Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe, 1917, Pl. V
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RAILROADS IN TURKEY SHOWING THEIR CONNECTIONS AND EXTENSIONS
The broad Eurasian landmass contains three densely populated areas. Of these central Europe is the westernmost. The Indian peninsula follows, situated approximately midway between the European area and the coastlands and islands of eastern Asia, which form the easternmost of the three. In these three regions only does the average density of population exceed 64 inhabitants to the square mile. The speediest and most convenient routes between the westernmost and the two Asiatic regions must inevitably cross Turkey. This feature, together with the fact that Asiatic Turkey is a land richly endowed with natural resources and that, although lying at Europe’s very door, it is still undeveloped, confer upon Turkish railroads an importance which has always been keenly realized by enterprising business men the world over.
All travel between Europe and Asia is deflected into northern and southern channels by a central mass of mountains which separate a vast lowland of plains and steppes on the north from the tablelands of southern Asia. Age-old avenues of human migration and of trade in the northern area have the disadvantage of traversing sparsely inhabited regions. To build trans-continental railroads along this route implies scaling some of the highest mountain ranges in the world in order to tap the populous centers of India. Although this is not beyond the engineer’s ability, capitalists decline to consider it. Southern routes, on the other hand, link with the seas that set far inland on Asiatic coasts. The function of the Turkish trunk lines is to provide the shortest connection between European railways and the steel tracks of southern Asia or to connect with the sea routes that link harbor to harbor from the Persian Gulf to the China Sea.
Although lying at Europe’s very door and in spite of its extreme antiquity as the abode of civilized man, Asia Minor presents the strange anomaly of being one of the world’s least developed regions. It was only after the Crimean War that railroad construction was undertaken within the peninsula. The granting of railway concessions enabled the Sultan to pay his debt of gratitude to the western nations which had assisted him in checking the natural efforts of the Russians to add a strip of ice-free coast to their country’s southwestern boundary. With the exception of a single line every kilometer of track in the peninsula has been built by Europeans. As is always the case in undeveloped areas, the districts tapped by the various lines became economically dependent on the roads that hauled their products and supplies. This circumstance induced tacit recognition of spheres of foreign influence in which commercial, and attendant political, preponderance leaned strongly towards the country which supplied the capital with which the railroads were built. Wherever, as in Syria, vaguely defined spheres of European influence had previously existed, the advent of engines and cars contributed to strengthen them considerably. The routes determined by the steel-clad tracks may therefore be considered as approximate center-lines of these spheres of foreign influence. It is on this basis that six distinct spheres may be marked out as follows:
(1) A British sphere extending over the entire drainage basin of the Meander and traversed by the British-owned Aidin railway.
(2) A French sphere which was originally confined to the drainage of the Gediz river, the ancient Hermos, but which, through privileges acquired as a result of the successful operation of the French-owned Cassaba railway, now extends northwards to the Sea of Marmora. This additional sphere is divided into two equal east and west areas by the French-owned Soma-Panderma railroad.
(3) A German sphere—the most important of these spheres of foreign influence—which, beginning at the Bosporus, traverses the entire peninsula diagonally by way of the inviting routes provided by surface features and extends southeasterly through Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf.