BAGHDAD RAILWAY. The Baghdad railway in its origin was essentially a German enterprise. Politically, its bear ings were far reaching and formed the keystone of German ac tivities in the Near East, especially in the Ottoman Empire. It was therefore a considerable menace to British interests, to Rus sia, and to the French power in Anatolia and Syria. There can be little doubt also that it was one of the important factors in in fluencing Turkey to join the central European Powers in the World War. Originally planned in 1889, the railway was to be built in zoo kilometre sections and to be completed in eight years, first as a single line, with subsequent extension to a double line. Eventually, after a long and unsatisfactory financial and diplo matic history an agreement was made early in 1914 between the French and German interests, and in June of that year the British and German agreement practically settled all the previous diffi culties. The war entirely altered the situation; during that period the line was of great strategical importance, enabling Turkish troops to be moved both towards the Bosporus and to Mesopo tamia, and for military purposes certain extensions were added to the line. After the war Russia had ceased to be a factor in the situation and the German dream of Berlin to Baghdad had van ished. The subsequent negotiations resulted eventually in the railway practically falling into three parts, namely, Turkish, within the modern state of Turkey ; Syrian, within the French man dated territory; and Iraqi, within the kingdom of Iraq. The sec tion connecting Turkey and Iraq remains uncompleted.
The line starts at Konia and runs through Eregli to the Taurus mountains. Thence it crosses the Cilician plain as far as the Amanus mountains and through tunnel systems on to Nisibin. It is connected with the Syrian system at Muslemiye, north of Aleppo, and there is a branch from Kale Keui to Alexandretta. In Iraq the only true branch of the railway is from Baghdad to Shergat, the line from Baghdad to Basra being a metre gauge. Its economic importance naturally falls into sections. West of the Taurus the railway passes through an unproductive tableland, only tapping fertile lands at intervals. The irrigation work done by the Germans at Konia served to benefit the Anatolian rail way westwards to Constantinople rather than the Baghdad rail way, which in this section seems to provide a connecting link between the Taurus and the Anatolian system rather than to form an independent system. East of the Taurus the line runs through the fertile Anatolian plain, which is especially rich in cereals, has access to the Mediterranean ports of Mersina and Alexandretta and is likely to develop considerably. The further extension eastwards taps an ancient trade route and so connects the foothill region with the Mediterranean. The Iraq section is unsatisfactory, and proposals have been made to pull up the line and prolong the existing railway on the other side of the Tigris through the populous and fertile foothill region to Mosul. This city, however, has connections rather with the south than with the west and the volume of trade, even if the connecting links of the projected railway were filled in, is more likely to flow through Baghdad than to the west, although a connection between Iraq and the Mediterranean is of the greatest importance, and its place is at present inadequately filled by the motor route across the desert. (For further details, see ASIA MINOR, MESO POTAMIA and IRAQ.) See British Colonial and Foreign Office annual reports, and E. M. Earle, Turkey, the Great Powers and the Baghdad Railway (1923) .