It is said that M. Delcassé, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, certainly no friend of German imperial designs, never really was hostile to the Bagdad Railway and its affiliated enterprises. As Bismarck welcomed French colonial activities in Africa and China as a means of diverting French attention from the Rhine and the Vosges, so Delcassé hoped that the colossal Bagdad plan would absorb all German imperial inclinations, leaving Morocco an exclusive sphere of French influence. In the construction of railways in the Ottoman Empire, Germany might satisfy her “irresistible need for expansion,” without menacing vital French interests. And all the while the Quai d’Orsay, through the French representatives on the Board of Directors of the Bagdad Railway Company, could be kept fully informed of the progress of the German concessionaires and the purpose of the German diplomatic agents interested in the success of the project.[39]
There were other ardent French nationalists who felt very much the same way about it. However, in their opinion, it would be unwise to gamble on the complete absorption of Germany in her Bagdadbahn. It would be wiser, perhaps, to withhold financial support until such time as the German Foreign Office was willing to execute a formal treaty conferring upon France an exclusive sphere of interest in Morocco. Bagdad was to be had for the asking—but in exchange for Morocco! It is said that in 1905, after the fall of Delcassé and on the eve of the Algeciras Conference, M. Rouvier, Prime Minister of France, approached the German ambassador in Paris with a view to negotiating a Franco-German agreement granting Germany a free hand in Turkey in return for recognition of the special interests of France in Morocco.[40]
M. André Tardieu revived this suggestion two years later. “Germany needs capital,” he said. “And when one needs capital, it is to France that one comes in search of it. It is inevitable, necessary, therefore, that Germany come to us. She will be obliged to come to us sooner or later to seek our capital for the Bagdad enterprise. Germany has the concession. She has commenced the lines. But all the sections requiring the greatest engineering skill are still to be constructed, and she has not the money to construct them.” If France agrees to let Germany have the necessary funds, it will be on the condition that Germany allow France important compensations. “Where will these compensations be sought? I have no hesitation in saying, in Morocco. The Act of Algeciras must be set aside, and France must have a free hand in Morocco! An agreement upon the Bagdad question would be mischievous if it concerned Bagdad alone, for, the Germans having the concession in their pockets, the positions of the negotiators would not be equal. On the other hand, if the agreement is for two purposes, if it refers to Bagdad and Morocco, I believe, I repeat, it would be both practicable and desirable.”[41]
The proposal that French consent to the Bagdad Railway could be purchased with compensations in North Africa met with no enthusiasm in Germany. Herr Bassermann, leader of the National Liberals in the Reichstag, urged the Foreign Office to meet any such diplomatic maneuver on the part of France with a sharp rebuff.[42] At the time of the Agadir crisis, furthermore, Baron Marschall von Bieberstein is said to have warned Bethmann-Hollweg that Germany would have to stand firm on Morocco, for “if, notwithstanding Damascus and Tangier, we abandon Morocco, we lose at one blow our position in Turkey, and with it the advantages and prospects for the future which we have acquired painfully by years of toil.”[43]
It was not until 1914 that an agreement was reached between France and Germany on Asiatic Turkey. For more than ten years, then, the Bagdad Railway was a stinging irritant in the relations between the Republic and the Empire. It aggravated an open wound which needed, not salt, but balm. We shall return later to consider its consequences. But in the meantime we must turn our attention to Great Britain, standing astride the Persian Gulf and blocking the way.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
[1] Regarding Russian railways in the Near East cf. the article “Russia—Railways,” in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th edition, Volume 23, p. 891. The trans-Persian railway from Resht, a Persian port on the Caspian, to Teheran was completed in September, 1899. Cf. “Russia’s Tightening Grip on Persia,” in The Globe (London), August 24, 1899; also “Russian Railways in Asia,” The Financial News (London), August 14, 1899. The Bagdad Railway frequently was referred to in the French and Russian press as the Petit Transasiatique.
[2] Foreign correspondence of The Globe, July 28, 1899; Commerce (London), August 2, 1899; articles quoted from the Novoe Vremya in The Globe, August 10, 1899; The Engineer (London), August 11, 1899; The Observer, August 13, 1899; R. Henry, “L’intérêt française en Asie occidentale—Le chemin de fer de Bagdad et l’alliance franco-russe,” in Questions diplomatiques et coloniales, Volume 15 (1903), pp. 673–688.