[9] Rohrbach, _Die Bagdadbahn_, pp. 10–13; Imbert, _loc. cit._, p. 678. Enthusiastic Turks believed that, with adequate rail communications, Erzerum might be transformed into a Turkish Belfort. _Cf._ Mazel, _op. cit._, p. 37. Had the Bagdad Railway and the projected railways of northern Anatolia been completed before the outbreak of the Great War, the Turks could have made a more effective defence in the Caucasus campaign of the Grand Duke Nicholas in 1916. [10] For a general statement of the attitude of Russia and the Balkan States to the Bagdad Railway _cf._ Alexandre Ilitch, _Le chemin de fer de Bagdad, ou l’expansion de l’Allemagne en Orient_ (Brussels, Paris, Leipzig, 1913), pp. 100–107, 121–123. [11] Bohler, _loc. cit._, pp. 273–289; _cf._, also, P. Rohrbach, _German World Policies_, pp. 223–224. [12] _Supra_, pp. 59–60. [13] Chéradame, _op. cit._, pp. 267 _et seq._; _The Times_, August 10, 1899; K. Helfferich, _Die Vorgeschichte des Weltkrieges_, p. 124. [14] _Journal Officiel, Débats parlementaires, Chambre des Députés_, March 25, 1902, p. 1468. [15] According to M. Deschanel, this was sophistry. The French Government, if it was not guilty of an error of commission, certainly was guilty of a sin of omission. It was the opinion of M. Deschanel that the French Ambassador at Constantinople should have done something to put the French Government on record as opposed to the Bagdad Railway. M. Deschanel was not certain, however, that the French Ministry had not consented to the participation of French capital in the plan. “How can one imagine,” he said, “that an institution such as the Ottoman Bank became involved in an enterprise of such great political and military importance without the approval of our Foreign Office?... How is it that the Ottoman Bank is a party to this enterprise, and how is it that the Board of Directors for the first section of the line has French representatives, when only a word from the Government could have prevented it?” _Ibid._, November 20, 1903, p. 2798. [16] _Ibid._, March 25, 1902, pp. 1468 _et seq._ [17] Victor Bérard, “Le Discours du Chancelier,” in the _Revue de Paris_, December 15, 1906.