TURKEY, THE GREAT POWERS,
AND THE BAGDAD RAILWAY
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
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TORONTO
Turkey, The Great Powers,
and
The Bagdad Railway
A Study in Imperialism
BY
EDWARD MEAD EARLE, Ph.D.
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF HISTORY IN
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1924
All rights reserved
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Copyright, 1923,
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published July, 1923.
ReprintedJuly, 1924
Press of
J. J. Little & Ives Company
New York, U. S. A.
“When the history of the latter part of the nineteenth centurywill come to be written, one event will be singled outabove all others for its intrinsic importance and for its far-reachingresults; namely, the conventions of 1899 and of1902 between His Imperial Majesty the Sultan of Turkeyand the German Company of the Anatolian Railways.”—CharlesSarolea, The Bagdad Railway and German Expansionas a Factor in European Politics (Edinburgh, 1907),p. 3.
“The Turkish Government, I know, have been accused ofbeing corrupt. I venture to submit that it has not been forwant of encouragement from Europeans that the Turks havebeen corrupt. The sinister—I think it is not going too farto use that word—effect of European financiers on Turkeyhas had more to do with the misgovernment than any Turk,young or old.”—Sir Mark Sykes, in the House of Commons,March 18, 1914.
PREFACE
The Chester concessions and the Anglo-American controversyregarding the Mesopotamian oilfields are but twoconspicuous instances of the rapid development of Americanactivity in the Near East. Turkey, already an importantmarket for American goods, gives promise ofbecoming a valuable source of raw materials for Americanfactories and a fertile field for the investment of Americancapital. Thus American religious interests in theHoly Land, American educational interests in Anatoliaand Syria, and American humanitarian interests in Armenia,are now supplemented by substantial Americaneconomic interests in the natural resources of Asia Minor.Political stability and economic progress in Turkey nolonger are matters of indifference to business men andpoliticians in the United States; therefore the EasternQuestion—so often a cause of war—assumes a new importanceto Americans. This book will have served a usefulpurpose if—in discussing the conflicting political,cultural, and economic policies of the Great Powers inthe Near East during th