Nor was this an empty boast. No road has ever been more carefully or more solidly built than is the Bagdad Railway. Roadbed, culverts, revetments, bridges are of the strongest and most durable materials. The sleepers are of metal, while the steel rails are specially made for sharp curves and fast and heavy trains. German engineers declare that they are the heaviest in existence. At a time when the heaviest rails used in the United States weighed one hundred pounds per lineal yard, those selected for the Bagdad Railroad weighed twenty per cent more. And so it is with the warehouses, the offices, and especially the stations all along the line. So massive are the last-named structures that they are called “German Castles.” Indeed, it is the firm conviction of many that these buildings were so designed that they might serve as strongholds in emergencies, such as sudden uprisings of lawless nomads or fanatical Moslems. Nothing was left to chance. So far as experience and engineering science could forecast the necessities of the future, provision was made for all eventualities--save only such a cataclysm as a world war, which threatened to interrupt the continuity of civilization. As to the end and aim of the Bagdad Railway we are left in no doubt. We must [writes Professor Diering] be true to ourselves by emphasizing and cultivating everything German. In all undertakings engineered by German diplomacy and financed with German money the official language must be German. Hence French, which has been the official language on Turkish Railways, must disappear. There must be a German school near every large railway station; and in these schools both the German and Turkish languages must be employed in giving instruction; any other language will be merely taught. Only specially selected and well-educated teachers should be sent to Turkey. Above all, German medical men must be introduced into Turkey’s railway system. They are the best medium for spreading German influence and for awakening esteem and affection for Germany. On broad lines it is now quite clear what form the future Turkish Empire will assume. From Tripolis across to Persia and on to the ridges of the Caucasus, German energy--without injury to the sovereignty of the Osmanic State--will coöperate in Turkey’s renaissance and in the development of her treasures. But our enemies, together with their money, languages and schools will disappear from the territories which they hoped to divide among themselves.[175] Equally explicit is another German writer, Herr Trampe, respecting the ulterior object of the Bagdad Railway.