ملف ١٩٠٤/٢٧٦٤ الجزء ٣ "سكة حديد بغداد: مفاوضات عامة ١٩١٠-١٩١٢." [و‎‎١‎٦‎٨] (٥٤٤/٣٤٦)

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Government.]
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BAGDAD RAILWAY.
[December 19.]
SECRET.
* 390EC1910 A
Section 2.
[45697]
No. 1.
Sir G. Buchanan to Sir Edward Grey.—(Received December 19.)
(No. 486. Secret.)
Sir, St. Petersburgh, December 13, 1910.
IN a conversation which I had with the Minister for Foreign Affairs this afternoon
I told his Excellency that, as the text of the draft agreement which he had submitted
to Count Pourtales respecting Persia and the linking up of the two railway systems
could only have reached you this morning, I was not able to say what impression it had
made on His Majesty’s Government. As, however, there seemed to me to be several
points in it which were not very clear, I should like to give him my own personal views
with regard to it, so that his Excellency might be able to correct me had I failed to
understand the purport of some of its articles. 1 had, I said, always understood that,
when the idea of the “ negociations a quatre ” had to be abandoned, that of parallel
negotiations had been substituted for it, in order that the Powers of the Triple Entente
might be in a position to present a united front to Germany in all matters in which
they were respectively interested in connection with the Bagdad Railway. Now, in
return for Germany’s renunciation of any claim to railway concessions, &c., in North
Persia, Russia, under article 2 of the draft agreement, engaged to link up the Bagdad
Railway with the future North Persian railway, when that line had been constructed.
That engagement would not render Germany more disposed to meet the wishes of
France and Great Britain, though I quite understood the reasons which had induced
his Excellency to take it. Article 1, however, went still further, as, were effect to be
given to its provisions, Russia, it seemed to me, would have to disinterest herself in all
questions touching the construction and control of the Bagdad Railway, and would thus
be debarred from co-operating with or supporting France and Great Britain in any
diplomatic action w 7 hich they might have to take to safeguard their interests. The
gist of the agreement would therefore appear to be that Germany was to have a free
hand as regarded the Bagdad Railway, while Russia was to be secured against German
competition in North Persia.
M. Sazonow replied that article 1 was not nearly so far-reaching as I had imagined,
and that it must be read in connection with article 2, where mention was expressly
made of the Konia-Bagdad section. The engagement which it contained had only
reference to the railway as far as Bagdad, and not to the whole railway system,
inclusive of the Gulf section and of its other branches. He did not believe that
Germany could ever build the Gulf section by herself. In the first place, she could not
find the necessary capital, and, in the second, we would always be able to prevent her
by bringing pressure to bear on Turkey. We had but to do what we had done in
Persia conjointly with Russia, when we warned the Persian Government that the grant
of any concessions that w r ould injuriously affect our strategical or political interests to
the subjects of a third Power would be regarded as an unfriendly act.
I observed that there seemed to me to be no analogy between the two cases, as the
action which we had taken in Persia had reference to future concessions, whereas in
the case of the Bagdad Railway we were concerned with a concession which had been
granted to Germany years ago. To return, however, to the question of the scope of
article 1, I had, I said, not the slightest doubt, from the assurances which he had given
Mr. O’Beirne and from what he had told me, as to what his Excellency’s own intentions
had been, but I feared that, unless it was distinctly stated in that article that the
engagement given by the Russian Government had only reference to the railway as far
as Bagdad, a different interpretation might be placed on it by others. M. Sazonow
replied that the German Government were fully aware of the limited scope attached to
this article. He had, from the very beginning of his conversation at Berlin, referred
to the eventual grant of the control of the Gulf section to Great Britain, and, when he
had put forward in this connection his request that Russia should have the right to
construct the Sadijeh-Khanikin line, the Chancellor had raised no difficulties. No
reference was made in the draft agreement to this right, as, owing to its being
contingent on the grant of the control of the Gulf section "to Great Britain, it did not
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