Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/89

 great apostle of British imperialism, visited Germany in the spring of 1899 and came away from Berlin favorably disposed toward the Bagdad Railway and none the less pleased with the Kaiser's apparent enthusiasm for the Cape-to-Cairo plan. In November of the same year William II paid a royal visit to England. It was then that Joseph Chamberlain, Secretary for the Colonies, learned the details of German plans in the Ottoman Empire, but, so far from being alarmed, he publicly announced his belief in the desirability of an Anglo-German entente. The almost simultaneous announcement of the award of the preliminary Bagdad Railway concession met with a favorable reception from the British press.[21]

At the same time, however, less cordial sentiments were expressed toward Russia and France. There was general agreement among the London newspapers regarding at least one desirable feature of the Bagdad Railway enterprise: the discomfiture it would be certain to cause the Tsar in his imperial ambitions in the Near East. The Globe characterized as "impudence" the desire of Russia to regard Asiatic Turkey as "a second Manchuria."[22] No love was being lost, either, on France. The Daily Mail of November 9, 1899, said: "The French have succeeded in wholly convincing John Bull that they are his inveterate enemies. England has long hesitated between France and Germany. But she has always respected German character, while she has gradually come to feel scorn for France. Nothing in the nature of an entente cordiale can exist between England and her nearest neighbor. France has neither courage nor political sense."

It was almost three years after the Sultan's preliminary announcement of the Bagdad concession that the imperial