It was not without warning that the German nation permitted itself to be drawn into the imperial ramifications of the Bagdad Railway. Anti-imperialists sensed the dangers connected with such an ambitious project. Herr Scheidemann, leader of the Social Democrats in the Reichstag, for example, warned the German people that the railway was certain to raise increasingly troublesome international difficulties, and he expressed the fear that the German protagonists of the plan would come to emphasize more and more its political and military, rather than its economic and cultural, phases.[18] Karl Radek, also a Socialist, wrote that “The Bagdad Railway possessed great political significance from the very moment the plan was conceived.” He prophesied that German economic penetration in Turkey would prove to be only the first step toward a formal military alliance, which, in turn, would heighten the fear and animosity of the Entente Powers. “The Bagdad Railway,” he said, “constitutes the first great triumph of German capitalistic imperialism.”[19] Business men and politicians of imperialist inclinations did not deny the charges of their pacifist opponents. Herr Bassermann, so far from deprecating a greater political influence in the Ottoman Empire, came to glory in it. Baron von Schoen qualified his earlier statements with the following enunciation of policy: “With reference to the attitude of the Imperial Government, it goes without saying that we are giving the enterprise our full interest and attention and will make every effort to further it.”[20] The political potentialities of the Bagdad Railway aroused the fear and opposition of the other European Powers. Exaggerated charges were made as to the intentions of the German promoters and the German Government, and there was a widespread feeling that there was something sinister about the plan. Professor Sarolea sounded a prophetic warning when he wrote, “The trans-Mesopotamian Railway ... will play in the Near East the same ominous part which the Trans-Siberian played in the Far East; with this important difference, however, that whilst the Far Eastern conflict involved only one European Power and one Asiatic Power, the Near Eastern conflict, if it breaks out, must needs involve all the European powers, must force the whole Eastern Question to a crisis, and once begun, cannot be terminated until the map of Europe and Asia shall be reconstructed.”[21] RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL INTERESTS REËNFORCE POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC MOTIVES