and the prospect, when the
Bagdad Railway reaches the Tigris, of tapping the naphtha deposits of
Kerkuk[26]. Dr. Rohrbach, the German specialist on the Near East,
forecasts the profits of the Bagdad Railway from the results of Russian
railway-building in Central Asia. He prophesies the cultivation of
cotton, in the regions opened up by the line, on a scale which will
cover an appreciable part of the demands of German industry, and will
open a corresponding market for German wares among the new
cotton-growing population[27]. "Yet the decisive factor in the Bagdad
Railway," he counsels his German readers, "is not to be found in these
economic considerations but in another sphere."

Dr. Wiedenfeld drives this home.

"Germany's relation to Turkey," his monograph begins, "belies the
doctrine that all modern understandings and differences between nations
have an economic origin. We are certainly interested in the economic
advancement of Turkey ... but in setting ourselves to make Turkey strong
we have been influenced far more by our political interests as a State
among States (_das politische, das staatlich-machtliche Interesse_).
Even our economic activity has primarily served this aim, and has in
fact originated to a large extent in the purely politico-military
problems (_aus den unmittelbaren Machtaufgaben_) which confronted the
Turkish Government. Exclusively economic considerations play a very
subordinate part in Turco-German relations.... Our common political
aims, and Germany's interest in keeping open the land-route to the
Indian Ocean, will make it more than ever imperative for us to
strengthen Turkey economically with all our might, and to put her in a
position to build up, on independent economic foundations, a body
politic strong enough to withstand all external assaults. The means will
still be economic; the goal will be of a political order[28]."

And Dr. Rohrbach formulates the political goal with startling precision.
After twelve pages of disquisition on recent international diplomacy he
brings his thesis to this point: the Bagdad Railway links up with the
railways of Syria, and

"The importance of the Syrian railway system lies in this, that, if the
need arose, it would be the direct instrument for the exercise of
pressure upon England ... supposing that German-Austro-Turkish
co-operation became necessary in the direction of Egypt."

Written as it was in 1911, this is a remarkable anticipation of Turkis