BAGDAD RAILWAY, Asiatic Turkey, an enterprise of international importance in which is bound up the future political control of large regions in Asia Minor, Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf. The line over 1,400 miles long, extending from Konieh on the existing Anato lian Railway through the Taurus range, and by way of the valley of the Euphrates, Nisibin, Mosul, Kerlculc, the Tigris, Bagdad, Kerbela and Nejef is projected eventually to reach Basra on the Persian Gulf, thus establishing through connection from Europe. Engineered by Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, the German diplo mat, on 27 Sept and 4 Oct. 1888, the first Ger man company obtained power to exploit the Haidar-Pasha-Ismidt Railway by the concession for 99 years of a railway to run from Ismidt to Angora. This was financed by the Anatolian Railway, baciced by the Deutsche Bank. On 15 Feb. 1893 the company was authorized to ex tend the railway from Ismidt to Konieh. This work covering the first 535 kilometres of the Bagdad Railway was completed in 1896. Early in October 1898, Kaiser William II vis ited the Sultan at Constantinople, and ob tained the promise of a concession for a rail road from Konieh to the Persian Gulf. Negotiations and surveys led in November 1899 to an irade approving of the German offers and to the convention of 16 Jan. 1902, which, definitely revised and brought up to date 5 March 1903, formed the charter of the enter prise. The ((Societe Ottomane des Chemins de-Fer de Baghdad)) was established with a capital of $3,000,000, of which only the half was actually paid up. The company acted as broker
between the Turkish government, which bor rowed the sums necessary for the construction of railways, and the European capitalists. A series of complicated arrangements between the two parties had to be adapted to circum stances from year to year. The entire network of railways from Konieh to Basra was divided into sections of 200 kilometres each. But this was found impracticable and the sections had to be built of unequal lengths. The Ottoman government and the railway company concluded separate agreements for each section, the dif ferent financial and technical problems being regulated by such agreements. The first section of 200 kilometres from Konieh to Eregli, regu lated by one of the conventions signed 5 March 1903, was completed and ready for service Oc tober 1904. The second section of about 840 lcilometres from Eregli to El Hejef through the Taurus range, was financed by the agreement of 2 June 1908. For some years technical and financial obstacles prevented its completion, and work owing to great tunneling difficulties was suspended May 1914, the railhead ending at Dorak. A convention signed at Constanti nople 20 March 1911 provided for the building of the third section of about 600 kilometres from El Helif to Bagdad, and a convention respecting the last section of the line from Bag dad to Basra, about 600 kilometres, was being discussed by Turkish and German statesmen when the European War broke out in 1914.