[25] Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords, fourth series, Volume 121 (1903), pp. 1347–1348. Two observations should be made regarding this quotation. First, it is included in every book I have consulted on the Bagdad Railway, written since 1903, but in every instance the last sentence has been omitted—a sentence which considerably alters the spirit of the statement. Second, the German press, at the time, considered that the warning was directed, not at the Bagdad Railway, but at the rapid and alarming advance of Russia in Persia. Cf. an analysis of foreign press comments in an article by J. I. de La Tour, “Le chemin de fer de Bagdad et l’opinion anglaise,” in Questions diplomatiques et coloniales, Volume 15 (1903), pp. 609–614—an excellent digest.
[26] Cf. a statement by Lord Cranborne, Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, fourth series, Volume 101 (1902), p. 129. Although he was less than forty years of age at the time of his appointment as Governor-General of India (1898), the Right Honorable George Nathaniel Curzon, Baron Curzon of Kedleston, even at that early age, had had wide experience and training of the type so common among the masters of British imperial destiny. He was educated at Eton and Oxford, and he traveled widely in the Near East. He served as a member of Parliament from 1886 until 1898. He was Under-Secretary of State for India, 1891–1892; Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, 1895–1898; Privy Councillor, 1895.
[27] Supra, p. 34; The Annual Register, 1901, pp. 304–305; K. Helfferich, Die Vorgeschichte des Weltkrieges, p. 129.
[28] Viscount Haldane, Before the War (London, 1920), pp. 48–51; Viscount Morley, Recollections (New York, 1917), p. 238.
[29] Infra, pp. 239–244; Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords, fifth series, Volume 7 (1911), pp. 583–587, 589. It is interesting to contrast this opinion of a German trans-Mesopotamian railway with that held by the same man when it was proposed that British capitalists should construct such a line. Writing in 1892, Lord Curzon had this to say regarding the project: “Its superficial attractions judiciously dressed up in a garb of patriotism, were such as to allure many minds; and I confess to having felt, without ever having succumbed to, the fascination. Closer study, however, and a visit to Syria and Mesopotamia have convinced me both that the project is unsound, and that it does not, for the present, at any rate, lie within the domain of practical politics.” Lord Curzon believed that a Mesopotamian railway would be practically valueless for military purposes: “The temperature of these sandy wastes is excessively torrid and trying during the summer months and I decline to believe that during half the year any general in the world would consent to pack his soldiers into third class carriages for conveyance across those terrible thousand miles, at least if he anticipated using them in any other capacity than as hospital inmates at the end.” Persia and the Persian Question, Volume I, pp. 633–635.
[30] Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, fifth series, Volume 21 (1911), pp. 241–242.
[31] Infra, pp. 258–265.
[32] For the views of a typical British imperialist on the Persian situation, cf., Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question, Volume II, Chapter XXX; a later account is that of the American, W. Morgan Shuster, The Strangling of Persia (New York, 1912); cf., also, H. F. B. Lynch, “Railways in the Middle East,” in Proceedings of the Central Asian Society (London), March 1, 1911.
[33] See P. Rohrbach, Die Bagdadbahn, p. 18; Reventlow, op. cit., pp. 338–343. That Rohrbach’s frank avowal of the menace of the Bagdad Railway to India and Egypt was not without influence in Great Britain is evidenced by the fact that long quotations from Die Bagdadbahn were read into the records of the House of Commons by the Earl of Ronaldshay, on March 23, 1911. Parliamentary Debates, fifth series, Volume 23, p. 628.
[34] Herr Scheidemann, in an eloquent speech to the Reichstag, March 30, 1911, pleaded with the German Government to be sympathetic with the position in which Great Britain found herself. No nation with the imperial responsibilities of Great Britain could afford to neglect to take precautionary steps against the possibility of the Bagdad Railway being used as a weapon of offense against Egypt, the Suez Canal, and India. “Complications upon complications,” he said, “are certain to arise as a result of the construction of the Bagdad Railway. But we expect of our Government, at the very least, that in the course of protecting the legitimate German economic interests which are involved in the Bagdad Railway, it will leave no stone unturned to prevent the development of Anglo-German hostility over the matter. We want to do everything possible to effect a thorough understanding with England. Only by such a policy can we hope to quiet the fears of British imperialists that the Railway is a menace to the Empire.” Stenographische Berichte, XII Legislaturperiode, 2 Session, Volume 266 (1911), pp. 5980c-5984b.