BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
[1] On this point cf. M. Solovieff, La Terre Sainte et la société impériale de Palestine (Petrograd, 1892). The society there referred to was said to be liberally patronized by the Tsar and other members of the imperial family.
[2] For details of the Kapnist plan see The Times (London), December 17, 1898; The Euphrates Valley Railway—a prospectus (London, 1899).
[3] In a memorandum of June 10, 1899, to the Sultan, Dr. Kurt Zander, General Manager of the Anatolian Railway Company, said that, in accordance with the wishes of the Sultan—and “to avoid all obstacles and avert every possibility of opposition”—his Company sought to arrive at a satisfactory understanding with the Smyrna-Aidin and Smyrna-Cassaba railways. All proposals to the Smyrna-Aidin Company, however, “met with evasive answers, which finally resulted in a termination of negotiations.” Cf., also, E. Aublé, Bagdad—son chemin de fer, son importance, son avenir (Paris, 1917), pp. 9 et seq.
[4] For a copy of the text of this agreement the author is indebted to Mr. E. Rechnitzer. Summaries were published in The Times, August 10, 1899; Le Temps (Paris), August 15, 1899; Corps de droit ottoman, Volume IV, pp. 155–156.
[5] In June, 1899, the Anatolian Railway Company elected to its Board of Directors M. L. Rambert, of the Imperial Ottoman Bank, and in June, 1900, M. Gaston Auboyneau, of the same institution. The new directors replaced Mr. George Henry Maxwell Batten, of London, and Sir Edward F. G. Law, of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration. The refusal of the Smyrna-Aidin line to come to a working agreement with the Anatolian Company thus removed the last British directors from the board of the latter. Cf. Reports of the Anatolian Railway Company, 1898–1900, passim.
[6] A letter from Mr. E. Rechnitzer to the Sultan, dated August 16, 1899, accuses M. Constans of having publicly referred to the “accord” between French and German interests in Turkish railways. Dr. Karl Helfferich states that the agreement between the two railway companies was supplemented by a gentlemen’s agreement between the two ambassadors. Die Vorgeschichte des Weltkrieges (Berlin, 1919), p. 127. This would seem to be confirmed by André Chéradame, op. cit., pp. 48 et seq.
[7] The proposals previously made called for an absolute guarantee of several thousands of francs income per kilometre per annum. Mr. Rechnitzer’s plan called for “an annual guarantee of 15,000 francs in gross receipts per kilometre, the said guarantee to be paid exclusively out of the excess of the tithes of the vilayets through which the railway is to pass; it being understood that in the event that the excess of such tithes be not sufficient to defray the kilometric guarantee, the concessionaire shall have no redress against the Imperial Government on account of the insufficiency.” Memorandum of May 14, 1899, from Mr. Rechnitzer’s files. Although this plan had the great advantage of requiring no immediate payments from the Ottoman Treasury, it probably would have cost Turkey more in the long run, for the guarantee specified was excessively high. Compare with provisions of the Bagdad Railway concession of March, 1903, infra. Mr. Rechnitzer also asked for extensive port privileges in Alexandretta and in the port to be determined on the Persian Gulf. The chief features of the plan were outlined in a pamphlet published in London, July 29, 1899, entitled The Euphrates Valley Railway.
[8] Mr. Rechnitzer now has in his possession a beautiful watch—inlaid with a map of the Ottoman Empire, in precious stones, showing the route of the proposed Euphrates Valley Railway—which he presented to Abdul Hamid in 1899. He repurchased it at a public auction held in Paris after the Young Turk revolution of 1909.
[9] In a letter dated September 30, 1922, to the author Mr. Rechnitzer outlines the situation as follows: “My offer being much more favorable than that of the Germans, it seemed likely in August, 1899, that it would be accepted. Unfortunately the Transvaal War broke out in the autumn of that year, and the German Emperor, a few days after the declaration of war, specially came to London to ask our Government to give him a free hand in Turkey. It appears that there was an interview between the Emperor and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain, who was more interested in Cecil Rhodes’ scheme in Africa than in my scheme in Turkey. As a consequence Sir Nicholas O’Connor was instructed to inform the Turkish Government that the British Government’s support was withdrawn from my offers.” It is only fair to add, however, that there may have been other factors in the situation. The Financial News (London), of August 17, 1899, intimated that Mr. Rechnitzer’s proposal did not have sufficiently strong financial backing; that it was more Austrian than British; that the support of the British Government was more formal than whole-hearted.