Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/43

 *tary service, the collection of taxes in all provinces of the empire, and defence against foreign invasion—all of these policies would be seriously handicapped, if not paralyzed, by the absence of adequate railway communications.

For strategic reasons, if for no other, Abdul Hamid would have especially favored the Bagdad Railway. For strategic reasons, also, he supplemented the Bagdad system with the famous Hedjaz Railway—from Damascus to the holy cities of Medina and Mecca—one of the achievements of which the wily old Sultan was most proud.[21] The completion of these two railways would have extended Turkish military power from the Black Sea to the Persian Gulf, from the Bosporus to the Persian Gulf. General von der Goltz epitomized their military importance in the following terms: "The great distance dividing the southern provinces from the rest of the empire was not the only difficulty in holding them in control; it made Turkey unable to concentrate her strength in case of great danger in the north. It must not be forgotten that the Osmanlie Empire in all former wars on the Danube and in the Balkans has only been able to utilize half her forces. Not only did the far-off provinces not contribute men, but, on the contrary, they necessitated strong reënforcements to prevent the danger of their being tempted into rebellion. This will be quite changed when the railroads to the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea are completed. The empire will then be rejuvenated and have renewed strength."[22] The General might have added that the new railways might conceivably be utilized for the transportation to the Sinai Peninsula of an army intended to threaten the Suez Canal and Egypt.[23]

The Ottoman Government made it plain from the very start that the Bagdad Railway, in particular, was intended to serve military, as well as purely economic, purposes. The concession of 1903 contained a number of explicit