Turkish patriots, as well as Moslem fanatics, would have preferred to see Germans favored in the award of economic concessions in the Ottoman Empire. The Germans came to Turkey with clean hands. Their Government had never despoiled the Ottoman Empire of territory and appeared to have no interests which could not be as well served by the strengthening of Turkey as by its destruction. On the other hand, Russia, traditional enemy of the Turks, sought, as the keystone of her foreign policy, to acquire Constantinople and the Straits. France, by virtue of her protectorate over Catholics in the lands of the Sultan, sought to maintain special privileges for herself in Syria and the Holy Land. Great Britain held Egypt, a nominal Turkish dependency, and was fomenting trouble for the Sultan in the region of the Persian Gulf.[17] Germany, it appeared, was the only sincere and disinterested friend of the Ottoman Empire! The rising prestige of Germany in the Near East and the rapid expansion of German economic interests in Turkey, however, did not, during these crucial years of 1898–1900, arouse the fear or the cupidity of other European powers. Russia, it is true, objected for strategic reasons to the construction of the proposed Bagdad Railway _via_ the so-called “northern” or trans-Armenian route from Angora. But when the Tsar was assured by the Black Sea Basin Agreement that a southern route from Konia would be substituted, M. Zinoviev, the Russian minister at Constantinople, withdrew his formal diplomatic protest.[18] The French Government adopted a policy of benevolent neutrality toward the claims of the _Deutsche Bank_ for the concession, on the ground that the Imperial Ottoman Bank, representing powerful financial interests in Paris, was to be given a substantial participation in the proposed Bagdad Railway Company. The pact of May 6, 1899, between the German and French promoters satisfied even M. Delcassé![19]