Note 23 — Chapter II · BACKWARD TURKEY INVITES ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION

Via the Bagdad Railway and the Syrian system Turkish troops could have been transported to a point less than 200 miles from Suez. A successful attack on the Canal, of course, would have severed British communications with the East. In addition, it would have given the Sultan an opportunity to attack, and assert his suzerainty over, Egypt. Dr. Rohrbach made a great point of this alleged menace to the British position in Egypt. Cf. Die Bagdadbahn, pp. 18–19; German World Policies, pp. 165–167. This program, however, would have been an altogether too ambitious one for the military strength of the Ottoman Empire, which had such far-flung frontiers to defend. In any event, British statesmen seemed to realize that the Sinai Peninsula was a formidable natural defence against an attack on the Suez Canal and that such an expedition would be merely a pin-prick in the imperial flesh. Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords, fifth series, Volume 7 (1911), pp. 601 et seq. The termination in a fiasco of the Turkish drive of 1914–1915 against the Canal confirmed this prophecy.