A judicious appointment served to reinforce the already strong position of the Germans in Turkey. In 1897 Baron von Wangenheim was replaced as ambassador to Constantinople by Baron Marschall von Bieberstein (1842–1912), a former Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Baron Marschall was one of the most capable of German bureaucrats. The Kaiser was glad to have him at Constantinople because his training and experience made him an admirable person for developing imperial interests there; his political opponents considered his appointment to the Sublime Porte a convenient method of removing him from domestic politics. The new ambassador’s political views were well known: he was a frank believer in a world-policy for Germany; he was an ardent supporter of colonialism, if not of Pan-Germanism; he was a bitter opponent of Great Britain; he espoused the cause of a strong political and economic alliance between the German and Ottoman Empires. What Baron Marschall did he did well. Occupying what appeared, at first, to be an obscure post, he became the foremost of the Kaiser’s diplomatists and for fifteen years lent his powerful personality and his practical experience to the furthering of German enterprise in Turkey.[25] In 1898 William II made his second pilgrimage to the Land of Promise. Every detail of this trip was arranged with an eye to the theatrical: the enthusiastic reception at Constantinople; the “personally conducted” Cook’s tour to the Holy Land; the triumphal entry into the Holy City through a breach in the walls made by the infidel Turk; the dedication of a Lutheran Church at Jerusalem; the hoisting of the imperial standard on Mount Zion; the gift of hallowed land to the Roman Catholic Church; the visit to the grave of Saladin at Damascus and the speech by which the Mohammedans of the world were assured of the eternal friendship of the German Emperor.[26] The dramatic aspects of the royal visit were not sufficient, however, to obscure its practical purpose. It was generally supposed in western Europe that the Kaiser’s trip to Turkey was closely connected with the application of the Anatolian Railways for the proposed Bagdad Railway concessions.[27] But little objection was raised by the British and French press. Paris laughed at the obvious absurdity of a Cook’s tour for a crowned head and his entourage; London took comfort in the discomfiture which the incident would cause Russia. But there was no talk then of a great Teutonic conspiracy to spread a “net” from Hamburg to the Persian Gulf.[28]