On the other hand, a Turkey in subjection would be an unwilling producer and a poor customer. The occupation of Turkey by German armed forces would seriously deplete the ranks of the German armies on the Russian and French frontiers, and in time of war would confront the German General Staff with the additional problem of maintaining order in hostile Mohammedan territory. The conquering of Turkey would bring the German Empire into the ranks of European powers with Mohammedan subjects, thus exposing it to the menace, common to Great Britain, France, and Russia, of a Pan-Islamic revival. For all of these reasons the obvious German policy was not only to respect the territorial integrity of Turkey, but to defend it against the encroachments of other powers. “Not a penny for a weak Turkey,” said Rohrbach, “but for a strong Turkey everything we can give!”[12]
In its political aspects the Bagdad Railway was something more than a railway. It was one phase of the great diplomatic struggle for the predominance of power, one pawn in the great game between the Alliance and the Entente, one element of the Anglo-German rivalry on the seas. The development of closer relations, political and economic, between Germany and Turkey was in accord with the spirit of an era of universal preparedness—preparedness for pressing economic competition, preparedness for the expected great European war in which every nation would be obliged to fight for its very existence. Through control of the economic resources of the Ottoman Empire, German diplomacy sought to arrive at an entente cordiale or a formal military alliance with the Sultan. Through support of the chief Mohammedan power Germany might throw tempting “apples of discord” into the colonial empires of her chief European rivals, for Great Britain ruled about eighty-five million subject Mohammedans, Russia about seventeen million, France about fifteen million; but Germany possessed almost none.[13] Friedrich Naumann wrote in 1889, in connection with the Kaiser’s pilgrimage to the Near East: “It is possible that the world war will break out before the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire. Then the Caliph of Constantinople will once more uplift the standard of the Holy War. The Sick Man will raise himself for the last time to shout to Egypt, the Soudan, East Africa, Persia, Afghanistan, and India, ‘War against England.’ It is not unimportant to know who will support him on his bed when he utters this cry.”[14]
This menace to the British Empire was no more serious than another which was frankly espoused by certain supporters of the Bagdad plan—the possibility, even without a preponderance of naval power, of severing the communications of the empire in time of war. Dr. Rohrbach, for example, put it this way: “If it comes to war with England, it will be for Germany simply a question of life and death. The possibility that events may turn out favorably for us depends wholly and solely upon whether we can succeed in putting England herself in a precarious position. That cannot be done by a direct attack in the North Sea; all idea of invading England is purely chimerical. We must, therefore, seek other means which will enable us to strike England in a vulnerable spot.... England can be attacked and mortally wounded by land from Europe in only one place—Egypt. The loss of Egypt would mean not only the end of her dominion over the Suez Canal and of her communications with India and the Far East, but would probably entail, also, the loss of her possessions in Central and East Africa. We can never dream, however, of attacking Egypt until Turkey is mistress of a developed railway system in Asia Minor and Syria, and until, through the extension of the Anatolian Railway to Bagdad, she is in a position to withstand an attack by England upon Mesopotamia.... The stronger Turkey grows the more dangerous does she become for England.”[15]
It is only fair to add, however, that Dr. Rohrbach was not an authorized spokesman of the German people, the German Government, or the Bagdad Railway Company. His views were personal and are to be given weight only in so far as they influenced or reflected public opinion in Germany; to estimate their importance by such a standard is no simple task. But whatever its true significance, Dr. Rohrbach’s interest in the Bagdad Railway was certainly a source of great annoyance to Dr. von Gwinner, who was constantly called upon to explain irresponsible, provocative, and bombastic statements from Rohrbach’s pen. It is well to recall that the writings of publicists are sometimes taken too seriously.[16]
It would have been foolhardy, nevertheless, to discard these possibilities as purely imaginary. Once the Bagdad Railway was constructed and its subsidiary enterprises developed, there would have existed the great temptation to utilize economic influence for the promotion of strategic and diplomatic purposes. In an era of intensive military and economic preparedness for war the observance of the niceties of international relationships is not always to be counted upon. In such circumstances the wishes of the business men—whether they were imperialistic or anti-imperialistic—may be over-ruled by the statesmen and the soldiers. The chance to strike telling blows at French prestige in the Levant; the opportunity to embarrass Russia by strengthening Turkey; the possibility of menacing the communications of the British Empire; the likelihood of recruiting Turkish military and economic strength in the cause of Germany,—these were alluring prospects for discomfiting the Entente rivals of the German Empire.
At the same time it should be mentioned that promotion of the Bagdad Railway would serve to weld firmer the Austro-German alliance. Austrian ambitions in the Near East centered in the Vienna-Salonica railway and were distinct from the Berlin-to-Bagdad plan of the Germans; nevertheless circumstances served to promote a community of interest. First, the routes of the railways through the Balkans coincided in part: the Austrian railway ran via Belgrade and Nish to Salonica; traffic “from Berlin to Bagdad” followed the same line to Nish, where it branched off to Sofia and Constantinople. Second, Austrian, as well as German, trade would be carried over the Bagdad lines to the Orient, and Austrian industries would be able to secure raw materials from Anatolia and Mesopotamia. If the railway was to run from Berlin to Bagdad, it also was to run from Vienna to Bagdad. Third, similarly, German industry was to profit by the Austrian railway to Salonica, for it opened a new route to German commerce to the Aegean. “Germany’s road to the Orient lay, literally as well as figuratively, across the Balkan Peninsula.”[17] The Drang nach Osten was near to the hearts of both allies!
It was not without warning that the German nation permitted itself to be drawn into the imperial ramifications of the Bagdad Railway. Anti-imperialists sensed the dangers connected with such an ambitious project. Herr Scheidemann, leader of the Social Democrats in the Reichstag, for example, warned the German people that the railway was certain to raise increasingly troublesome international difficulties, and he expressed the fear that the German protagonists of the plan would come to emphasize more and more its political and military, rather than its economic and cultural, phases.[18] Karl Radek, also a Socialist, wrote that “The Bagdad Railway possessed great political significance from the very moment the plan was conceived.” He prophesied that German economic penetration in Turkey would prove to be only the first step toward a formal military alliance, which, in turn, would heighten the fear and animosity of the Entente Powers. “The Bagdad Railway,” he said, “constitutes the first great triumph of German capitalistic imperialism.”[19] Business men and politicians of imperialist inclinations did not deny the charges of their pacifist opponents. Herr Bassermann, so far from deprecating a greater political influence in the Ottoman Empire, came to glory in it. Baron von Schoen qualified his earlier statements with the following enunciation of policy: “With reference to the attitude of the Imperial Government, it goes without saying that we are giving the enterprise our full interest and attention and will make every effort to further it.”[20]
The political potentialities of the Bagdad Railway aroused the fear and opposition of the other European Powers. Exaggerated charges were made as to the intentions of the German promoters and the German Government, and there was a widespread feeling that there was something sinister about the plan. Professor Sarolea sounded a prophetic warning when he wrote, “The trans-Mesopotamian Railway ... will play in the Near East the same ominous part which the Trans-Siberian played in the Far East; with this important difference, however, that whilst the Far Eastern conflict involved only one European Power and one Asiatic Power, the Near Eastern conflict, if it breaks out, must needs involve all the European powers, must force the whole Eastern Question to a crisis, and once begun, cannot be terminated until the map of Europe and Asia shall be reconstructed.”[21]
Religious and Cultural Interests Reënforce Political and Economic Motives
Along with economic and political motives for imperialist ventures there frequently goes a religious motive. That such should be the case in the Near East was to be expected because of the religious appeal of the Ottoman Empire as the homeland of the Jews, the birthplace of Christianity, the cradle of Mohammedanism. It was small wonder, then, that the Bagdad Railway, which promised to link Central European cities with the holy places of Syria and Palestine, should have been supported enthusiastically by German missionaries and other German Christians.