Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/287

 were assured unrestricted access to the southern terminus of the Bagdad Railway. In return for surrendering the Basra-Persian Gulf section of the Bagdad system and for admitting British capitalists to participation in the Bagdad and Basra ports company, Germany received full recognition of her economic rights in Anatolia, Syria, and northern Mesopotamia, together with a minor share in Lord Inchcape's navigation enterprises and in the newly formed Turkish Petroleum Company. Above all, British opposition to the Bagdad Railway, which had been so stubbornly maintained since 1903, was to be a thing of the past. For these considerations Germany could well afford to accept a subordinate place in southern Mesopotamia and to recognize British interests in the Persian Gulf.

Great Britain gained even more than Germany. She abandoned her policy of obstruction of the Bagdad Railway and consented to an increase in the customs duties of the Ottoman Empire. These considerations had never been ends in themselves, but rather pawns in the great game of diplomacy, to be surrendered in return for other valuable considerations. For them England secured guarantees of equality of treatment for British citizens and British goods on the German railway lines in Turkey. In addition, English capitalists received a monopoly of navigation on the Tigris and Euphrates, a 40% interest in port and terminal facilities at Bagdad and Basra, control of the oil resources of the Mesopotamian valley, extensions to British-owned railways in southern Anatolia, and other valuable economic concessions. British political control was recognized as dominant in southern Mesopotamia; therefore the Bagdad Railway no longer could be said to be a menace to the safety of India. As for Britain's new position in the Persian Gulf, one of her own publicists said, "England has virtually annexed another sea, one of the world's highways."[33]