The establishment of steamship communication between Europe and Asiatic Turkey was welcomed by the Bagdad Railway Company. To widen the scope of usefulness—and, consequently, to increase the revenues—of the railway it was essential that every feeder for freight and passenger service be utilized. This was a consideration in the agreement with the Smyrna-Cassaba line and in the purchase, in 1906, of the Mersina-Tarsus-Adana Railway.[34] The establishment of connections with the former system developed a satisfactory volume of traffic with Smyrna. The acquisition of the latter line provided direct connections with the Mediterranean coast. Nevertheless, the promoters of the Bagdad Railway were by no means satisfied with their terminal ports. Constantinople was at a disadvantage as compared with Smyrna in the trade of Anatolia. Smyrna was within reach of the Bagdad system only over the tracks of a French-owned line which might not always be in the hands of well-disposed owners. The prospects that the Railway soon would reach Basra were not very bright. Mersina was limited in its possibilities of development—shut off by the mountains from Anatolia, on the north, and Syria, on the south, it was the natural outlet only for the products of the Cilician plain. The port which the company sought to bring under its control was Alexandretta, on the Mediterranean, seventy miles from Aleppo. Article 12 of the concession of 1903 assured preference to the Bagdad Railway Company in the award of a “possible extension to the sea at a point between Mersina and Tripoli-in-Syria.” The construction of a branch from the main line to Alexandretta would provide the Railway with sea communications for the valuable trade of northern Syria and the northern Mesopotamian valley, then almost entirely dependent upon the caravan routes centering in Aleppo. Accordingly, negotiations were begun in the spring of 1911 looking toward the building of a branch line to Alexandretta and the construction of extensive port facilities at that harbor.