In 1887 there was no German capital represented in the railways of Asiatic Turkey. Five years later the _Deutsche Bank_ and its collaborators controlled the railways of Turkey from the Austro-Hungarian border to Constantinople; they had constructed a line from the Asiatic shore of the Straits to Angora; they were projecting a railway from Angora across the hills of Anatolia into the Mesopotamian valley. In coöperation with the Austrian and German state railways they could establish through service from the Baltic to the Bosporus and, by ferry and railway, into hitherto inaccessible parts of Asia Minor. Almost overnight, as history goes, Turkey had become an important sphere of German economic interest. Thus was born the idea of a series of German-controlled railways from Berlin to Bagdad, from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf! The Ottoman Government apparently was well pleased with the energetic action of the German concessionaires in the promotion of their railway enterprises in Turkey. In any event, a tangible evidence of appreciation was extended the Anatolian Railway Company by an imperial _iradé_ of February 15, 1893, which authorized the construction of a branch line of 444 kilometres from Eski Shehr (a town about midway between Ismid and Angora) to Konia. The new line, like its predecessor, was guaranteed a minimum annual return of 15,000 francs per kilometre, payments to be made under the supervision of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration. The obvious advantages of developing the potentially rich regions of southern Anatolia, and of providing improved communication between Constantinople and the interior of Asia Minor, led the Anatolian Company to hasten construction, with the result that service to Konia was inaugurated in 1896.[8] Simultaneously with the granting of the second Anatolian concession the Sultan authorized an important extension to the French-owned Smyrna-Cassaba Railway. The existing line was to be prolonged a distance of 252 kilometres from Alashehr to Afiun Karahissar, at which latter town a junction was to be effected with the Anatolian Railway. Another French company was awarded a concession for the construction of the Damascus-Homs-Aleppo railway, in Syria, under substantial financial guarantees from the Ottoman Treasury. It was said that these concessions to French financiers were “compensatory” in character and were granted upon the urgent representations of the French ambassador in Constantinople.[9]