[Footnote 2:  “I may point out to you that, at bottom, the character, the main character, of the Teuton race differs very slightly indeed from the character of the Anglo-Saxon (cheers), and the same sentiments which bring us into a close sympathy with the United States of America may be invoked to bring us into closer sympathy with the Empire of Germany.”  He goes on to advocate “a new Triple Alliance between the Teutonic race and the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race” (see The Times, December 1, 1899).  This was at the beginning of the Boer war.  Two years later, in October, 1901, Mr. Chamberlain was attacking Germany at Edinburgh.  This date is clearly about the turning-point in British sentiment and policy towards Germany.]

13. Germany, and Turkey.

Let us begin with the Near East.  The situation there, when Germany began her enterprise, is thus summed up by a French writer[1]:—­

Astride across Europe and Asia, the Ottoman Empire represented, for all the nations of the old continent, the cosmopolitan centre where each had erected, by dint of patience and ingenuity, a fortress of interests, influences, and special rights.  Each fortress watched jealously to maintain its particular advantages in face of the rival enemy.  If one of them obtained a concession, or a new favour, immediately the commanders of the others were seen issuing from their walls to claim from the Grand Turk concessions or favours which should maintain the existing balance of power or prestige....  France acted as protector of the Christians; England, the vigilant guardian of the routes to India, maintained a privileged political and economic position; Austria-Hungary mounted guard over the route to Salonica; Russia, protecting the Armenians and Slavs of the South of Europe, watched over the fate of the Orthodox.  There was a general understanding among them all, tacit or express, that none should better its situation at the expense of the others.

When into this precariously balanced system of conflicting interests Germany began to throw her weight, the necessary result was a disturbance of equilibrium.  As early as 1839 German ambition had been directed towards this region by Von Moltke; but it was not till 1873 that the process of “penetration” began.  In that year the enterprise of the Anatolian railway was launched by German financiers.  In the succeeding years it extended itself as far as Konia; and in 1899 and 1902 concessions were obtained for an extension to Bagdad and the Persian Gulf.  It was at this point that the question became one of international politics.  Nothing could better illustrate the lamentable character of the European anarchy than the treatment of this matter by the interests and the Powers affected.  Here had been launched on a grandiose scale a great enterprise of civilization.  The Mesopotamian plain, the cradle of civilization, and for centuries the granary of the world, was to be