Let us begin with the Near East. The situation there, when Germany
began her enterprise, is thus summed up by a French writer[1]:—
Astride across Europe and Asia, the Ottoman Empire represented,
for
all the nations of the old continent, the cosmopolitan centre
where
each had erected, by dint of patience and ingenuity, a fortress
of
interests, influences, and special rights. Each fortress watched
jealously to maintain its particular advantages in face of the
rival
enemy. If one of them obtained a concession, or a new favour,
immediately
the commanders of the others were seen issuing from their walls
to claim
from the Grand Turk concessions or favours which should maintain
the
existing balance of power or prestige.... France acted as
protector of
the Christians; England, the vigilant guardian of the routes to
India,
maintained a privileged political and economic position;
Austria-Hungary
mounted guard over the route to Salonica; Russia, protecting the
Armenians and Slavs of the South of Europe, watched over the fate
of
the Orthodox. There was a general understanding among them all,
tacit
or express, that none should better its situation at the expense
of
the others.
When into this precariously balanced system of conflicting interests
Germany began to throw her weight, the necessary result was a
disturbance of equilibrium. As early as 1839 German ambition had been
directed towards this region by Von Moltke; but it was not till 1873
that the process of “penetration” began. In that year the enterprise of
the Anatolian railway was launched by German financiers. In the
succeeding years it extended itself as far as Konia; and in 1899 and
1902 concessions were obtained for an extension to Bagdad and the
Persian Gulf. It was at this point that the question became one of
international politics. Nothing could better illustrate the lamentable
character of the European anarchy than the treatment of this matter by
the interests and the Powers affected. Here had been launched on a
grandiose scale a great enterprise of civilization. The Mesopotamian
plain, the cradle of civilization, and for centuries the granary of the
world, was to be redeemed by irrigation from the encroachment of the
desert, order and security were to be restored, labour to be set at
work, and science and power to be devoted on a great scale to their
only proper purpose, the increase of life. Here was an idea fit to
inspire the most generous imagination. Here, for all the idealism of
youth and the ambition of maturity, for diplomatists, engineers,
administrators, agriculturists, educationists, an opportunity for the
work of a lifetime, a task to appeal at once to the imagination, the
intellect, and the organizing capacity of practical men, a scheme in
which all nations might be proud to participate, and by which Europe
might show to the backward populations that the power she had won over
Nature was to be used for the benefit of man, and that the science and
the arms of the West were destined to recreate the life of the East.
What happened, in fact? No sooner did the Germans approach the other
nations for financial and political support to their scheme than there
was an outcry of jealousy, suspicion, and rage. All the vested
interests of the other States were up in arms. The proposed railway, it
was said, would compete with the Trans-Siberian, with the French
railways, with the ocean route to India, with the steamboats on the
Tigris. Corn in Mesopotamia would bring down the price of corn in
Russia. German trade would oust British and French and Russian trade.
Nor was that all. Under cover of an economic enterprise, Germany was
nursing political ambitions. She was aiming at Egypt and the Suez
Canal, at the control of the Persian Gulf, at the domination of Persia,
at the route to India. Were these fears and suspicions justified? In
the European anarchy, who can say? Certainly the entry of a new
economic competitor, the exploitation of new areas, the opening out of
new trade routes, must interfere with interests already established.
That must always be so in a changing world. But no one would seriously
maintain that that is a reason for abandoning new enterprises. But, it
was urged, in fact Germany will take the opportunity to squeeze out the
trade of other nations and to constitute a German monopoly. Germany, it
is true, was ready to give guarantees of the “open door.” But then,
what was the value of these guarantees? She asserted that her
enterprise was economic, and had no ulterior political gains. But who
would believe her? Were not German Jingoes already rejoicing at the
near approach of German armies to the Egyptian frontiers? In the
European anarchy all these fears, suspicions, and rivalries were
inevitable. But the British Government at least was not carried away by
them. They were willing that British capital should co-operate on
condition that the enterprise should be under international control.
They negotiated for terms which would give equal control to Germany,
England, and France. They failed to get these terms, why has not been
made public. But Lord Cranborne, then Under-Secretary of State, said in
the House of Commons that “the outcry which was made in this matter—I
think it a very ill-informed outcry—made it exceedingly difficult for
us to get the terms we required.”[2] And Sir Clinton Dawkins wrote in a
letter to Herr Gwinner, the chief of the Deutsche Bank: “The fact is
that the business has become involved in politics here, and has been
sacrificed to the very violent and bitter feeling against Germany
exhibited by the majority of newspapers and shared in by a large number
of people.”[3] British co-operation, 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
representatives. The mission of Von der Goltz in 1908 and that of Liman
von Sanders in 1914 put the Turkish army under German command, and by
the outbreak of the war German influence was predominant in
Constantinople. This political influence was, no doubt, used, and
intended to be used, to further German economic schemes. Germany, in
fact, had come in to play the same game as the other Powers, and had
played it with more skill and determination. She was, of course, here
as elsewhere, a new and disturbing force in a system of forces which
already had difficulty in maintaining a precarious equilibrium. But to
be a new and disturbing force is not to commit a crime. Once more the
real culprit was not Germany nor any other Power. The real culprit was
the European anarchy.
[Footnote 1: Pierre Albin, “D'Agadir a Serajevo,” p. 81.]
[Footnote 2: Hansard, 1903, vol. 126, p. 120.]
[Footnote 3: Nineteenth Century, June 1909, vol. 65, p.
1090.]