Note 35 — Chapter VII · RUSSIA RESISTS AND FRANCE IS UNCERTAIN

The French and Belgian banks principally interested were: the Imperial Ottoman Bank, the Banque de l’Union Parisienne, and the Banque Internationale de Bruxelles. Cf. article “Ou en est la question du chemin de fer de Bagdad,” in Questions diplomatiques et coloniales, Volume 24 (1907), pp. 167–171; E. Letailleur, Les capitalistes français contre la France (Paris, 1916), pp. 72–110. M. Rouvier visited Turkey in 1901, at the request of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, to suggest improvements in the fiscal system of the Empire. (Corps de droit ottoman, Volume IV, p. 110.) It was at this time, probably, that he learned enough of the Bagdad Railway to persuade him of the wisdom of investing in its securities.