Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/129

 seems to set at rest the notion that the Germans acquired a stranglehold on exports and imports from and to Turkey.

5. Looking at the question from a purely political standpoint, one's attention is struck by the fact that commercial laurels in the Ottoman Empire were going to the nationals of the Triple Alliance powers. Economically, Turkey was leaning toward the Central Powers. Few international alliances are not based upon coincidence of economic interests; it appeared that a solid foundation was being laid for the eventual affiliation of Turkey with the Triple Alliance.

Exports and imports, however, are not the only items which enter into the international balance sheet. As has been so amply demonstrated in the experience of the British Empire, ocean freights may constitute one of the chief items in the prosperity of a nation which lives upon commerce with other nations. It was not surprising, therefore, that upon the heels of German banks and German merchants in the Near East closely followed those other great promoters of German economic expansion, the steamship companies. The success of the ''Deutsche Levante Linie'', established in 1889,[30] indicated that there was room for additional service between German ports and the cities of the Aegean and the Mediterranean. Accordingly, in 1905, the Atlas Line, of Bremen, inaugurated a regular service from the Baltic to Turkish ports. One line was to ply between Bremen and Smyrna, with Rotterdam, Malta, Piraeus, Salonica, and Constantinople as ports of call. Another of this same company's lines was to carry freight and passengers from Bremen to the Syrian city of Beirut. During the same year the North German Lloyd was responsible for the formation of the