"المفاوضات حول سكة حديد بغداد" [ظ‎‎٦‎٦] (٣٢/٢٢)

20
T he B agdad R ailway.
misconceive the whole character of the Anglo-German negotiations of 1913-14. Thus
Sir Harry Johneton, in an article in the "Daily Chronicle" of September 6, 1917,
suggests that "our Foreign Office was prepared to conclude agreements with Germany
enormously widening the sphere of her colonial action in the Turkish dominions '—
an assumption for which there is no evidence.
We have been at some pains to collate the authoritative statements which were
made both in Germany and in this country, as w r ell as in Paris and Petrograd, on the
subject of these complicated negotiations before the outbreak of war. The comparison
with more recent versions of what actually took place is instructive. We believe that
we have succeeded in compiling,—from Parliamentary Debates in both Houses in
1911-1914, from the "North German Gazette," from various issues of the " Times,"
including those of the 14th and 17th May, 1913, from articles written in the
summer of 1914 by Dr. Hans Plehn and other German writers whose compositions
bear traces of the heavy hand of semi-official revision, and from a number of pre-war
announcements in France, Russia and Constantinople—a pretty accurate summary of
events during the period of negotiation. We are also able to reproduce a map showing
approximately not only railway but also navigation concessions in Asiatic Turkey, as
they appeared in July 1914. Parenthetically we have been much impressed by the
virtual unanimity which apparently existed in this country during 1913 and the first
half of 1914 in regard to the expediency of the Bagdad Railway settlement, the
essential provisions of which were generally known ; indeed, some of those organs of
opinion which had been most uncompromising in their condemnation of the negotiations
of 190o now expressed a distinct measure of satisfaction. 0
W hen it became clear that the Germans were satisfied that the customs increase
was not an indispensable condition of the ultimate completion of the line, and that
they were therefore not prepared to go beyond the arrangement they had reached with
lurkey m 1911 m regard to the sections from Bagdad to the Gulf, two courses were
open to the British Government. They could either have adopted a non possumus, but
in the end ineffectual, attitude of withholding indefinitely British assent to the customs
aicrease; or they could have sought some other basis of negotiation. It was the
second of these alternatives that they adopted. In the late summer of 1912 they appear to
lave u ithdrawn heir request for British participation in the Gulf sections of the Bagdad
tW HrV t "'timaU-d their readiness to assent to the customs increase on condition
points n V'A orf I t ! ■ lje f safe «" arded by a satisfactory agreement on the following
of Great Britain ^nHT 6 wa . s 1 t ? be reached defining the respective interest!
, a i5ritai P and lurkey in the neighbourhood of the Persian Gull (2 ) Turkev
3 AeTtfnM tl l e t - r,gh 1 t 0f - Ul " eat Britain t0 U!ldert ake, in the fntnrc as in the
Ih 'sS ^^ ? m f policing the Persian Gulf. (3.) The terminus
Knd fiSrfi n thnr, 8 and 110 was to be continned
Government. (4 ) T|,• 0n t i ersiau Gulf without the consent of the British
concerning thp * + - 0 ol a se ttlement of the long-standing difficulties
Basra (f) A "n^YsPttT ' I and tlie futlire of the port of
■) a settlement was to be concluded in regard to the Turco-Persian
See, intn aha, " Ihe limes" of May 17, 1913, and the " National Review " of August 1913.