Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/188

 At Afiun Karahissar the main line of this system from Smyrna connected with the Anatolian line from Constantinople to Konia. Therefore a route for French trade already existed to all of Asia Minor; and when the Bagdad Railway was completed, direct service could be instituted from Smyrna to Adana, Aleppo, Mosul, Bagdad, and Basra. The second group of French railways was the Syrian system, owned by La Société Ottomane du Chemin de fer Damas-Hama et Prolongements. This company operated railway lines from Aleppo to Damascus, from Tripoli to Homs, from Beirut to Damascus, from Jaffa to Jerusalem, and between other less important points. After the completion of the Bagdad Railway this group of railways would have direct connections, at Aleppo, with all of Europe via Constantinople and with the Indies via Basra and the Persian Gulf. Perhaps the French interests controlling these railways were chagrined at their inability to secure the trans-Mesopotamian concession for themselves. But faced with the fait accompli of the German concession, they realized that coöperation with the Bagdad Railway would make their lines an integral part of a greater system of rail communications within Turkey and also between Turkey and the nations of Europe and Farther Asia. Refusal to coöperate would be cutting off their noses to spite their faces.[34]

French bankers were disposed to look at the Bagdad enterprise in much the same light. The economic renaissance of Turkey, which it was hoped would be an effect of improved rail communications, would increase the value of their earlier investments in that country. But, in addition, the Bagdad Railway offered handsome profits in itself: profits of promoting the enterprise and floating the various bond issues; profits of the construction company, in which French capital was to participate; profits of the shareholders when the Railway should become a going