much of late to preserve the peace of Europe. It should convince Germany that Great Britain does not oppose the essential elements of the Bagdad Railway scheme provided her own special interests are protected. Above all, it will relieve the financial disabilities of Turkey and will enable her to press forward the great task of binding with bonds of steel the great Asiatic territories in which her future chiefly lies.” Other press opinion was in accord with Sir Edward Grey that the agreement “justifies us in saying that it is no longer in British interests to oppose the line.”[26]

In Germany, likewise, the Anglo-Turkish agreement was favorably received. The Berliner Tageblatt of December 29, 1913, hailed it as a triumph of German diplomacy. “For years,” it said, “this undertaking has threatened to become a bone of contention between Russia, England, and Germany. The German Government has now, through its cleverness and tenacity, succeeded in removing all differences and in bringing the line altogether into German possession.” In the Reichstag, as well, the general tenor of the comments was favorable, although Herr Bassermann and other National Liberals were somewhat vociferous about the great “sacrifices” which Germany had made to propitiate Great Britain. Among the Social Democrats and the Centrists, however, the sentiment was obviously in accord with one member who said, “We share the general satisfaction at this rapprochement, which is an aid to world peace, but we also are of the opinion that there is no occasion for over-exuberance or patriotic bombast.”[27]

As usual, the rôle of the Turks themselves was slighted. A casual observer might have remarked that whatever “benevolent acquiescence” was included in the settlement originated in Constantinople rather than in London, and that the “sacrifices” involved were much more painful to Turkey than to Germany!