place[24]."

What forces will be released in Western Asia when the Turk has met his
fate? Who will repair the ruin he leaves behind?

The Germans? They have been penetrating Turkey economically for the
last thirty years. They have organised regular steamship services
between German and Turkish ports, multiplied the volume of Turco-German
trade, and extended their capital investments, particularly in the
Ottoman Debt and the construction of railways. In 1881, when the Debt
was first placed under international administration, Germany held only
4.7 per cent., of it, and was the sixth in importance of Turkey's
creditors; by 1912 she held 20 per cent., and was second only to
France[25]. Her railway enterprises, more ambitious than those of any
other foreign Power, have brought valuable concessions in their
train--harbour works at Haidar Pasha and Alexandretta, irrigation works
in the Konia oasis and the Adana plain, 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.