"دليل الخليج. مجلد I. القسم التاريخي. الأجزاء Iأ و Iب. ج.ج. لوريمر ١٩١٥" [‎١‎٤‎٥‎٣] (١٧٨٢/١٦٠٨)

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" Your Excellency will be pleased to compel the individuals actually in
" custody to make good tlie balance still due to Agha Mahomed
" Hussain/^
Mr. Andrew, the sanguine and energetic originator of the Euphrates
Valley Railway scheme^ did not abandon hope when in 1857, as already
mentioned, the Company formed at his instance failed to secure a
financial guarantee for its enterprise from the British Government.
Though the concession obtained from the Porte had expired, Mr. Andrew
remained in communication with British and Turkish Ministers and other
influential persons on the subject of the scheme, and from 1866 to 18/0 he
pressed it with great earnestness. The Indian Mutiny and the completion
of the Suez Canal furnished fresh arguments in the case, and much
stress was now laid on the facilities which the line would afPord for *
relieving or reinforcing the British garrison in India by a route
alternative to, and more rapid than, that via the Red Sea.
In 1867 the advantages of a Euphrates \ alley Railway were
summarised by Mr. Andrew as follows
It would connect the Mediterranean with Bussorah, at the head of the Persian
Gulf, between which place and Kurrachee and Bombay regular oommunication is now
maintained by a line of steamers subsidised by ihe Indian Government.
Making Kurrachee the European port of India in place of Bombay, it would save
about 1 ,000 miles in the distance between England and India, and would reduce the
time occupied in the journey almost by one half.
it would save the Government large sums in sudden emergencies, by the facilities
it would afford for the transport of troops and stores.
It would enable troops from England to be landed at Kurracbee in about 14 days,
and in two or three days more, at Lahore, Peshawar, or Delhi, when the Indus Valley
railway system is complete.
It would render the invasion of India all but impossible.
It would subject an enemy adv ncing towards the North-Western Frontier of India
to easy attack in the flank and rear. ^ _
It would render the resources of England so promptly available mthe feast, that
Chatham and Portsmouth might be made the bases of operations as easily as Kurrachee
Proposed
British
Euphrates
Valley
Railway
from the
Mediterra
nean to the
Persian Gulf
1871-72.
» It argues extreme optimism on the part of the promoters of the Railway that they
should have expected Turkey willingly to consent, at least foi long, to the fiequent
passage of considerable bodies of foreign troops through remote districts where her
own military power was of the slightest. And insufficient thought seems to ha\e been
given to the false situation in which Turkey would have been placed, during a wai
between Britain and Russia, through the use by Britain foi militaiy puiposes o a
railway running through Turkish territory, the idea of moving foreign tioops acioss
Turkey from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf was not a new one ; see Dr. J. W.
Winchester's Note on the Practicability of advancing an Army from Europe into
Asia hy the Provinces of the Euphrates and Tigris in the transactions ot the
Boiftbay Geographical Society, Volume VI, September 1841 to May 1844.
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