"سكة حديد بغداد" [و‎‎١‎٤] (١٢٩/٢٧)

Turkey, which means to attract further capital from Germany. It would therefore e
unwise to predict that, even if the double guarantee is not forthcoming, sufficient
money will not he found.to complete the two sections.
Once this were done and the railway was working from Constantinople (Haidar
p as ha) to Aleppo (the branch to this town from the main line is very short) the
Germans would find themselves in an exceedingly strong position. They would he
in complete control of the principal railways in Anatolia, they would command part
of the route from the Sultan’s capital to the holy cities of Arabia (the Trench
Company are already negotiating for the completion of the last section ot their line
from Hama to Aleppo) and they would have secured connection with three seaports
on the Cilician and Syrian seaboards (Mersina, Beyrout, and Acre). They would
have built more than a quarter of their line and wmuld he only 400 miles of easy
country distant from Mosul or GOO from Bagdad, either of which places might con
ceivably be their terminus in the event of their determining to use the River Tigris
instead of building a railway to the Persian Gulf.
In such a position they might w r ell be much less disposed to require or even to
accept our assistance than they are nowo This is a contingency that seems worth
consideration.
7. If, however, the Germans do not succeed in getting the double guarantee
from the Sultan they may—
(a.) Either content themselves with the guarantee for the second section only, of
which it is understood they have the refusal ; or
(b.) They may cast about to bring in extraneous capital.
The former of these alternatives is by no means impossible. They would
presumably receive the same class of guarantee that they have already had tor the
Konia-Eregli section. This, capitalised in the same way as before, should produce
over 2,000,000/. in addition to which they have 1,000,000/. in hand. To reach Adana
they have 125 miles of line to build through wdiat is certainly difficult and moun
tainous country. According to Rohrbacli it “will probably involve the construction
of a tunnel several kilometres in length.” Now the Konia-Eregli section was built at
the rate of about 6,000/. a-mile. Allowing 10,000/. a-mile for the construction of the
Eregii-Adana section there still remains a balance of nearly 1,000,000/. lor tunnelling,
amTthis, at the high rate of the St. Gothard tunnel, is sufficient for four solid miles
of such work. Erom personal recollections of the road, over which the present writer
has driven in a cart, it is not to he compared for difficulty wntli the Alps.
Once the Germans are at Adana they have again considerably improved their
position, for they are, by means of the existing Adana-Mersina railway, in communi
cation with the sea, and can at once begin working the line both for the export of
cereals and the import of railway material.
Without suggesting that they would then refuse to admit British co-operation
as they might do had they succeeded in getting as far as Aleppo it still appears
likely that they would be less inclined to give us favourable terms than they aie at
present, with the terrors of the Taurus looming ahead.
8. It would therefore seem that, if negotiations are to be resumed, the present is
the most auspicious moment that is likely to be afforded us. Although too much
importance should not be attached to the clause which compels the Germans to
complete the line in eight years from the date of signature of the Convention—-foi the
modification of such clauses is not very arduous to persona; grata at Constantinople—
yet the fact that only some five years are left in which to build nine-tenths of the line
cannot but causw them to feel a little anxious at the present juncture.
9 phe next point that needs consideration is whether participation in the seneme
is likely to be beneficial to us or the reverse. t
Ht The General Staff, in a Memorandum of the loth November, 1904 (4o b),
“pointed out the disadvantages—political, commercial, and strategic—which the
control by Germany of a line to the Persian Gulf would entail upon Great Britain.
Accepting their views as to the strategic disadvantages-which are, indeed, sufficiently
obvious -it is worth while examining the question from the point of view of British
prestige and of British trade. .
11. British prestige, in so far as it exists independently of our trade in the
valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, appears to be principally connected, firstly, with
the control and influence that we exercise, more than any other Pouer, over various
portions of the Arabian Peninsula and of the Arab race along the Red Se<>, the Indian
(A.), p. 63.
(C.), p. 1.
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