nach Osten. And the chief of the reviewers was His Imperial Majesty, William II.[39]
If there was a preponderance of opinion in Germany favorable to the Bagdad Railway, there was by no means a similar favorable sentiment in the rest of Europe. Statesmen in the other imperial nations were not unaware of the potentialities of railways constructed in the backward nations of the world. They knew that "railways are the iron tentacles of latter-day expanding powers. They are stretched out caressingly at first. But once the iron has, so to say, entered the soul of the weaker nation, the tentacles swell to the dimensions of brawny arms, and the embrace tightens to a crushing grip."[40] Russia, Great Britain and France, therefore, were gradually led to obstruct the progress of the railway by political and economic means—at least until such time as they could purge the project of its political possibilities or until they could obtain for themselves a larger share of the spoils.
Thus the Bagdad Railway was an imperial enterprise. It became an important concern of the Foreign Office, a matter of national prestige. It was one of the stakes of pre-war diplomacy. Its success was associated with the national honor, to be defended, if need be, by military force and military alliances. The Railway was no longer a railway alone, but a state of mind. Professor Jastrow called it "the spectre of the twentieth century"![41]
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES
1 Die Bagdadbahn, p. 46.
2 Stenographische Berichte, XII Legislaturperiode, 1 Session, Volume 231 (1908), pp. 4226a, 4253c.
3 Wile, op. cit., pp. 39-40.
4 Riesser, op. cit., p. 543; The Quarterly Review, Volume 235 (1921), p. 315.
5 Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords, Volume 121 (1903), p. 1348.
