It was because of these difficulties, financial and administrative, that the Deutsche Bank marked time until March 5, 1903, when a revised Bagdad Railway convention was executed and plans were perfected for the financing of the first section of the line. It is to this Great Charter of the Berlin-to-Bagdad plan that we now must turn our attention.[30]
The definitive convention of 1903 provided that the existing Anatolian lines were to continue in the possession of their owners; the construction and operation of the new railway beyond Konia was to be vested—without right of cession, transfer, or assignment—in a new corporation, the Bagdad Railway Company. This new company was incorporated under Turkish law on March 5, 1903, with a capital stock of fifteen million francs, of which the Anatolian Railway Company subscribed ten per cent. Continued Turco-German control of the railway enterprise was assured by a provision of the charter that of the eleven members of the Board of Directors, three should be appointed by the directors of the Anatolian Railway Company, and at least three others should be Ottoman subjects.[31]
It was apparent that the Ottoman Government expected big things of the German concessionaires and their French associates. The new convention provided, first, for the construction of a great trunk line from Konia, southeastern terminus of the existing Anatolian Railways, to the Persian Gulf. This was to be the Bagdad Railway proper, but the concession carried with it, also, the privilege of constructing important branches in Syria and Mesopotamia. With all its proposed tributary lines completed, the Railway would stretch from the Bosporus to the Persian Gulf and from the Mediterranean to the frontiers of Persia. Second, it was stipulated that the Anatolian Railway Company should effect any necessary improvements on its lines to make possible the early initiation of a weekly express service between Constantinople and Aleppo and the operation of fortnightly express trains to Bagdad and the Persian Gulf as soon as the lines should be completed. The Anatolian concessions were extended for a period of ninety-nine years from 1903 to make them coincident with the new concession. The concessionaires were obliged to make all improvements and to complete all new construction by 1911, it being understood, however, that this time limit might be extended in the event of delays by the Government in the execution of the financial arrangements or in the event of force majeure—the latter specifically including, not only a European war, but any radical change in the financial situation in Germany, England, or France.[32]
The Locomotive Is to Supplant the Camel
The Bagdad Railway was to revive the “central route” of medieval trade—to traverse one of the world’s historic highways. It was to bring back to Anatolia, Syria, and Mesopotamia some of the prosperity and prestige which they had enjoyed before the explorations of the Portuguese and Spaniards had opened the new sea routes to the Indies.[33]
The starting point of the new railway was to be Konia. This town of 44,000 inhabitants, situated high in the Anatolian plateau, was a landmark in the Near East. It was once the capital of the Seljuk Turks and during its heyday had been a crossroads of the caravan routes of Asia Minor. Along one of these old routes to the northwest ran the Anatolian Railway, with which the Bagdad line was to be linked. From Konia the new railway was to cross the Anatolian table-lands, at an average altitude of 3500 feet, passing through the towns of Karaman and Eregli. Just beyond the latter town are the foothills of the Taurus, the first of the mountain barriers between Asia Minor and the Mesopotamian valley. In crossing the Taurus range the railway was to pass through the famous Cilician Gates, down the eastern slope into the fertile Cilician plain. At Adana, center of the trade of this region, a junction was to be effected with the existing railway to Mersina, a small port on the Mediterranean.[34]
Formidable engineering difficulties faced the succeeding stretch of the railway. Beyond Adana stood the second mountain barrier of the Amanus range, through which there was no natural pass, and it was apparent that costly blasting and tunneling would be required before the hills could be pierced.[35] Once beyond the mountains the railway could be carried quickly to Aleppo, a city of 128,000, “the emporium of northern Syria,” and a meeting place for the Mesopotamian, Syrian, and Anatolian trade-routes. At this point connections were to be established with the important railways of Syria, providing direct communication with Hama, Homs, Tripoli-in-Syria, Beirut, Damascus, Jaffa, and Jerusalem. In fact, enthusiastic Syrians have prophesied that when all projected transcontinental railways are completed in Europe, Asia, and Africa, Aleppo will become “the crossroads of the world”—a junction point for rail communication between Berlin and Bagdad, Calais and Calcutta, Bordeaux and Bombay, Moscow and Mecca, Constantinople and Cairo and Cape Town.[36] Seventy miles away from Aleppo, along one of the few good wagon roads in Turkey, lay the important Mediterranean port of Alexandretta. Leaving Aleppo, the Bagdad Railway was to turn east, crossing a desert country, to Nisibin and to Mosul, on the Tigris. From this sector of the railway it was proposed to construct several short spurs into the Armenian foothills, as well as a longer branch from Nisibin to Diarbekr and Kharput.
The city of Mosul is the northern gateway to the Mesopotamian valley, the “Land of the Two Rivers.” In medieval times it was a center of caravan routes between Persia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and Anatolia, and once was famed for its textile manufactures, which produced a cloth named after the city, “muslin.” It is located on the site of a suburb of the ancient city of Nineveh and guards a high pass leading through the mountains into Armenia. In 1903 it had a population of 61,000 and bade fair, after the completion of the Bagdad Railway, to regain some of its lost lustre. South and southeast of Mosul flows the Tigris River all the way to the Persian Gulf. Along the valley of this river was to run the new railway, through the towns of Tekrit, Samarra, and Sadijeh, to Bagdad.[37]
In 1903 the splendor of the ancient city of Bagdad was very much dimmed. Although it still was the center of an important caravan trade with Persia, Arabia, and Syria, its prosperity was but a name compared with the riches which the city had enjoyed before the commercial revolution of the sixteenth century. The population of 145,000—in part nomad—was to a large extent dependent upon the important export trade in dates and cereals, amounting, in 1902, to almost £1,000,000. All told, the trade of Bagdad was valued at about £2,500,000 annually. Whether the shadow of the former great Bagdad could be transformed into a living thing was an open question.[38]
Five hundred miles south of Bagdad is the Persian Gulf,[39] the proposed terminus of the Bagdad Railway. About sixty miles north of the Gulf, located on the Shatt-el-Arab—the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers—is the port of Basra, the outlet for the trade of Bagdad. Communication between these two Mesopotamian cities was carried on, in 1903, by means of a weekly steamer service operated by the English firm of Lynch Brothers, under the name “The Euphrates and Tigris Steam Navigation Company, Ltd.” The Lynch Brothers—typical British imperial pathfinders—had established themselves at Basra during the decade 1840–1850 and had succeeded during the following half-century in securing a practical monopoly of the river trade from Bagdad to the Persian Gulf. The absence of effective competition and the hesitancy of the Turkish Government to grant permission for the operation of additional steamers were responsible for a totally inadequate service. It was not uncommon for freight to stand on the wharves at Bagdad and Basra for three months or more awaiting transportation. Under these circumstances it was to be expected that freight charges would be exorbitant; it cost more to transfer cargoes from Bagdad to Basra than from Basra to London. The advent of the Bagdad Railway promised great things for the trade of lower Mesopotamia and Persia.[40]