Scepticism would have turned to alarm, however, had Germans been fully aware of the significance of the British advance in the Land of the Two Rivers. For behind the armies of General Maude came civil officials by the hundreds to consolidate the victory and to lay the foundations of permanent occupation. An Irrigation Department was established to deal with the menace of floods, to drain marshes, and to economize in the use of water. An Agricultural Department undertook the cultivation of irrigated lands and conducted elaborate experiments in the growing of cotton—the commodity which means so much in the British imperial system. A railway was constructed from Basra to Bagdad which, when opened to commerce in 1919, became an integral part of the Constantinople-Basra system. There was every indication that the British were in Mesopotamia to stay.[31] Germans and Turks were sufficiently aroused, however, to take strenuous measures to counteract General Maude’s successes. In April, 1917, Field Marshal von Mackensen, hero of the Balkan and Rumanian campaigns and strong man of the Near East, was sent to Constantinople to confer with Enver Pasha regarding the military situation. It was decided, apparently, that Bagdad must be retaken at all costs, for throughout the summer quantities of rolling stock for the Bagdad Railway were shipped to Turkey, enormous supplies of munitions were accumulated at Haidar Pasha, and a division of picked German troops (including machine-gun and artillery units) made its appearance in Anatolia. Command of all the Turkish armies in Mesopotamia was conferred upon General von Falkenhayn, former German Chief of Staff. Germany was not yet prepared to surrender her sphere of interest in Turkey.