Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/115

 *to arrive at some satisfactory plan for internationalization of the railway. An agreement was reached by the financiers by which British capital was to share equally in ownership and control with the German and the French, but the hostile attitude of the English press and the disapproval of the Balfour Government led to the abandonment of the proposed tripartite syndicate.[2]

Failing to secure British cooperation, the concessionaires proceeded to finance the Bagdad Railway by other means. Ten per cent of the stock of the Company was subscribed by the Ottoman Government, ten per cent by the Anatolian Railway Company, and the remainder by an international syndicate headed by the Deutsche Bank. The Board of Directors was enlarged to twenty-seven members, as follows: eight Germans, chosen by the Deutsche Bank; three Germans elected by the Anatolian Railway Company; eight Frenchmen designated by the Imperial Ottoman Bank; four Ottomans; two Swiss; one Austrian; and one Italian.[3] The control of the Bagdad Railway Company thus remained in Turco-German hands, but French and other interests were too well represented to justify the criticism that the railway was a purely German enterprise secretly coöperating with the German Foreign Office. In fact, in 1903 Mr. Balfour and Lord Lansdowne were as much alarmed by the possibility of pernicious French activities in the line as they were disturbed by the predominantly German character of the scheme.[4] Baron von Schoen, one-time German Foreign Secretary, described the Bagdad Railway as "an Ottoman enterprise which has an international character under German guidance."[5]

The great resources of the Deutsche Bank were now brought into play to provide the funds for the construction of the first section of the railway. The necessary capital was to be secured, it will be recalled,[6] by the sale of an issue of Imperial Ottoman Bagdad Railway Bonds amount