The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1919-11-02
.BERL|N-bAGDAD IS
NOW ECL|PSED BY
LONDON-CALCUTTA
Famous German Scheme Is
Superseded by Far Greater
Railway Projects = One
Link Already Completed
Nv CLAIR PRICE


its place have risen two vastly greater
plans-those for railways from Lon
don Calcutta and Cape
town.
everything else in this troubled near
east. They will remain in the air until
the treaty with Turkey is signed. A
long step toward their realization has
been taken, however, in the compile
ton, during the war, of rail connection
between Constantinople and Cairo.
1t Is now possible, for the first time
in, history, to travel from Calais TO
Cairo over steel rails. As result of
the war. there are now no gaps-ex-
cept the Danube ferry at Rustchuk,
THE Bosphorus ferry between Galata
Bridge and Haidar Pasha, opposite
Coristantinople, and the Suez canal
ferry between Kantara East and KAN
tara West. The trip from Calais to
Cairo takes two weeks at present, and
probably will for some months to
corne. If it were not for stretch of
old Turkish gauge line between Da-
maseus and Haifa 1t would be pos
sible to inaugYrate through train SER
vice between the great terminal at
Haidar PaSha, opposite ConStantinople,
and Bah ell Hadid station in Cairo as
soon as peace comes to Turkey. The
N Suez canal is already bridged at KAN
tara$ but at present the Egyptian state
railways and the Palestine military
.yscr|oss the canal. Furthermore, it las
not yet been decided whether the pres
q emf railway bridge is to be made per-
mament or whether connection is ulti-
ma-tely to be made between Africa
and Asia by tunnel under the canal.
As result of the war, 1t is now
possible to walk from Cairo to Cape
tow n on British SOIL and the construc-
ton of the long mooted Cape-to-Cairo
railway is now largely matter of
time. The Cairo-to- Calcutta project is
not however, simple. Subject to
the provisions of the treaty with Tur
key, the British have made extensive
plans for great naval base at Haifa
I'M Palestine. From Haifa a railroad
has been proposed across the Syrian
desert to MesopotamIa, with pine
lime running alongside it to convey
the Anglo-Persian Oil company's prod
uct to the BIZ reds navy in the Mediter-
ranean. On this railway were con-
strueted the e would be no political
reason why i could not be pushed on
through Baluchistan and down into
India, clipping several days off the
time of the India mails. Thus, pro-
yided Britain has her way in the
Turkish settlement, the day looks near
for the realization of Britain's Cape
o-Cairo-to-Calcutta scheme of empire
with it's knitting together with Brit
ish railways.
ROAD BUILT ON CORPSES
Providing the late Ottoman empire
is assigned a mandatory power able to
finish the job the Germans began,
there is resaon why the Bagdad
railway should not be pushed on to
completion. With the downfall of
German prestige at Constantinople,
however, it will presumably no longer
~, be brandished about the world as the
L. Berlin to Bagdad road. Hereafter a
" more nearly correct name for it will
be the Boulogne to- Bagdad line.
Except for the gap made in it by the
Taurus mountains i was completed long
ago to Ras-ul-Ain, in upper Mesopotamia,
and far a distance north of Bagdad to-
ward Mosul. 1t IS at Aleppo, however,
that one changes for the south, and the
connection between Constantinople and
Aieppo was broken between DorasS and
Kara Pounar by The Taurus gap. From
time immemorial the great Taurus range
has been the barrier between the Turks
of Asia Minor and the Arabs of Syria
and MeSopotamia. y 1t has been an inn
passable wedge driven into the Ottoman
empire. Had the Bagdad railway slSjrted
it to the south and followed the lowlands
of the coast. it would long ago have been
/ completed into upper Mesopotamia This,
however, would have exposed it to bonn
bardment from the sea. Accordingly, its
surveyors held to TIE north, mapped their
route to the western slopes of the Taurus.
left off and resumed construction on the
eastern slopes.
When the war began and allied sea
power cut off Turkish sea communica-
ton between Corstantinople and Syria,
the construction of a light railway was
rushed through the Taurus by the first
route which offered itself. At the same
time Austrian engineers were dispatched
to Kara Pounar to begin work on q per-
manent route through the mountains. The
Armenian deportations of 1915, and later,
thousands of British war prisoners af-
forded free labor. The hard rock of the
Taurus was problem in itself however.
New rock drills h ad to be devised and it
was well into the autumn of 1916 before
the present tunnels were really begun.
With all the free labor they could use.
4 the Austrians chose the most direct route
4 between Kara Pounar and Dorak al
though a more crcuitous route would not
have necessitated SO much tunneling.
Under conditions OF the s/fictest military
secrecy, the tunnels were driven through
without regard for human life. Arme-
mans, Greeks and British we're worked to
the point of exhaustion and then cast
aside to die. Yau may find their bones
today scattered about the mountains back
Of Bozanti and Bara Pounar.
The blood-built Taurus tunnels, one OF
the greatest engineering feats in railroad
history, were completed in September,
1917. In that same month the Turkish
debacle in Palestine came and two weeks
later Turkey applied for an armistice.
One of the conditions imposed was thai
the Turkish Mesopotamian armies were
to be allowed to withdraw, and Sle Tau
rus tunnels, through which lay their
withdrawal, were not to be blown up. Sc
| it came to pass that the Austrians anc
Turks got the Taurus tunnels finished in
time 10 hand them over to the British
army. The rails in them were laid by
British Indian labor. Trains today are
operating through them under British
railway transport officers. There have
been one or two rockfalls in them since
\ The British took them, but by this tine
fthey arc comp1eted-a reminder Of one of
4 the most ironic episodes in the history
of wars.
The tunnels are approximately ~ miles
long, and are II in number The few open
spaces across which the line runs out Of
one tunnel and into the next are Spawned
nv high bridges over the magnificen,
gorges of the Taurus.
The ot1et gap. which existed before the
war between Constantinople and Cairo
was formed by the Sinai desert Tho old
Turkish railway in Palestine had its
southern terminus of sand. which was
crossed only by the annual caravans
from Syria. into Egypt Other travellers
from Egypt for Palestine made the jour-
ney by sea.
In 1915 when the British advance
from Egypt to Palestine was begun.
Egyptian and Indian laborers. pro-