This vision, more fanciful and poetically inspired than the rest, has already advanced some considerable {101} way beyond the frontiers of dreamland. When the Turko-Russian War came to an end[3] the influence of Germany at Constantinople was as nearly as possible nil; and so long as Bismarck remained in power, no very serious efforts were made to increase it. But from the date of Bismarck's dismissal[4] down to the present day, it has been the steady aim of German policy to control the destinies of the Turkish Empire. These attempts have been persistent, and in the main successful. [Sidenote: THE WOOING OF TURKEY] It mattered not what dubious personage or party might happen to be in the ascendant at Stamboul, the friendship of Germany was always forthcoming. It was extended with an equal cordiality to Abdul Hamid; to the Young Turks when they overthrew Abdul Hamid; to the Reactionaries when they overthrew the Young Turks; to the Young Turks again when they compounded matters with the Reactionaries. The largesse of Berlin bankers refreshed the empty treasuries of each despot and camarilla in turn, so soon as proofs could be produced of positive, or even of presumptive predominance. At the same time the makers of armaments, at Essen and elsewhere, looked to it, that a sufficient portion of these generous loans was paid in kind, and that the national gain was not confined to high policy and high finance. The reform of the Turkish army was taken in hand zealously by Prussian soldiers. Imperial courtesies cemented the bricks which usury, commerce, and diplomacy had laid so well. At a time when the late Sultan was ill-regarded by the whole of Europe, on account of his supposed complicity in Armenian massacres, the {102} magnanimity of the Kaiser took pity on the pariah, and a visit of honour to the Bosphorus formed an incident in the Hohenzollern pilgrimage to the Holy Sepulchre. The harvest of these endeavours was reaped at a later date in the form of vast concessions for lines of railway running through Asia Minor to the Persian Gulf. It is needless to enter here into a discussion of the famous and still unsettled controversy regarding the Baghdad route, except to say that this project for the benefit, not merely of Turkey, but of the whole human race, was to be realised under German direction and according to German plans and specifications; it was to be administered under German control; but it was to be paid for in the main out of the savings of England and France. The scheme was no less bold than ingenious. Obligations were imposed upon Turkey which it was clearly impossible for Turkey to discharge. In the event of her failure it was likely to go hard with the original shareholders, and somewhat hard with the Sublime Porte itself; but on the other hand it was not likely to go hard with Germany, or to involve her in anything more irksome than a labour of love--a protectorate over Asia Minor and Arabia.[5]