92 A Short History of the Middle East
policy. Bismarck's intentness on not disturbing the status quo was
indeed becoming obsolete: Germany's rapidly increasing popula-
tion, in a country where the possibility of expanding food-produc-
tion had evident limits, impelled her to a policy of industrial ex-
pansion with a quest for foreign markets; and her naval inferiority
suggested that the direction of such commercial expansion should
be continental, rather than oceanic.
By 1893 the railway to Ankara had been completed, and the
preliminary survey of the further route to Baghdad begun. The
first proposal, for a route via Sivas and Diyarbekir, was opposed by
Russia on the grounds that it would lie too near her Caucasian
frontier and might be used strategically against her; and eventually
in 1898 the Anatolian Railway Co. applied for a concession for the
route Konya-Aleppo-Mosul-Baghdad. Although there were cer-
tain competing interests, German commercial influence wras now
preponderant in Turkey beyond any doubt, and she was supplying
a large proportion of Turkey's armament needs. Consequently
the German company obtained the concession, buying out French
opposition by an agreement which gave French railway and bank-
ing interests an equal share in the undertaking.
At this stage the British attitude to the German project was still
favourable. The threat to Britain's position in the Middle East still
came overwhelmingly from Russia and France. In 1892 the
British Ambassador in Berlin had urged the Germans to develop a
commercial interest in the Persian Gulf as a counterpoise to Russia
in that region, and in 1898 the British reaction to the German rail-
way-concession was favourable. Lord Salisbury was reported to
have said, "We welcome these concessions, for in this way Germany
comes into line with our Interests in the Persian Gulf. The Times
commented that if the development of the Turkish railways was
.not to be in British hands, the Germans were to be preferred to any
other. The Morning Post remarked that the concession gave Ger-
many a reason for resisting aggression in Asia Minor from the
North. Imperialists of the standing of Cecil Rhodes and Joseph
Chamberlain also gave the scheme their blessing. The Under-
secretary for Foreign Affairs alone sounded a warning note by
stating that the government had every intention of maintaining
the status quo in the Persian Gulf.
In 1900 the German technical mission which was planning the
route the railway was to follow visited Kuwait and made a tempt-