In 1898, for example, an Austro-Russian syndicate proposed the building of a railway from Tripoli-in-Syria to an unspecified port on the Persian Gulf, with branches to Bagdad and Khanikin. The sponsor of the project was Count Vladimir I. Kapnist, a brother of the Russian ambassador at Vienna and an influential person at the Tsar’s court. Count Kapnist had the support of Pobêdonostsev, the famous Procurator of the Holy Synod, who was an avowed Pan-Slavist and an enthusiastic promoter of Russian colonization in Asia Minor.[1] The Sultan instructed his Minister of Public Works to study the Kapnist plan and submit a report. The Austro-Russian syndicate, however, made no further progress at Constantinople. The Sublime Porte obviously was opposed to any expansion of Russian influence in Turkey—a point of view which received the encouragement of the British and German ambassadors. Furthermore, in Russia itself there was opposition to Count Kapnist’s project. Count Witte, Imperial Minister of Finance, and foremost political opponent of Pobêdonostsev, emphasized the strategic menace to Russia of improved railway transportation in Turkey and sturdily maintained that Russian capital and technical skill should be kept at home for the development of Russian railways and industry. By the spring of 1899 the Kapnist plan had been shelved.[2] In the meantime French bankers had become interested in the possibilities of constructing a railway from the Mediterranean to the Persian Gulf, utilizing the existing railways in Syria as the nucleus of an elaborate system. Their spokesman was M. Cotard, an engineer on the staff of the Smyrna-Cassaba Railway. This project was possessed of such strong financial and political support at Constantinople that the _Deutsche Bank_ considered it best to negotiate for a merger with the French interests involved.[3] Accordingly conversations were held at Berlin early in 1899 between the _Deutsche Bank_ and the Anatolian Railway Company, on the one hand, and the Imperial Ottoman Bank and the Smyrna-Cassaba Railway, representing French interests, on the other. The result was an important agreement of May 6, 1899, the chief provisions of which were as follows:[4] 1. The _Deutsche Bank_ admitted the Imperial Ottoman Bank to participation in the proposed Bagdad Railway Company. German and French bankers were to be equally represented in ownership and control, each to be assigned 40% of the capital stock, the remaining 20% to be offered to Turkish investors. If British, or other capital were subsequently interested in the Company, the share of the new participants was to be taken from the German and French holdings in equal proportions.