The Bagdad railroad is the final link of the shortest overland route between Europe and Asia. In the minds of Germans it is destined to compete with the sea-way controlled by England. The road was conceived in order to connect Teutonic centers of industry and Asiatic markets. The speediest sea route between Europe and Asia passes through straits guarded by British sentinels. As long as Gibraltar, Suez and Aden form part of Great Britain’s colonial domain, they can be closed at will to competitors of British manufacturers. The great trade routes which link Europe to Asia have always crossed Turkish territory. One of the most widely traveled of these highways formerly connected the classic shores of Ionia to the fever-laden coast of the Persian Gulf. It was the road to India. The spices, gems and silk of the East reached European buyers by way of this trunk land route. For countless centuries caravans have plied back and forth over the barren plateau of Asia Minor and the sweeping plains of the Mesopotamian depression. This traffic is still maintained although it is now much on the wane. Long files of camels proceeding leisurely at a swinging gait are met occasionally by the traveler in Anatolia. A patient ass leads the way as of old. The turbaned driver plods along unmindful of the historical associations accumulated over his path. He knows however that the steam engine, devised by western ingenuity, is about to deprive him of the scanty pittance which his journeys yield. Germany is essentially a land power. It was natural that the country should seek to establish land routes over which its control would prove as effective as England’s oversea highways. With this aim in view, the German government lent unreserved support to German captains of industry striving to obtain sole mastery of the great Turkish trunk line. Asia, teeming with thickly populated districts, lay at hand. Britain’s unrivaled sea power afforded its people adequate transportation to these centers of consumption. The Germans realized that a land power could not compete successfully with rulers of the waves. They resolved to acquire commercial supremacy in Asia by the creation of a land route. The Bagdad railroad is the outcome of this realization.