Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/28

 business men or the strategic interests of the empire-*builders. Diplomatically, then, the region traversed by the Bagdad Railway was an international "danger zone."

The problem of maintaining stable government in Turkey was complicated by the religious heritage of the Ottoman Empire. It was the homeland of the Jews, the birthplace of Christianity, the cradle of Mohammedanism. European crusaders had waged war to free the Holy Land from Moslem desecrators; the followers of the Prophet had shed their blood in defence of this sacred soil against infidel invaders; the sons of Israel looked forward to a revival of Jewish national life in this, their Zion. It is small wonder that Turkey-in-Asia was a great field for missions—Protestant missions to convert the Mohammedan to the teachings of Christ; Catholic missions to win over, as well, the schismatics; Orthodox missions to retain the loyalty of adherents to the Greek Church. Despite their cultural importance in the development of modern Turkey, the missions presented serious political problems to the Sultan. They hindered the development of Turkish nationalism by teaching foreign languages, by strengthening the separatist spirit of the religious minorities, and by introducing Occidental ideas and customs. They weakened the autocracy by idealizing the democratic institutions of the Western nations. They occasioned international complications, arising out of diplomatic protection of the missionaries themselves and the racial and religious minorities in whose interest the missions were maintained. In no country more than in Turkey have the emissaries of religion proved to be so valuable—however unwittingly—as advance pickets of imperialism.

Complicating and bewildering as the Near Eastern question always has been, the construction of the Anatolian and Bagdad Railways made it the more complicating and bewildering. The development of rail transporta