Note 25 — Chapter VIII · GREAT BRITAIN BLOCKS THE WAY

Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords, fourth series, Volume 121 (1903), pp. 1347–1348. Two observations should be made regarding this quotation. First, it is included in every book I have consulted on the Bagdad Railway, written since 1903, but in every instance the last sentence has been omitted—a sentence which considerably alters the spirit of the statement. Second, the German press, at the time, considered that the warning was directed, not at the Bagdad Railway, but at the rapid and alarming advance of Russia in Persia. Cf. an analysis of foreign press comments in an article by J. I. de La Tour, “Le chemin de fer de Bagdad et l’opinion anglaise,” in Questions diplomatiques et coloniales, Volume 15 (1903), pp. 609–614—an excellent digest.