C2475 Baghdad Railway (2/2)

In order to break out of this predicament, the Kaiser Wilhelm initiated the Baghdad Railway Project, which started in Berlin and continued to run straight to the Ottoman Empire through the Austro-Hungarian Empire and through the Balkans, i.e., to Turkey in the future.

The Bosphorus, known as the Strait of Istanbul, was the dividing line between Europe and Asia. At that time, Germany's plan was to build a railway line from Berlin all the way here, and build a bridge there. After that, they would work with the Ottoman Empire to build a railway line across the Iranian plateau to Baghdad, which would then lead them directly to the Persian Gulf.

This way, the German goods and military power could be poured directly into the Central Asia and even expand to East Asia through the Central Asia.

Historically, this plan had been severely thwarted by the English and French, but by then Germany was no longer the Germany of the past. Under the pressure of Germany's powerful state, Britain had been forced to make a series of concessions and, before the outbreak of the First World War, had formally accepted Germany's plan to build railways to Baghdad.

Unfortunately, during the First World War, this plan was forcefully interrupted. Germany had only built the railway to the European side of the Istanbul Strait, which meant that the earliest Balkan railways had been built by the German.

If the Kaiser Wilhelm were to complete this super large project according to his plan, then in the 20th century, the geopolitics of the whole world would have changed dramatically.

I'm afraid it's hard for modern people to understand the influence that railways had on the world at that time. They might think that your railroad had to travel through so many countries, each with its own political considerations. How could you do that?

Would there be a country that would admit the control of your railway today and rob you of it tomorrow? Or should I destroy it for you? Because after all, the railway passed through their territory!

Those who had such ideas would not have known that in the 1920s, when the global powers began to expand their railways to the world, his investment model was completely different from that of other countries.

For example, Britain's France was building railways, the Great Qing was building a railway from Beijing to Shanghai, and according to international practice, these super projects, which were invested by foreign powers, were going to help them gain the right to garrison troops in order to protect their country's core interests.

In other words, if the Qing Government accepted, the funds, technology, and companies of Britain and France, as well as the corresponding British and French armies, would be able to be stationed along this railway line.

Historically, there is a very practical example of this. It is the Central East Road, the main line of the Northeast Railway that we are very familiar with. Dalian goes all the way to Harbin and then connects to the Siberian Railway. The railway in the three provinces of East China, the North and South Great Artery, is called the Central East Road.

Until the Republic of China, also known as the era of Zhang Zuolin, there had always been troops of Russian and Russian on the Middle East Road. Of course, at the beginning, there were no Japanese troops.

When did the Japanese army come in? It was after the Russo-Japanese war that Japan defeated Russia, who was forced to cede half of its rights on the central and eastern roads to gain the first Japanese troops stationed in the three eastern provinces.

If you think about it this way, you can also understand how heaven-defying King Wilhelm's Baghdad Railroad really is!

If this had been the case, then the German army would have gone along the railway line all the way to the Persian Gulf, and it would have been like a sharp knife stabbing directly into the heart of the British colonies. To the south could threaten Africa, to the east could threaten India, and to the southwest could threaten Suez Canal.

This was only the meaning of military politics. If the commercial value of this railway was calculated, it would be infinitely large!