Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/132

 Nevertheless, the promoters of the Bagdad Railway were by no means satisfied with their terminal ports. Constantinople was at a disadvantage as compared with Smyrna in the trade of Anatolia. Smyrna was within reach of the Bagdad system only over the tracks of a French-owned line which might not always be in the hands of well-disposed owners. The prospects that the Railway soon would reach Basra were not very bright. Mersina was limited in its possibilities of development—shut off by the mountains from Anatolia, on the north, and Syria, on the south, it was the natural outlet only for the products of the Cilician plain.

The port which the company sought to bring under its control was Alexandretta, on the Mediterranean, seventy miles from Aleppo. Article 12 of the concession of 1903 assured preference to the Bagdad Railway Company in the award of a "possible extension to the sea at a point between Mersina and Tripoli-in-Syria." The construction of a branch from the main line to Alexandretta would provide the Railway with sea communications for the valuable trade of northern Syria and the northern Mesopotamian valley, then almost entirely dependent upon the caravan routes centering in Aleppo. Accordingly, negotiations were begun in the spring of 1911 looking toward the building of a branch line to Alexandretta and the construction of extensive port facilities at that harbor.

Serious financial difficulties were encountered, however, in the promotion of this plan. The Young Turk budget of 1910 had announced that no further railway concessions carrying guarantees would be granted. Even had the Government been disposed to depart from its avowed intention, it would have been unable to do so. Suffering from the usual malady of a young government—lack of funds—it was running into debt continually and finding