Turkish mobilization, furthermore, was a tediously slow process. The construction of the Bagdad Railway, as we have seen, had not been completed before the outbreak of the Great War.[2] There were wide gaps in northern Mesopotamia and in the Amanus mountains which made difficult the transportation of troops for the defence of Irak, an attack on the Suez, an offensive in the Caucasus, or the fortification of the Dardanelles. The entry of Turkey into the war before the completion of mobilization would have been of no material advantage to Germany and would almost certainly have brought disaster to the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, while the war went well for Germany on the French and Russian fronts, German influence at Constantinople was more concerned with creating sentiment for war and with speeding up mobilization than with encouraging premature intervention. After the Teutonic defeats at the Marne and in Galicia, however, active Turkish support was needed for the purpose of menacing Russian security in the Caucasus and British security in Egypt, as well as for bolstering up German morale. During the latter part of September and the month of October, Marshal Liman von Sanders, Baron von Wangenheim, the commanders of the _Goeben_ and the _Breslau_, and other German influences at Constantinople exerted the strongest possible pressure on the Ottoman Government to bring Turkey into the war on the side of her Teutonic allies. On October 31, 1914, the Turkish Government took the fatal step of precipitating war with the Entente Powers, after Enver Pasha, Minister of War, and Djemal Pasha, Minister of Marine, were satisfied that Ottoman preparations were sufficiently advanced to warrant the beginning of hostilities. The outcome of the Bagdad Railway concession of 1903 was the entry of Turkey into the War of 1914![3]