[165] Speaking in the British Parliament April 8, 1903, Lord E. Fitzmaurice went still further when he declared: “Bound up with the future of this (Bagdad) Railway there is probably the future political control of large regions in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf.”
[166] The Fortnightly Review, p. 216, February, 1914.
[167] “Les Gouvernment français et anglais refuserent formellment leur approbation et leur appui et conseillerent a leur nationaux de s’en abstenir.” E. Aublé, op. cit., p. 15.
[168] The Nineteenth Century, p. 1090 et seq., June, 1909.
It is gratifying to know that this anti-German feeling was not shared by Sir Clinton and his associates and by clear-visioned men like Sir Edwin Pears who did not hesitate to declare: “The Germans, in inviting British coöperation from the first, have acted fairly and loyally.” The Contemporary Review, p. 589, November, 1908.
[169] M. Aublé, op. cit., p. 16, referring to this matter, writes: “Si en elle—même l’enterprise du Chemin de Fer de Bagdad est resté telle qu’elle s’est presentée au début, une œuvre allemande, c’est parce qu’on n’a pas voulu profiter des offres allemandes pour lui donner un caractère international.”
[170] The Nineteenth Century, p. 1312, June, 1914.
[171] Ibid., p. 1313. After all negotiations looking towards internationalization of the Bagdad Railway had failed, M. Geraud, who is evidently a monarchist, wrote: “We cannot help regretting that the two powers who held the protectorate of the Orient—France her old religious protectorate, and England the protectorate of Anatolia sanctioned by the Cyprus Convention—should, in the space of one generation, have laid down such beneficent weapons.... In order that so much destruction could be consummated, all that was responsible in England and France was the rule of democracy.”
[172] Cf. his interesting brochure, Les Chemins de Fer in Turquie d’Asie (Zurich, 1902).
[173] Revue de Géographie, p. 398, May, 1902.