It was because of these difficulties, financial and administrative, that the _Deutsche Bank_ marked time until March 5, 1903, when a revised Bagdad Railway convention was executed and plans were perfected for the financing of the first section of the line. It is to this Great Charter of the Berlin-to-Bagdad plan that we now must turn our attention.[30] The definitive convention of 1903 provided that the existing Anatolian lines were to continue in the possession of their owners; the construction and operation of the new railway beyond Konia was to be vested—without right of cession, transfer, or assignment—in a new corporation, the Bagdad Railway Company. This new company was incorporated under Turkish law on March 5, 1903, with a capital stock of fifteen million francs, of which the Anatolian Railway Company subscribed ten per cent. Continued Turco-German control of the railway enterprise was assured by a provision of the charter that of the eleven members of the Board of Directors, three should be appointed by the directors of the Anatolian Railway Company, and at least three others should be Ottoman subjects.[31] It was apparent that the Ottoman Government expected big things of the German concessionaires and their French associates. The new convention provided, first, for the construction of a great trunk line from Konia, southeastern terminus of the existing Anatolian Railways, to the Persian Gulf. This was to be the Bagdad Railway proper, but the concession carried with it, also, the privilege of constructing important branches in Syria and Mesopotamia. With all its proposed tributary lines completed, the Railway would stretch from the Bosporus to the Persian Gulf and from the Mediterranean to the frontiers of Persia. Second, it was stipulated that the Anatolian Railway Company should effect any necessary improvements on its lines to make possible the early initiation of a weekly express service between Constantinople and Aleppo and the operation of fortnightly express trains to Bagdad and the Persian Gulf as soon as the lines should be completed. The Anatolian concessions were extended for a period of ninety-nine years from 1903 to make them coincident with the new concession. The concessionaires were obliged to make all improvements and to complete all new construction by 1911, it being understood, however, that this time limit might be extended in the event of delays by the Government in the execution of the financial arrangements or in the event of _force majeure_—the latter specifically including, not only a European war, but any radical change in the financial situation in Germany, England, or France.[32] THE LOCOMOTIVE IS TO SUPPLANT THE CAMEL