The Young Turks Have Some Mental Reservations
Although the revolutionary party in Turkey had come to look with favor upon German influence in the Near East, and particularly to support the Bagdad Railway, there is little reason for accepting the too hastily drawn conclusion that the Young Turks had sold their country to the Kaiser or that they were under a definite obligation to subscribe to German diplomatic policies. They were too strongly nationalistic for that. They believed that the Ottoman Empire must eventually rid itself of foreign administrative assistance, foreign capital invested under far-reaching economic concessions, and foreign interference in Ottoman political affairs. But for a period of transition—during which Turkey could learn the secrets of Western progress and adapt them to her own purposes—it was the obvious duty of a forward-looking government to utilize European capital and European technical assistance for the welfare of the empire. Patriotism and modernism went hand in hand in the Young Turk program.[24]
The Young Turks were not unaware of the menace of the Bagdad Railway to their own best hopes. As Djavid Bey appropriately says: “The great drawback of this enterprise was its political character, which clung to it and became a source of endless toil and anxiety for the country. In a word, it poisoned the political life of Turkey. If the Bagdad concession had not been granted, the revolutionary government could have solved much more easily pending political and economic problems. But one must admire the courage of Abdul Hamid in granting the concession, no matter what the cost, because the construction of the Bagdad line was essential for the defence and the economic progress of the empire. Unfortunately for Turkey, she has always had to suffer from such politico-economic concessions.
“The Bagdad Railway did not escape the malady of politics. When one entered the meeting room of the company, one breathed the atmosphere of the ministerial chamber in Wilhelmstrasse and felt in both Gwinner and Helfferich the presence of undersecretaries for foreign affairs. This state of affairs, instead of simplifying the negotiations and relations between Germany and Turkey, served only to envenom them.”