Mesopotan a and the War.— It has already been mentionei • I mat Mesopotamia was the key stone of the F -German scheme by reason of the Bagdad Railway. According to tierman authorities on the subject, there were three alternative plans to promote the expansion of Germany into a great world-empire. In the early stages of the Pan-German movement, the vision of its advocates was fixed upon South America as the most promising territory upon which a Greater Germany might be built. Here, however, the Monroe Doctrine stood in the way. The British Empire, as the largest landholder in the world. then became the focus of the Pan-Germanists, and here, again, a formidable harrier stood in the path the British navy. Two avenues being thus barred by obstacles which could only be removed by an over whelmingly powerful fleet, a third plan pre sented itself, a plan which provided for an overland expansion where no Monroe Doctrine existed and no British navy could intervene. The scheme was to gain control of the Balkan peninsula by the elimination of Serbia, the only hostile barrier separating the Central Powers from a friendly power, Bulgaria. This accom plished, the road lay open to Constantinople, a junction which, in its turn, opened the door to Asia, via the Persian Gulf ; to East Africa and Australia. The principal artery of communica tion lay in Mesopotamia — the Bagdad Railway. It was calculated that this project could be carried out without coming into physical con tact with either British territory or navy, and would place Germany in a position eventually to strike both at India and Egypt, a variation of Napoleon's plan of campaign for breaking the power of Britain. According to Prince Bfilow, former German chancellor, this undertaking •threw open to German influence and German enterprise a field of activity between the Medi terranean Sea and the Persian Gulf, on the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, and along their banks. If one can speak of boundless pros pects anywhere, it is in Mesopotamia') ((Im perial Germany,' p. 116). These words were no exaggeration, for Sir William \\ dlcocks, an .English engineer who had surveyed the country and planned a gigantic system of irrigation, part of which he had carried out before the war, had said, in 1903, that °Of all the regions of the earth, no region is more favored by nature for the production of cereals than the lands on the Tigris? This authority stated that the irrigable area of Mesopotamia was from two to three times as large as that of Egypt, which leads to the presumption that the country could support some 30,000,000 people. Persia and Turkey being decrepit and moribund states, the Pan-Germanists saw in Mesopotamia a field for exploitation which would make it for lyer many what Egypt was to Great Britain Morocco to France. German professors had painted the possibilities of this region to en thusiastic audiences in glowing colors, and had not omitted to point out that a German foothold on the Persian Gulf would imperil the position of Great Britain in India and Egypt. Now the most important route of the British Empire is the sea-route from England to India and Aus tralia via the Suez Canal. The value of the Persian Gulf as a strategical British position Has been pointed out by Admiral Mahan, on ac count of the Red Sea being merely a continua tion of the Suez Canal, both of which could be dominated by a hostile power holding the gulf. The British, however, have not awakened to the importance of the gulf only in recent years, for already in the days of Queen Elizabeth it was visited by English vessels; before ever the Turkish crescent appeared on the shore of Ara bia the English flag was known and respected in the Persian Gulf. The East India Company
planted a dep6t at Bandar Abbas in its early days and for nearly two centuries fought with Dutch and Portuguese rivals. The Anglo-In dian navy first surveyed the gulf and provided for its lighting to guide navigation. For 50 years the British hunted the pirates in the gulf and destroyed their strongholds. Altogether, for 300 years the British have been the guard ians of the gulf, by protecting Persia, sup pressing gun-running and slavery, fighting the plague and introducing the elements of sanita tion among the natives on the coastline. All that Great Britain took in return was a spot on an island for a telegraph station; but she al lowed no compromise on one point — that no power should be permitted to seize territory and no other flag should dominate those waters: The future of India and of the empire was bound up with British prestige in the Persian Gulf. These considerations explain the sus picion and mistrust of Great Britain regarding the absorption of Mesopotamia by Germany— an avowedly hostile power. In 1899 a German company obtained a concession from the Sul tan to build a railroad from Konieh — the ter minal of the Anatolian Railway — to Bagdad and Basra on the Persian Gulf, and from that year dates the German penetration of Mesopo tamia. On realizing the political objects under lying the scheme, Great Britain protested and a diplomatic conflict began which was still in progress when the war broke out. During 1913-14 a strange medley of diplomatic nego tiations were being held on the question of Mesopotamia and the railway, in which Eng land, France, Russia, Germany and Turkey were involved, with the result that Germany obtained the acquiescence of the powers to be the sole corcessionnaire of the railroad, though England forced Germany and Turkey to fix the terminal well inland at Basra. The lighting, marking and policing of the gulf by England was confirmed by Turkey. Meanwhile, Rus sian diplomacy had succeeded in creating in tangible aspheres of influence) in Turkish terri tory by which the German railroad through Mesopotamia was hemmed in on either side, while Great Britain held the key of the exit. As compensation for being restricted at that exit, Germany received a concession to build a line from the Bagdad Railway to Alexandretta on the Mediterranean. At a later date Great Britain was apparently willing to grant an ex tension of the German sphere, for Prince Lich nowsky (q.v.) records in his famous Memoran dum that °the greatest concession Sir Edward Grey made to me personally was the continua tion of the line to Basra. We had not insisted on this terminus in order to establish connection with Alexandretta. Hitherto Bagdad had been the terminus of the line. The shipping on the Shattel-Arab was to be in the hands of an in ternational commission. We also obtained a share in the harbor works at Basra and even acquired shipping rights on the Tigris, hith erto the monopoly of the firm of Lynch? He goes on to say that aby this treaty the whole of Mesopotamia became our zone of interest. . . .° This treaty, of course, was neither signed nor published owing to the outbreak of the war, otherwise the ex-ambassador remarks, agreement would have been reached with England which would have finally ended all doubt of the possibility of an Anglo-German co-operation? See WAR, EUROPEAN: TURK