tion, therefore, failed, as French and Russian had failed.
The Germans, however, persevered with their enterprise, now a purely
German one, and ultimately with success. Their differences with Russia
were arranged by an agreement about the Turko-Persian railways signed in
1911. An agreement with France, with regard to the railways of Asiatic
Turkey, was signed in February 1914, and one with England (securing our
interests on the Persian Gulf) in June of the same year. Thus just before
the war broke out this thorny question had, in fact, been settled to the
satisfaction of all the Powers concerned. And on this two comments may be
made. First, that the long friction, the press campaign, the rivalry of
economic and political interests, had contributed largely to the European
tension. Secondly, that in spite of that, the question did get settled,
and by diplomatic means. On this subject, at any rate, war was not
"inevitable." Further, it seems clear that the British Government,
so far from "hemming-in" Germany in this matter, were ready from the
first to accept, if not to welcome, her enterprise, subject to their
quite legitimate and necessary preoccupation with their position on
the Persian Gulf. It was the British Press and what lay behind it that
prevented the co-operation of British capital. Meantime the economic
penetration of Asia Minor by Germany had been accompanied by a political
penetration at Constantinople. Already, as early as 1898, the Kaiser had
announced at Damascus that the "three hundred millions of Mussulmans who
live scattered over the globe may be assured that the German Emperor will
be at all times their friend."

This speech, made immediately after the Armenian massacres, has been very
properly reprobated by all who are revolted at such atrocities. But the
indignation of Englishmen must be tempered by shame when they remember
that it was their own minister, still the idol of half the nation, who
reinstated Turkey after the earlier massacres in Bulgaria and put back
the inhabitants of Macedonia for another generation under the murderous
oppression of the Turks. The importance of the speech in the history of
Europe is that it signalled the advent of German influence in the Near
East. That influence was strengthened on the Bosphorus after the Turkish
revolution of 1908, in spite of the original Anglophil bias of the Young
Turks, and as some critics maintain, in consequence of the blundering
of the British