Note 9 — Chapter VII · RUSSIA RESISTS AND FRANCE IS UNCERTAIN

Rohrbach, Die Bagdadbahn, pp. 10–13; Imbert, loc. cit., p. 678. Enthusiastic Turks believed that, with adequate rail communications, Erzerum might be transformed into a Turkish Belfort. Cf. Mazel, op. cit., p. 37. Had the Bagdad Railway and the projected railways of northern Anatolia been completed before the outbreak of the Great War, the Turks could have made a more effective defence in the Caucasus campaign of the Grand Duke Nicholas in 1916.