The unsettled political conditions in Turkey, meanwhile, had delayed, but not halted, construction of the Bagdad Railway. The years 1910 and 1911 were marked by progress on the sections in the vicinity of Adana. From that Cilician city the railway was being laid westward to the Taurus Mountains, eventually to pass through the Great Gates and meet the tracks already laid to Bulgurlu. Eastward the line was being constructed in the direction of the Amanus mountains, although there seemed to be little chance for an early beginning of the costly tunneling of the barrier. During 1911 and 1912 attention was concentrated on the building of the sections east of Aleppo, which in 1912 reached the Euphrates River. The branch line to Alexandretta was completed and opened to traffic November 1, 1913.[40] Financial difficulties in the way of further construction of the main line were overcome in the latter part of 1913, when the _Deutsche Bank_ disposed of its holdings in the Macedonian Railways and the Oriental Railways to an Austro-Hungarian syndicate. The funds thus obtained were re-invested in the Bagdad Railway, and the necessity was obviated for a further sale of securities on the open market.[41] In 1914 the Amanus tunnels were begun, a great steel bridge was thrown across the Euphrates, the sections east of Aleppo were constructed almost to Ras el Ain, in northern Mesopotamia. In addition, rails were laid from Bagdad north to Sadijeh, on the Tigris, before the outbreak of the Great War.[42] Thus far we have considered the Bagdad Railway almost entirely as a business undertaking. In its inception, in fact, it was generally thus regarded throughout Europe. As time passed, however, the enterprise overstepped the bounds of purely economic interest and entered the arena of international diplomacy. The greatest usefulness of the Bagdad Railway was in the economic services it was capable of rendering the Ottoman Empire and, further, all mankind. Its widest significance is to be sought in the part it played in the development of German capitalistic imperialism. Its greatest menace was its consequent effects upon the relations between Turkey, Germany, and the other Great Powers of Europe. The succeeding chapters will deal with the political ramifications of the Bagdad enterprise. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES