almost to Ras el Ain, in northern Mesopotamia. In addition, rails were laid from Bagdad north to Sadijeh, on the Tigris, before the outbreak of the Great War.[42]
Thus far we have considered the Bagdad Railway almost entirely as a business undertaking. In its inception, in fact, it was generally thus regarded throughout Europe. As time passed, however, the enterprise overstepped the bounds of purely economic interest and entered the arena of international diplomacy. The greatest usefulness of the Bagdad Railway was in the economic services it was capable of rendering the Ottoman Empire and, further, all mankind. Its widest significance is to be sought in the part it played in the development of German capitalistic imperialism. Its greatest menace was its consequent effects upon the relations between Turkey, Germany, and the other Great Powers of Europe. The succeeding chapters will deal with the political ramifications of the Bagdad enterprise.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES*
