ملف ١٩٠٤/٢٧٦٤ الجزء ٣ "سكة حديد بغداد: مفاوضات عامة ١٩١٠-١٩١٢." [و‎‎١‎٣‎٠] (٥٤٤/٢٦٨)

[This Document is the Property of His Britannie Majesty’s Government.!
EASTERN DEPARTMENT.
SECRET SERIES.
[January 2.]
u 17JAN191
Section 2.
[49]
No. 1.
Sir G. Buchanan to Sir Edivard Grey.—(Received January 2, 1911.)
(No. 497. Secret.)
Sir, St. Petersburgh, December 26, 1910.
IN the course of a conversation which I had with the Minister for Foreign Affairs
this afternoon, I reverted to the subject of the draft agreement which he had
submitted .to the German Government respecting Persia and the Bagdad Railway. I
said that his Excellency would no doubt already have learnt from Count Benckendorff
that its first article, if read by anyone unacquainted with the explanations which he
had given, could only in your opinion imply that Russia was consenting to abandon all
opposition to the realisation of the whole Bagdad Railway project, and that the limited
construction which he was putting on it gave a quite new interpretation to the recognised
meaning of the term “Bagdad Railway.” If, moreover, his Excellency’s view & as to
the meaning of article 1 was correct, it was difficult to see what advantages Germany
would gain under the draft agreement in return for the concessions which she was
making to Russia in North Persia. I also repeated to M. Sazonow what you, Sir, had
told Count Benckendorff—that, should his Majesty’s Government ever find that a
satisfactory arrangement could be made with Germany respecting the Gulf section,
they would not confirm it until Russia and France had been able to make such
arrangements with Germany as suited their respective interests, and that, although
negotiations might proceed separately, no settlement ought to be arrived at until all
three Governments were satisfied.
M. Sazonow did not take up this last point except to explain that he had been
obliged to telegraph to Count Benckendorff, instructing him to correct the statement
which his Excellency had made to you as to the agreement respecting the linking up
of the two railway systems being contingent on the conclusion by His Majesty’s
Government of a satisfactory understanding with Germany respecting the Gulf section.
As regarded, however, the wording of. article 1, he assured me that it had never
struck him that it could bear any other interpretation than that which he had intended
to give to it, and that, had he not thought so, he would certainly have worded it
differently. On my enquiring whether he proposed to obtain from the German
Government an assurance in writing that the right to construct the line from Sadijeh
to Khanikin should be ceded to Russia in the event of Great Britain obtaining the
control over, the Gulf section, M. Sazonow said that he had no such intention. During
the discussions which had taken place at Berlin the two questions of the Bagdad
Railway—by which he meant the railway up to Bagdad—and the whole Bagdad
railway, system had been treated separately. Russia had engaged not to oppose the
realisation of the railway up to Bagdad, and had consented to the finking up of this
railway with the future North Persian railway system by a line running from Sadijeh
to Khanikin, because she was powerless to prevent the realisation of either of these
two schemes. Before the Potsdam interview the relations between the two Govern
ments had been very strained, and he had lived in daily dread of receiving the news
that Germany had obtained from the Persian Government the concession for the
Khanikin-Tehran line. The counter-concessions which he had extracted from
Germany were of the greatest importance to Russia ; while the engagements which the
latter had taken would be a moral satisfaction to German public opinion, and would
give German trade an access to the Persian markets. Great Britain had nothing
whatever to fear from the terms of the first article. The position of the Russian
Government with regard to any lines running from Bagdad either to the Gulf or to the
Mediterranean would be exactly the same as it was before that article had been
drafted. As he had told me already, he did not for one moment believe that Germany
could ever construct a line to the Gulf without our assistance ; but if the worst came
to the^ worst, and Russia had to give us her support, the only result would be a possible
“row” between the Russian and the German Governments.
I observed that even in my own small experience I had seen cases where
considerable complications had ensued in consequence of a treaty being so loosely