Johann Georg von Siemens was one of the founders of the largest German bank institutions, the Deutsche Bank. He was a member of the family which has given the German electrical industry international fame. The new bank became not only a pioneer of German industries, but also an important factor in the foreign relations of the Empire, which it helped by the introduction of German capital to Turkey in Asia Minor, thereby securing the German Government a much more influential position with the Porte than it ever held before. He secured the concession for the Anatolian railways in 1888, which were to blaze the way for German supremacy in what now remains of the Turkish Empire. In 1889 von Siemens proposed an "Imperial Ottoman Baghdad Railway" [a BBB line — Berlin, Byzantium, Bagdad] following a Berlin-Byzantium-Baghdad route, initially extending the existing Anatolian Railway to Ankara. French and English financiers were approached, but they declined to participate.
As an industrial enterprise, the project of a railway through a most notable historic region, and passing along a route which had resounded to the tread of armies thousands of years ago, was fraught with great possibilities of usefulness in opening up the nearer East to brisk trade with Europe that would follow in the wake of the locomotive, and in infusing the young Western spirit into the old East, carrying western ideas, western modes of education, and western science to the mother-lands of civilization. The railway would also prove to be a short cut to India and the farther East, and as such the undertaking was on a plane of importance with the cutting of the Suez Canal.
In 1895 Germny obtained the enormous concessions that were bound up with what is known as the "Baghdad Railway Scheme," designed to bring the Persian Gulf into direct communication with Berlin. The Berlin to Baghdad railroad would be the link to the east to offset the Suez Canal and there began actual increase of German influence and pressure in the Balkans and in Turkey. It was further intended, by reason of the kilometer guarantees, the forestry, mining and other rights, which appertain to the concessions, to eventually bring the bankrupt Ottoman Empire completely under the sway of Germany. So great a triumph for Prussian Diplomacy required a special visit from the Kaiser himself, who made his famous journey to Palestine in October 1898 and eventually his declaration at the Tomb of Saladin, where he declared himself the "Protector of Islam...
Although promises of limited French support were forthcoming at once, the proposals put forward in London were of an impossible character, and were finally declined. In April 1903 British Prime Minister Balfour [1] declined to participate in the proposals for the international construction of the Baghdad Railway, which were put forward by German interests. British oil interests would have benefited, but the British would have only a 25% interest in the enterprise versus a 35% German share. The right-wing press quickly registered their opposition."SOURCE
Mavi Boncuk | Brisse André. Le réseau ferré de l'Asie Mineure. In: Annales de Géographie. 1903, t. 12, n°62. pp. 175-180 LINK to PDF
See also:
Les Chemins de fer en Turquie d'Asie. Projet d'un réseau complet en Turquie d'Asie par l'Ingénieur Wilhelm von Pressel[2]. LINK
The Berlin-Baghdad Express (Guardian review); (Independent Review): The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid for World Power, 1898-1918 by Sean McMeekin (excerpt Chapter 2) LINK
Turkey, The Great Powers, and The Bagdad Railway LINK
[1] "Balfour Declaration is the title given to an important policy statement on Palestine by Britain in November 1917 in the form of a letter from the British foreign secretary, Arthur James (later Lord) Balfour, in the coalition government of Prime minister David Lloyd George, to a prominent British Zionist leader, Lord Rothschild... The Balfour Declaration applied to Palestine, which then lacked geographical or political existence with defined borders. In the Ottoman Empire, Palestine was scattered over the sanjak (county or district) of Jerusalem and the vilayat (province) of Beirut, Jerusalem and its suburbs being ruled directly from Istanbul. The Balfour Declaration arose out of the convergence of Britain's imperial aims with Zionist aspirations, which came to the fore during the First World War (August 1914 -- November 1918), when Britain was pitted against the Central Powers, consisting of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Ottoman Turkey."
[2]Wilhelm von Pressel (1821–1902) was a German official and railway engineer to the Ottoman Empire who attempted to acquire funding for the Baghdad Railway. His previous rail constructions included lines in the Balkans and across Europe. He believed himself a global citizen and is often called the "Father of the Baghdad Railway".