Page:Turkey, the great powers, and the Bagdad Railway.djvu/93

 construction of a great trunk line from Konia, southeastern terminus of the existing Anatolian Railways, to the Persian Gulf. This was to be the Bagdad Railway proper, but the concession carried with it, also, the privilege of constructing important branches in Syria and Mesopotamia. With all its proposed tributary lines completed, the Railway would stretch from the Bosporus to the Persian Gulf and from the Mediterranean to the frontiers of Persia. Second, it was stipulated that the Anatolian Railway Company should effect any necessary improvements on its lines to make possible the early initiation of a weekly express service between Constantinople and Aleppo and the operation of fortnightly express trains to Bagdad and the Persian Gulf as soon as the lines should be completed. The Anatolian concessions were extended for a period of ninety-nine years from 1903 to make them coincident with the new concession. The concessionaires were obliged to make all improvements and to complete all new construction by 1911, it being understood, however, that this time limit might be extended in the event of delays by the Government in the execution of the financial arrangements or in the event of force majeure—the latter specifically including, not only a European war, but any radical change in the financial situation in Germany, England, or France.[32]

The Bagdad Railway was to revive the "central route" of medieval trade—to traverse one of the world's historic highways. It was to bring back to Anatolia, Syria, and Mesopotamia some of the prosperity and prestige which they had enjoyed before the explorations of the Portuguese and Spaniards had opened the new sea routes to the Indies.[33]