Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/85

 Amanus mountains. The prospects of immediate earning power were better, for the railway would have been able to take over some of the caravan trade from Arabia to the Syrian coast and from Mesopotamia to Aleppo. From the Ottoman point of view, however, the proposal was altogether unsatisfactory. The railway would have developed the southern provinces of the empire without connecting them with Anatolia, the homeland of the Turks themselves and the heart of the Sultan's dominions. It might have promoted a separatist movement among the Arabs. Its termini on the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf could have been controlled by the guns of a foreign fleet. From every standpoint—economic, political, strategic—the acceptance of such a proposal was out of the question.

Even had all other things been equal, it is probable that the German bankers would have been given preference in the award of the concession. The Turkish Government was determined that the Anatolian lines should be made the nucleus of the proposed railway system for the empire. That being the case, no purpose, other than the promotion of confusion, would have been served by awarding the Bagdad plum to interests other than those which controlled the Anatolian Railway Company. This reasoning was fortified by the fact that the Company had made an enviable record in its dealings with the Ottoman Ministry of Public Works. The existing lines were well constructed and were being operated in a manner entirely satisfactory to the Ottoman Government and to the peasantry and business men of Anatolia. And M. Huguenin, Assistant General Manager of the Anatolian system, announced that his Company would observe a similar policy in the construction and operation of the proposed Bagdad Railway. "We are determined," he said, "to build a model line such as exists nowhere in Turkey, able in all respects