communications, Ottoman economic and military organization, Ottoman financial resources. The national treasury, emptied by the drain of three wars, needed replenishment by an increase in the customs duties, to which French sanction would have to be obtained, and by a foreign loan, for which it was hoped French bankers would submit a favorable bid. All of these questions were so closely associated with the question of political influence in the Near East, however, that it was obviously desirable to arrive at some modus vivendi between French and German interests in Ottoman railways and in Ottoman financial affairs. Accordingly, the Young Turk Government prevailed upon the Imperial Ottoman Bank and the Deutsche Bank to discuss a basis for a Franco-German agreement, and Djavid Bey was despatched to Paris to conduct whatever negotiations might be necessary with the French Government.
On August 19 and 20 and September 24, 25, 26, 1913, a series of important meetings was held in Berlin to ascertain upon what terms French and German investments in Turkey might be apportioned with the least possibility of conflict. German interests were represented by Dr. von Gwinner and Dr. Helfferich; the chief of the French negotiators were Baron de Neuflize, a Regent of the Bank of France, and M. de Klapka, Secretary-General of the Imperial Ottoman Bank. Supposedly the conferences were conducted only between the interested financiers, but the discussions were participated in by representatives of the French, German, and Ottoman foreign offices. Obstacles which, at the start, seemed insurmountable were overcome at the Berlin meetings and a series of minor conferences which followed. The result was one of the most important international agreements of the years immediately preceding the Great War—the secret Franco-German convention of February 15, 1914. The terms of this agree-
