The Germans had made a great impression upon the Bosphorus.

Nobody at that point in the geography of the world could fail to see the wonderful commercial progress of the Germans and the military power that stood behind ready to back it up.
A concession for a railroad from the Bosphorus to Bagdad and through Mesopotamia to the Persian Gulf finally went to Germany, and the signature of the Sultan was at the bottom of the paper.

There was, of course, the usual Oriental compromise, and the concession for the oil fields of Mesopotamia went to the English; but the signature of the Sultan is still lacking to that piece of paper.
English statesmen announced that the Bagdad railroad was a purely private enterprise, financed in Germany by people associated with the Deutsche Bank.

They had later to confess that error.

Germany laughed and later openly announced that the Bagdad railroad was a Prussian enterprise of state.