Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/180

 might interfere with the flow to France of the cheap raw silk of Syria, almost the entire output of which is consumed in French mills. The fears of the silk manufacturers were emphasized by one of the foremost French banks, the Crédit Lyonnais, which maintained branches in Jaffa, Jerusalem, and Beirut, for the purpose of financing silk and other shipments. This bank had experienced enough competition at the hands of the Deutsche Palästina Bank to assure it that further German interference was dangerous.[18]

From the political point of view there was more to be said for the French objections. Foremost among serious international complications was the strategic menace of the Railway to Russia. The Bagdad enterprise was described as the "anti-Russian maneuver par excellence." To weaken Russia was to undermine the "foundation stone of French foreign policy," for it was generally conceded that "the Alliance was indispensable to the security of both nations; it assured the European equilibrium; it was the essential counterbalance to the Triple Alliance."[19] Then, too, the question of prestige was involved! In the great game of the "balance of power" an imperial advance by one nation was looked upon as a humiliation for another! Thus a German success in Turkey, whether gained at the expense of important French interests or not, would have been considered as reflecting upon the glory of France abroad! There was also a menace to France in a rejuvenated Turkey. A Sultan freed from dependence upon the Powers might effectively carry on a Pan-Islamic propaganda which would lead to serious discontent in the French colonial empire in North Africa. What would be the consequences if the Moors should answer a call to a Holy War to drive out the infidel invaders?[20]

Still more fundamental, perhaps, than any of these