'The Baghdad Railway Negotiations' [‎58r] (5/32)

The Bagdad Railway.
for the construction of a railway between Suedia, opposite Cyprus, and Basra, on the
Shatt-el-Arab. The Ottoman Government undertook to guarantee 0 per cent, on the
capital necessary for tlie first section as far as the Jjiiphrates, and to grant other
privileges; but these terms were not then sufficiently attractive to induce capitalists to
invest in a distant undertaking, and the support oi; the British (lovernment was sought
in the form of a counter-guarantee for a period of twenty-five years. This financial
assistance the Government did not feel justified in giving. 'Che scheme received a further
check from the opening of the Suez Canal in 18G9 ; but it was nevertheless kept alive
by those interested, and in l'S71-72 a Select Committee ol the House of Commons was
appointed " to examine and report upon the whole subject of railway communication
between the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. . 1 he report was to
the effect that no insuperable obstacle existed in the way of the construction of a
railway from some suitable port on the Mediterranean to some other suitable poit near
the head of the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. , but that there seemed no probability of the line being
constructed by private enterprise, without a British Government guarantee, for it was
plain from the evidence given that the railway could not at lirst pa} its way as a com
mercial undertaking. Neither the Imperial nor the Indian Government pioved a \ illing
to <>ive a guarantee, and no action was taken upon the Committees repoit. Fheie is,
nevertheless, foundation for the belief that Lord Beaconsfield cleaily lecogniscd the
dominating importance of this ancient trade route 5 indeed the occupation of Cj pius
was not wholly unassociated, in his constructive mind, with the pioject of a^iai \Aay
from the Gulf of Aiexandretta to the port of Basra ; and, at the time of the Congress
of Berlin, he actually instructed Major (afterwards Sir Jolm) Ardagh to trace on a map
the alignment of this railway. Possibly if Lord Beaconsfield s •Administration luu
remained in power some of the profits on the Suez ( anal shares might have )ecn
applied as financial guarantees for this enterprise.
Parenthetically it may here be remarked that although in I So/ the Ottoman
Government had been willing to support a line from Suedia to Basra, it is doubtlul,
owincr to strategical and political reasons, whether at later periods they would have
welcomed any railway from the Mediterranean to Bagdad until direct communication
between Constantinople and Aleppo had first been established. .
In 1892, however, Mr. G. N. (now Lord) Curzon observed in a published
work :—
" . .I do not see how such a line, running through such a region, could possibly be expected 10
pay; ami I should indeed be loth to incur the responsibility of advising any Wernment to sa* cite
itilf with even a limited guarantee ... In the very (act that neither the attention which t then
excited nor the voluminous literature to which it gave birth have saved it from an almost comptete
extinction, might be discovered an inferential argument against this scheme. Its superhoial attractions
judiciously dressed up iu the garb of patriotism, were such as to allure many minds, and coulee U
having felt, without having ever succumbed to, the fascination.
While the British project was thus being consigned by a prominent authority to
" an almost complete extinction," other schemes, as will presently be observed, had
already entered upon a gradual but lascinating development. . .
" German imagination," so it has been said, "never ceased to dream oi the
Morgenland since the epic of Barbarossa's crusade, and the legendary disappeaianco ut