Russian influence in Turkey differs signally from the control exerted by its three western competitors. British, German and French encroachments on Turkish sovereignty have increased in proportion to the amount of capital expended by each of these countries for the development of Turkish resources. In this respect Russia, which is not a country of financiers, stood at a disadvantage. To overcome this handicap Russians resorted to borrowing from France and England, mainly the former, and invested the funds thus obtained in Turkey. Such transactions have in reality been the means of strengthening French and British ascendancy in the Ottoman land. The northeastern region of Anatolia, which, owing to its contiguity to Russia, was regarded as a sphere of Russian influence, has lately been looked upon often as a zone of French interests, owing to the participation of French capital in its development. But from a geographical standpoint this French zone is artificial. Its dependence on Russia cannot be altered as long as its position on the map remains unchanged.

France’s natural sphere of interest in Turkey will be found in the Syrian vilayets. This is not due to the financing of Syrian public utilities and industries by French capitalists as is often alleged. It is the offspring of the Mediterranean which, since the dawn of history, has connected the southern French coast to Syrian harbors. Phœnician oversea trade in the first millennium before the Christian era had reached the coasts of Provence and Languedoc. Marseilles, a city born of this intercourse, has maintained commercial relations with Syria uninterruptedly down to the present time.

France has exercised a dominant intellectual influence in the Levant for at least seven centuries. Turks bestow the appellation “Frank” on Europeans without discrimination of nationality. Western ideas which have trickled down to Turkish soil are French in character. French schools in Turkey are more numerous than any other. The civilizing power of French culture showed its strength by the readiness with which it asserted itself in the midst of uncongenial Turkish thought. France’s hold on Turkey is thus of a high moral order. It differs in this respect from the material claims of the other European powers.

At the same time through the investments of French capitalists a well-defined zone of French interests has been created in Syria. Excepting the Hejaz line every railroad in the province has been financed in France. The silk factories of the Lebanon, around which the whole industrial life of Syria clusters, were started by French citizens. Their annual product, usually estimated at half a million kilograms of silk, is exported to France. Syrian silk farmers in need of funds for the annual purchase of cocoons raise their loans exclusively among the banking houses of Lyons. French interests are not confined to Syria alone; fully one-half of the amount of one billion dollars representing Turkey’s official debt to Europe has been advanced by French financial institutions.

It is difficult to assign a place to Italy in the array of European claimants for Turkish territory. The trade between Italian and Turkish seaports has lost the relative importance it had acquired in medieval times. Italian pretensions to Adalia Bay and its rearland are of quite recent date and the result of conquests in Libya. But beyond vaguely formulated promises for railway concessions from the Turkish government no ties bind the region to Italy. Italy however created its own sphere of interest somewhat unintentionally by the occupation of the islands of the Dodecanesia. By this act it distanced every other European country in the race for a share of Turkey.

The group of islands lying off the southwestern coast of Anatolia is now held by Italy in virtue of stipulations covenanted with Turkey at the treaty of Lausanne. According to the terms agreed upon, Italy was to occupy the islands in guarantee of Turkish good faith pledged to prevent anti-Italian agitation in Libya. Upon complete pacification of the latest territorial addition to Italy’s African domain, the political fate of the islands was to be determined jointly by the six Great European Powers.

The islands, between twelve and fifteen in number, are peopled exclusively by Greeks. Hellenic customs, language and religion have survived upon each in spite of centuries of Turkish rule. Italian sovereignty, however benevolent or likely to promote the welfare of the islanders, is disliked equally at Patmos, Leros, Cos and Rhodes. The remaining islands are relatively unimportant, some consisting of mere uninhabited rocks emerging two or three hundred feet above the sea. But to the smallest inhabited islet, annexation to Greece is keenly desired. The Italians were hailed as liberators from the Turkish oppression by the hardy fishermen who labored under the impression that their island homes had been rescued in order to be annexed to Greece. Their disappointment was expressed in mass meetings at Patmos and Cos in 1913.

Racial and historical considerations add their weight to the linguistic claims advanced by Greeks in Greece and the Dodecanesia. As sailors the islanders have maintained to this day classical traditions of Hellenic maritime activity in the region. The islands in fact constitute lands of unredeemed nationality whose natives are without a single exception akin to the continental Greeks.

This fact combined with a distribution of a numerically preponderant Greek element along the western coast of Anatolia makes the Ægean a truly Greek sea. Structurally the coast lands encircling this body of water are identical. In the east as in the west they constitute the warped margin of a subsided area. Identity of land and peoples has given rise to Greek claims on western Turkey. Greece, therefore, keeps in line with other European nations in expecting a share in the inheritance of the moribund Turkish state.

The claim is historical no less than economic. The association of the Ægean religion with centuries of Hellenism and fully one millennium of Byzantinism is by no means severed in modern days. For the second time in its glorious history the ancient city of Athens has become the social, political and intellectual center of the Greek world. In one and the same prospect the Greek capital can point with pride to the Hellenic splendor exhaled from Anatolian ruins and to her modern sons achieving daily economic victories over the Turk in his own land.

In this spectacle of nations lying athwart each other’s path the clue to the adequate settlement of the Turkish problem may be found. Turkey is before anything else a roadway—a bridge-land. As soon as this point of practical geography is recognized it will be easy to provide international legislation in which the claims of interested powers will be harmonized. But no solution of the political problem involved can ever be attained without full consideration of its geographical aspects. Failure to recognize this would leave the Eastern Question in the hopeless tangle in which it has lain for over a century.

As the seat of through routes Turkey and its railroad play a great part in international transportation. Hence it is that the Turkish lines, with exception of the Hejaz railroad, are controlled by financiers grouped according to nationality. At present the majority of shareholders in each of the concessions belong to one or the other of the great European powers.

The broad Eurasian landmass contains three densely populated areas. Of these central Europe is the westernmost. The Indian peninsula follows, situated approximately midway between the European area and the coastlands and islands of eastern Asia, which form the easternmost of the three. In these three regions only does the average density of population exceed 64 inhabitants to the square mile. The speediest and most convenient routes between the westernmost and the two Asiatic regions must inevitably cross Turkey. This feature, together with the fact that Asiatic Turkey is a land richly endowed with natural resources and that, although lying at Europe’s very door, it is still undeveloped, confer upon Turkish railroads an importance which has always been keenly realized by enterprising business men the world over.

All travel between Europe and Asia is deflected into northern and southern channels by a central mass of mountains which separate a vast lowland of plains and steppes on the north from the tablelands of southern Asia. Age-old avenues of human migration and of trade in the northern area have the disadvantage of traversing sparsely inhabited regions. To build trans-continental railroads along this route implies scaling some of the highest mountain ranges in the world in order to tap the populous centers of India. Although this is not beyond the engineer’s ability, capitalists decline to consider it. Southern routes, on the other hand, link with the seas that set far inland on Asiatic coasts. The function of the Turkish trunk lines is to provide the shortest connection between European railways and the steel tracks of southern Asia or to connect with the sea routes that link harbor to harbor from the Persian Gulf to the China Sea.

Although lying at Europe’s very door and in spite of its extreme antiquity as the abode of civilized man, Asia Minor presents the strange anomaly of being one of the world’s least developed regions. It was only after the Crimean War that railroad construction was undertaken within the peninsula. The granting of railway concessions enabled the Sultan to pay his debt of gratitude to the western nations which had assisted him in checking the natural efforts of the Russians to add a strip of ice-free coast to their country’s southwestern boundary. With the exception of a single line every kilometer of track in the peninsula has been built by Europeans. As is always the case in undeveloped areas, the districts tapped by the various lines became economically dependent on the roads that hauled their products and supplies. This circumstance induced tacit recognition of spheres of foreign influence in which commercial, and attendant political, preponderance leaned strongly towards the country which supplied the capital with which the railroads were built. Wherever, as in Syria, vaguely defined spheres of European influence had previously existed, the advent of engines and cars contributed to strengthen them considerably. The routes determined by the steel-clad tracks may therefore be considered as approximate center-lines of these spheres of foreign influence. It is on this basis that six distinct spheres may be marked out as follows:

(1) A British sphere extending over the entire drainage basin of the Meander and traversed by the British-owned Aidin railway.

(2) A French sphere which was originally confined to the drainage of the Gediz river, the ancient Hermos, but which, through privileges acquired as a result of the successful operation of the French-owned Cassaba railway, now extends northwards to the Sea of Marmora. This additional sphere is divided into two equal east and west areas by the French-owned Soma-Panderma railroad.

(3) A German sphere—the most important of these spheres of foreign influence—which, beginning at the Bosporus, traverses the entire peninsula diagonally by way of the inviting routes provided by surface features and extends southeasterly through Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf.

(4) A Franco-Russian sphere which was originally allotted to Russia and which comprises all of the area north of the German zone described above. Russia’s inability to finance railway enterprise in this area, no less than political ties which bind this country to France, led to French participation. As a result of this dual arrangement construction on the French-owned Samsoun-to-Sivas line was begun in 1913.

(5) A second French sphere comprising all of Syria. It is considered by Frenchmen as their most important sphere of influence in Turkey. The French-owned Beirut-Aleppo, Tripoli-Homs and Jaffa-Jerusalem lines are operated in this area.

(6) An Italian sphere extending inland from the extreme southwestern coast of Asia Minor so as to include the hinterland of the Gulf of Adalia. Italy is a recent invader of this field. Its ambitions were revealed in the fall of 1913, after it became known that negotiations had been carried on between the representative of the Italian bondholders of the Ottoman Public Debt and the Turkish government for the concession of a railway line to connect the seaport of Adalia and the town of Burdur, the southeasterly terminus of the Aidin railway.

(7) With these six spheres a contested seventh should be mentioned, which is constituted by the exceedingly rich mineral district situated at the northern convergence of the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates. Russian, French and German interests claim respective rights of priority to its exploitation.

None of these divisions would be recognized officially as such in Turkey. But then ethnographic boundaries are likewise strictly ignored by the rulers of that country. Definite official recognition of these spheres is nevertheless implied in the terms of a number of commercial covenants signed by Turkey and various European powers according to which the right to operate railroads, and even mines sometimes, is granted by the Turkish government exclusively to a single company which in almost every instance is owned by capitalists of the same nationality. The Russo-Turkish convention of 1900, which reserved to Russians rights of preëmption on railroad building in the area called the Franco-Russian sphere, may be mentioned as an example. Similarly the Bagdad Railway Convention of 1902, formally signed by the German ambassador and the Turkish Minister of Public Works, recognized the exclusive rights of the Bagdad Railway Company—a German enterprise—to build the important trans-peninsular route which will link Europe to Asia and Africa.

One might infer that the existence of these six spheres should be attributed to Turco-European agreements. Closer scrutiny brings to light, however, the working of purely natural forces, explanation of which is to be found in the geography of Asia Minor. These international railroad conventions, and the areas determined by their text, represent in reality the outcome of the geographical conditions which are grouped here under the two major heads of world relation and regional features.

World relation is an attribute of geographical location. Situated as a junction area, a bridge as it were, between two continents, Asia Minor stands out as an excellent type of an intermediate region which has participated in the life of both. This two-fold influence has been particularly marked whenever general progress in either continent culminated in an overflow beyond continental boundaries. The feats of Greeks and Persians, and of Byzantines and Turks, may be considered as successive cycles in which the spirit of Europe or of Asia predominated in turn. At the end of each cycle life on the peninsula would revert to conditions determined largely by regional influences. The past sixty years have witnessed the beginning of a process of slow liberation from the effects of the last cycle of Asiatic invasion. The spirit of the west is ushered in once more for the simple reason that it has become necessary to maintain a clear road over which the products of overworked European factories will be transported to populous markets in southern Asia. The primary cause of European influence must therefore be traced back to Asia Minor’s location, by virtue of which the peninsula has always been the site of an important world route. Aryans of the present century are merely preparing themselves to travel by rail the highway over which their far-removed ancestors tramped on foot.

Besides offering the shortest overland route between the Baltic Sea and the Indian Ocean, Asia Minor’s favored location affords the same convenience with regard to land communication between Europe and Africa. Any line diverging southwards at a suitable point on the main trunk which traverses the peninsula diagonally may be prolonged through Syria to the Turco-Egyptian frontier and extended in Africa so as to connect with the Cape-to-Cairo railroad. While no definite steps have yet been taken to secure this desirable connection, the project has been under consideration for over a decade and it may be surmised that its execution will not be deferred much longer.

But world relation is also determined by a region’s natural resources. Notwithstanding its undeveloped state, Asia Minor is known to have been abundantly endowed with all the primary products required by modern man’s complex life. The valleys connecting its coast line with the inland ranges are exceedingly fertile. This is particularly true of its western and northern area. The high plateau of the interior needs only to be irrigated in order to become a vast granary. Its mineral wealth is so abundant and varied that it may be asserted that no other area of the same dimensions can be compared to it. Its flora is extremely diversified. Its forest belts are still considerable, despite a lack of legislation for insuring their conservation and rational exploitation. The slopes facing its three seas from the upper coniferous belts to the lower olive tree zone, support a great variety of economic species. We have here all the elements which satisfy man’s natural desire for space after he has reached a given stage of development. This desire is imposed by economic requirements which impel activity in fields that must be kept expanding. The zones must be hence regarded as spheres of economical rather than political influence. They indicate natural foresight on the part of powerful political agglomerations preparing the way for future industrial and commercial advantages. At bottom it is an expression of man’s growing ability to shape his destinies according to his requirements and free himself from the limitations imposed by frontiers. The economic phase of Asia Minor’s geography thus contributes its full share in the determination of these spheres of foreign interests.

Asia Minor may be considered as the eastern emergence of the continental shelf supporting the European peninsula. Its salient physical features are a central plateau surrounded by a rim-like succession of ranges which are fringed in turn by a coastal strip of land. A gradual ascent from west to east can be observed. The western ranges have a mean altitude of about 2,000 feet above sea level. The plateau has an average height of 3,000 feet. The Armenian upland generally exceeds 4,000 feet. Access from the sea to the interior is impeded by the mountainous barrier reared as a natural bulwark. The gaps made by watercourses alone permit communication. As most of the rivers are not navigable, an important method of exploration is thus closed to adventurous roamers, whether native or foreign. This lack of fluvial communication has greatly hindered intercourse. Rivers have constituted the ancient ethnic boundaries between the inhabitants of the peninsula.[207] Communication between districts has been carried on mainly from harbor to harbor. Although the peninsula is in direct contact with three seas its mountainous rim prevents benign maritime influences from extending to its interior. Its climate may therefore be classed as extreme Mediterranean in type. All these combined factors annul to a large extent the effects of peninsular conditions.

The region is not as salubrious as its elevation might imply. It is an area which has been occupied by communities of men actively engaged in human pursuits at various periods of history, and which has been subsequently abandoned to itself or rather to the working of causes in which man had no part. Gradual desiccation of the plateau is evinced by the presence of desert wastes coated with alkaline precipitates, by receding lakes and all the manifestations accompanying the decline of a hydrographic system. The salt lake occupying the central part of the plateau is in reality nothing but a vast marsh. Hydrographic changes are not confined merely to the interior of Asia Minor but exert their action on the coast itself. The bays of Tarsus and Ephesus are now much shallower than they were two thousand years ago.[208] The general result is to impair settlement. Reoccupation of the soil must often be preceded by sanitation and it is only within recent times that this important tool has been perfected by man so as to enable him to wield it effectively in the conquest of fresh sites of occupancy.

Viewed therefore from its broadest aspect the problem of European control of Asia Minor resolves itself into one of renewed settlement. It is therefore pertinent to inquire how this condition coupled with regional influences has affected each of the six spheres.

Englishmen were the first to engage in Turkish railway building. The Aidin railway, which links the thriving port of Smyrna to the Anatolian plateau at Dineir, represents an investment of about $50,000,000, or about a third of all the money invested in Turkey by the British public. This road taps the fertile Meander valley and has proved a remunerative undertaking to its owners, although it has not been subsidized by the Turkish government. The line is credited with the best management in Turkey. Its well-ballasted track and the splendid condition of its rolling stock impress the traveler most favorably. English capital is also represented in other lines built in Turkey, though only as minority holdings.

This British zone of influence is at present the best developed region in Asia Minor. Its northern boundary is determined by the divide separating the watersheds of the Gediz and the Meander rivers. The Aidin railway follows the course of the last-named river to its very sources at about 1,000 feet below the general western level of the plateau.[209] The eastern boundary of the sphere is defined by the end of the natural road at one of the abrupt slopes leading to the plateau in the vicinity of lakes Burdur and Ajituz. Its southern frontier reaches the districts which supply the railroad with traffic drawn from the border line of the Carian ranges and the foot of the northern slopes of the Lycian Taurus.

The sound establishment of Great Britain’s commercial influence in this locality dates from the year 1856, when construction on the Aidin railway was inaugurated. Its real beginning can be traced back to the dawn of the nineteenth century, when English naval supremacy replaced France’s hitherto paramount maritime influence in the Levant. In recent years an interesting expansion of British trade ascendancy in this zone can be detected since the products of the area tapped by the Aidin railway, whether they consist of cereals, fruit, ores or local manufactured goods such as rugs, are mainly exported nowadays to Great Britain, the United States and Australia.

Throughout history the valley of the Meander has constituted a region in which natural features of the surface have been eminently favorable to man’s development. In addition to the wealth of its natural resources it is provided with a deeply indented coast line, in which commodious natural harbors occur. Here is found the maximum density of population for the entire peninsula—70 inhabitants to the square mile.[210] Within this restricted area Greek influence first took root about 2,600 years ago before spreading throughout Asia Minor. The origin of this movement must be ascribed to the local advantages which invited human activity by the display of favorable regional features. It is safe to surmise that the same geographical agencies have been again responsible for the striking parallel afforded by the first establishment within contemporary times of a sphere of western influence in the region.

Italy’s connection with Turkish railroads has consisted in providing labor and in laying claim to franchises in southern Asia Minor. These claims are of recent date, and have been put forth since the occupation of the islands of the Dodecanesia by Italian troops. Specifically the claim is made for the right to build a railroad from Adalia northwards to Burdur. The region to be tapped by this line is a strip of broken lowland intervening between the Lycian and Cilician Taurus. The valleys of the Aksu and Keuprusu, bordering the east and west slopes of the Ovajik massif, join in forming a deltaic area in which sub-tropical cultures, rice, cotton and tobacco thrive. Plains and wide valleys, which are probably ancient lakebeds, occur between the smaller ranges of the zone. They contain arable lands which might be turned to account were the region more thickly settled. A number of smaller rivers discharge their contents into the gulf of Adalia. The gulf itself is shallow, devoid of harbors, and open to southerly winds. Lack of natural harbors and remoteness from the main highways of the peninsula have contributed to the sphere’s isolation. It is still imperfectly known through a few route surveys and occasional descriptions.

The most important road in Turkey is the partially completed trunk line running diagonally across Asia Minor and beyond into Mesopotamia. The line is German-owned, although French and English capital is represented. The concession for the first stretch, extending from Constantinople to Konia, had been granted to German and Austrian railroad builders in 1888. The celebrated Bagdad railroad is the prolongation of this line. Its construction was turned over to German promoters by a firman (decree) dated January 21, 1902. The financial burden of the enterprise was estimated at about $200,000,000.

The Bagdad railroad is the final link of the shortest overland route between Europe and Asia. In the minds of Germans it is destined to compete with the sea-way controlled by England. The road was conceived in order to connect Teutonic centers of industry and Asiatic markets. The speediest sea route between Europe and Asia passes through straits guarded by British sentinels. As long as Gibraltar, Suez and Aden form part of Great Britain’s colonial domain, they can be closed at will to competitors of British manufacturers.

The great trade routes which link Europe to Asia have always crossed Turkish territory. One of the most widely traveled of these highways formerly connected the classic shores of Ionia to the fever-laden coast of the Persian Gulf. It was the road to India. The spices, gems and silk of the East reached European buyers by way of this trunk land route. For countless centuries caravans have plied back and forth over the barren plateau of Asia Minor and the sweeping plains of the Mesopotamian depression. This traffic is still maintained although it is now much on the wane. Long files of camels proceeding leisurely at a swinging gait are met occasionally by the traveler in Anatolia. A patient ass leads the way as of old. The turbaned driver plods along unmindful of the historical associations accumulated over his path. He knows however that the steam engine, devised by western ingenuity, is about to deprive him of the scanty pittance which his journeys yield.

Germany is essentially a land power. It was natural that the country should seek to establish land routes over which its control would prove as effective as England’s oversea highways. With this aim in view, the German government lent unreserved support to German captains of industry striving to obtain sole mastery of the great Turkish trunk line. Asia, teeming with thickly populated districts, lay at hand. Britain’s unrivaled sea power afforded its people adequate transportation to these centers of consumption. The Germans realized that a land power could not compete successfully with rulers of the waves. They resolved to acquire commercial supremacy in Asia by the creation of a land route. The Bagdad railroad is the outcome of this realization.

The road starts at Konia at the southeastern terminal of the Anatolian railroad, also a German line, whose tracks reach the Asiatic suburbs of Constantinople. Konia lies in the very heart of the Anatolian plateau, a stern and melancholy land, destitute of trees and sparsely peopled. Here at an average elevation of 2,500 feet above sea-level, the tracks are laid over the ancient highway which leads to Syria. In spite of its mournful scenery, the region is a veritable paradise to the archeologist. It is studded with prehistoric ruins and contains secrets of Hittite history which await the scholar’s investigation. Here and there along the line the dilapidated remnant of a Seljuk building reminds the traveler of the peculiar charm of Mohammedan art.

Beyond the plateau the road plunges into a tangled mountainous district known as the Taurus. The famous Cilician Gates are the only practicable gap provided by nature among bold and abrupt peaks in this region. The armies of Pagan, Christian and Mohammedan monarchs have marched through this gorge in the long struggle between the East and the West which enlivens the history of the ancient East. Cyrus with his retinue of Persian lords and his bands of Greek soldiers found it a convenient opening. Alexander the Great stepped between its narrow walls on his way to conquer the world. Detachments of Crusaders under Tancred and Baldwin bore the banners of the cross through the rugged pass. Later Mongolian hordes sang of loot as they swarmed through the mountain cut.

Unfortunately the ride through this mountain section of the Bagdad line will not be made uninterruptedly in broad daylight. The engineering problems involved are of considerable magnitude. The mountain can be conquered only by means of tunnels and the cost of this method of advance is naturally enormous. It has been estimated at a minimum of $140,000 per mile. In addition to tunnels considerable stretches of very heavy earth-work are required. If the undertaking delights the engineer’s heart, it is on the other hand apt to dismay the capitalist.

The drive through the Taurus does not end the difficulties of construction. This mountain is succeeded immediately by the equally lofty and precipitous Amanus range. Another arduous tunneling section is encountered. Of the two the last is the most difficult and costly. An idea of the heavy expense incurred in this construction work is conveyed by the cost of the wagon road built to reach the mouth of the first tunnel. It has been estimated that over one million dollars have been spent in this preliminary work.

The descent towards the Cilician plain is steep. To the west Tarsus, the birthplace of the Apostle Paul, looms a blot of white over the grayish green of the surrounding land. The change from the dreary scenery of the plateau is a delight to the eye. The valleys leading to the Mediterranean coast are wooded. Vegetation soon assumes a southern aspect of luxuriance. The sensation of finding oneself in an altogether different country is especially felt on hearing the sonorous accents of Arabic now spoken in place of Turkish.

From the site of the Amanus tunnels to Aleppo the line was completely built in 1915. Thence it strikes eastward only to turn south after reaching the Euphrates river. From here on to Bagdad trains will run through the great alluvial flood plains of Mesopotamia. This is a rainless district. The present large cities, Mosul, Bagdad and Basra, have no important share in world affairs in comparison with the political and cultural influences which radiated far outward from the precincts of ancient Nineveh and Babylon.

Between Konia and Bagdad the railroad is 1,029 miles long. For convenience of operation it is divided into sections of approximately 130 miles in length or more correctly of 200 kilometers. Construction on the first section was begun shortly after the award of the concession. This portion of the road was opened to traffic in 1904. Building was abandoned until 1910 owing to lack of funds. In May of that year operations were resumed at different points of the line. By the middle of 1913 about 400 miles had been completed.

Since the beginning of the European war, construction has been pushed with increasing speed. In northern Mesopotamia the construction of a bridge over the Euphrates at Jerabluz allows the laying of tracks with a fair degree of rapidity in the northern stretches of the Syrian desert. Work was also undertaken at Bagdad in a northerly direction. In the last days of 1914 trains were running regularly in the valley of the Tigris between this city and Samarra. Since then, according to reports, the tracks have advanced farther north.

Work on the sections in northern Mesopotamia does not present great difficulties. There is reason to believe that construction here proceeded with feverish haste during the European war. The main obstacles to rapid track-laying are found in the mountainous district which intervenes between the Anatolian plateau and the plains of Syria and Mesopotamia. According to reports the tunnels in the Amanus mountains were driven from end to end by the summer of 1915. It will probably take longer to complete construction through the mountainous wall which connects the Chakra valley to the Tarsus river in the Cilician Taurus. This section of the road is only 22 miles long. It crosses however an extremely rugged district and requires four separate tunnels which together measure some 10½ miles. In May, 1914, three tunnels had been started and the ground cleared at the approach of the fourth.

A number of branch lines are included in the concession of the Bagdad railroad. The products of some of Turkey’s most promising districts will pass over their tracks toward the trunk line, thence to be finally transported overland through the Balkan peninsula and Austria to German manufacturing centers. A side line projected to extend northeast of Aleppo will tap eventually an exceedingly rich mineral belt situated at the northern convergence of the Tigris and Euphrates. In this district the celebrated copper mines of Argana are found. They are worked in desultory fashion by the Turkish government. In spite of crude methods of extraction and long camel-back hauls the ore is of sufficiently high grade character to yield ample returns. Silver, lead, coal and iron also exist in the same zone of mineralization.

An important branch connecting the trunk line with the Mediterranean at Alexandretta has been in operation since 1913. The line is only about fifty miles in length and traverses the heart of a rich orange-growing district. The northern track of this branch crosses the plain of Issus where Alexander battled against Darius. At about six miles from its southern terminal the line hugs Mediterranean waters and crosses the spot where, according to statements of the natives, the whale relieved itself of the indigestible burden of the prophet Jonah.

In central Mesopotamia, branch lines extending in easterly directions will tap rich oil-fields and may eventually provide connection with future trans-Persian railroads. The history of this Mesopotamian region abounds in stirring chapters. The most favored section is found in the narrow neck of land extending for a short distance at the convergence of the courses of the Tigris and Euphrates. This site was marked by nature for the heart of great empires. After the fall of Babylon, the neighboring cities of Seleucia and Ctesiphon became in turn the capitals of Greek emperors and of Parthian and Sassanid sovereigns. Here Bagdad, rich in human history, grew to world fame. The farms and palm groves surrounding the city spread on the east and west until they almost reached the banks of the rivers which carried life and fertility in their waters. At the time of Arab prosperity Bagdad was one of the most magnificent cities of the Mohammedan world. As a center of Mussulman art the city had no peer. The Turkish conquest, which swept light a blight over the land, put an end to the city’s prosperity.

In modern times, Persians and Turks have vied with each other to retain possession of the land. Bagdad then became the center of the struggles waged between Caliphs and Imams. The conflict which splits Islam into the two rival camps of Sunnis and Shiites revolved around the city. The mausoleums and mosques which annually attract thousands of pilgrims are the sanctuaries in which upholders of the divergent beliefs elbow each other oftener than in any other Mohammedan city.

Should the Bagdad railroad be destined to remain German property the line is bound to become the backbone of German supremacy in western Asia. Germania, helmeted and carrying sword and shield, will ride over its rails to conquer Palestine and to wrest the wealth of the Nile and Ganges from British grip. But the foreign interests of every European nation are affected by the construction of this celebrated railway. It is the most direct route to Asia for all of Europe. The question of its internationalization is therefore one of the problems of European diplomacy.

The extensive zone traversed by this railway comprises the fertile and well settled valleys of the Sakaria and the Pursak, practically the whole of the interior plateau to the foot of its surrounding mountains and the eastern section of the Mesopotamian valley. Within this belt the most populous inland towns of the peninsula succeed each other at regular intervals. This circumstance indicates their former importance as stages on the long journey between the Bosporus and the Persian Gulf. Casual inspection of their crowded bazars would dispel doubt on this score. Attention must be called here to the geographical significance of these bazars in the Orient. Every urban center is provided with one. It is usually a roofed inclosure within which the city’s business is carried on. Caravans proceeding from remote sections of the continent have their rendezvous outside their gates. The size of these bazars and the activity displayed in each is the measure of an eastern city’s intercourse with the rest of the world. In the geographer’s mind their significance is the same as that of railroad stations.

By acquiring this trunk line the Germans succeeded in taking a first mortgage on Turkey. It was the first signal success of the policy of directing Teutonic ambitions into eastern channels which Bismarck had adopted immediately after the consolidation of the German Empire. He had a vision of an all-German line of traffic starting at Hamburg and crossing the Bosporus towards the Far East. In one direction German calculations miscarried. Germany was unable to finance the undertaking without the support of British and French capitalists. The international character of the line became more and more pronounced between the years 1908 and 1911. During this period a number of agreements were signed between Great Britain, France, Germany and Turkey in which a notable percentage of German interests passed over to the two rival countries, the Germans emerging out of the transaction with a bare control.

The project of an all-German route received another setback when England was awarded the final section of the Bagdad line. This successful stroke of British diplomacy consolidated British influence in the Persian Gulf. Koweit and the environing districts ruled by petty Arabian chiefs became British protectorates and the long-planned German through line merely butted against a solid wall raised by British ability.

The French have invested twice as much capital as the English in Turkish railroads. The lines they manage and own directly are the Syrian railroads and the Smyrna-Kassaba line. They are also interested in the construction of roads in the northeastern districts of the country where concessions have been awarded to Russians. Muscovite inability to provide capital is responsible for the transfer of the building and operating grants to Frenchmen.

The sphere of French influence comprising the Gediz valley and its adjacent territory to the Sea of Marmora lies entirely out of the beaten track of intercontinental travel. Its economic prosperity is therefore governed by purely regional influences. The valley of the Gediz river itself compares in fertility with that of its southern consort, the Meander. Tracts of arable land in its northern area and the occurrence of extensive mineral deposits, a few of which are among the most heavily exploited in Asia Minor, combined with genial climate and the accident of position which places the zone directly opposite the European mainland, all tend to impart elements of economic significance which have allured French enterprise.

As has been shown already, the zone of paramount French influence in Asiatic Turkey lies, south of Asia Minor, in Syria. “La France du Levant” is a term which is not uncommonly applied by Frenchmen to this Turkish province. The origin of this intercourse may be traced to the trade relations between Gaul and Syria in the fourth century B.C. During antiquity a widely traveled road, albeit of lesser importance than the peninsular highway of Anatolia, connected the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. This route started from Egypt and Syrian harbors and skirted the western and northern edges of the Arabian desert before assuming a southerly strike which led it through the Mesopotamian basin. The populous cities of Damascus, Homs, Hama and Aleppo lie on this ancient avenue of trade. Here, as in the case of the Anatolian cities mentioned, their present population is altogether out of proportion to their resources or activity. It can only be regarded as a sign of the importance they once had as stages in this southern east-west route. The Syrian littoral, described by Hogarth as the garden of Arabia,[211] must be regarded therefore as an intermediate region connecting Asia and the country lying west of its Mediterranean border. This influence of location prevailed throughout history.

The conquest of Syria by Frankish Crusaders gave renewed impetus to commercial relations between Syria and France. A regular trade route between Marseilles and Syrian ports was established. The treaty of alliance between the Sultan of Turkey and the King of France in the first half of the sixteenth century contributed to bind this province more firmly to France. At the end of the seventeenth century French trading-centers had been established in all the important cities of Syria. Napoleon’s invasion of this province as a result of the Egyptian campaign and French intervention in the Lebanon in 1859 likewise increased French prestige in the region. The confinement of this western hold to Syria can be ascribed to the influence exerted by the boundaries of the province. It forms with Palestine an excellent type of regional unit consisting of an elongated mountainous strip barely 50 miles wide. With the Mediterranean on the west, and deserts on the south and east, its only outlet to the world lay on the north.

French builders first undertook to connect the province of Lebanon with the sea by constructing the Beirut-Damascus line. The tracks were subsequently extended to Aleppo, a city whose greatness was founded on its situation along the natural road which connects the Mediterranean with the Persian Gulf. As a railroad center Aleppo’s future looms bright, for the city lies also in the path of the tracks which will connect the Black Sea with the Mediterranean.

In southern Syria, the outlook for French enterprise was dimmed for a few years by the construction of a Turkish line from Damascus southwards. Branch lines were carried to the sea. Harbor concessions, however, were granted to French firms. French interests thus retained a notable share of the control over the traffic in and out of Syria. Furthermore, a concession for a line from Rayak to connect with the Jaffa-Jerusalem road which they obtained in 1914 will enable them to compete with the Hejaz line.

The last railroad agreement between the French and Turkish governments was signed on April 9, 1914. Concessions on the part of the Turkish government are bestowed in return for French financial support. The lines granted will tap northern Anatolia and Armenia. Connection with the German lines will be made at Boli and at Argana. The area tributary to this line contains fertile plains and plateaus. It is known to be rich in mines, notably in copper. The advent of the railroad will undoubtedly brighten the outlook of the Turkish mining industry.

In southern Arabia a railroad concession was awarded to French promoters in 1908. The line was to connect the seaport of Hodeida with Sana’a. It was intended to divert into Turkish territory the large trade with the interior which now passes through Aden. Strategic reasons also weighed heavily in the decision to build this road. At no time have the Arabs of the Yemen shown sympathy for their Turkish rulers. Every commander sent to quell their incessant rebellions ascribed his failure to lack of transportation facilities. It was mainly in view of this condition that steps were taken to connect this section of the Arabian table-land with the sea.

The Franco-Russian sphere is the outcome of privileges originally conceded to Russia by Turkey. The terms of the agreement under discussion call for the construction of railroad lines as follows: The trunk line is to start at Samsoun and to end at Sivas.[212] A westerly branch line will diverge from Tokat towards Yozgat without reaching this city, however, or extending beyond the divide between the Yechil and Kizil rivers. A second branch will start at Tokat and reach Erzindjian, whence it will be turned northwards to Trebizond. Beyond Sivas the line will be extended to Kharpout and the vicinity of the important Argana copper mine. Connection with the Bagdad railway will be made beyond this point. Finally an important branch will leave the trunk line at Kazva to extend to Kastamuni and Boli.