even as before now she has closed
the Dardanelles? Besides, for our purposes, a line that goes to
Constantinople (in whosoever hands Constantinople may be after the war)
is out of the way and altogether unsuitable. Eastwards, again, from
Aleppo the present Bagdad line is circuitous and indirect, admirably
adapted to the German purposes for which it was constructed, but utterly
unadapted to ours.
Let us then 'scrap' the existent Bagdad route altogether, and consider
not what the Germans want, but what we want, which, as has been already
stated, is a direct land communication with suitable Mediterranean
ports. Of those there are three obvious ones, Alexandretta, Tripoli, and
Beirut, of which Beirut is a long way the first in importance and
potentiality of increased importance. Two possible routes therefore
would seem to suggest themselves, one running from Alexandretta to
Aleppo, and thence following pretty closely the course of the Euphrates
till it reaches Hit, and from there striking directly to Bagdad. Aleppo
is already connected with Tripoli and El Mina (the actual port of
Tripoli), and also with Beirut by branch lines making a junction at
Homs, and thus all those ports will be brought together on one system.
But if the reader will glance at the map, he will see that by far the
most direct communication with Bagdad would be to run the railway direct
from there to Homs, thus making Homs rather than Aleppo the central
junction of the system. From Homs lines would run northward to Aleppo,
due west to Tripoli, and south-west to Beirut. Either of those routes,
in any case, would be infinitely preferable to the long loop which the
present Bagdad Railway traverses, as planned on German lines and for
German requirements. The new railway will thus lie exclusively in
territory under French and English protectorate, and will probably be
their joint enterprise and property.
Prospectively then, as regards the fulfilment of the solemn pledge of
the Allies to liberate subject peoples from the murderous tyranny of the
Turks, we have discussed the future of Armenia, of Syria, of Palestine,
and of Mesopotamia. All those are well defined districts, and the
demarcation of their respective protectorates should not present great
difficulties. But there remains, before we pass on to the problem of
Constantinople, a further district less easily defined, largely
inhabited by European peoples whose liberty in the future we are pledged
to
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