The Berlin-Baghdad Railway and Its Peaceful
COMMERCIAL DIPLOMACY: THE BERLIN-BAGHDAD RAILWAY AND ITS PEACEFUL EFFECTS ON PRE-WORLD WAR I ANGLO-GERMAN RELATIONS Ryan Michael Bukaty Thesis Prepared for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS May 2016 APPROVED: Geoffrey Wawro, Committee Chair Michael Leggiere, Committee Member Nancy Stockdale, Committee Member Richard McCaslin, Chair of the Department of History Bukaty, Ryan Michael. Commercial Diplomacy: The Berlin-Baghdad Railway and Its Peaceful Effects on Pre-World War I Anglo-German Relations. Master of Arts (History), May 2016, 99 pp., references, 55 titles. Slated as an economic outlet for Germany, the Baghdad Railway was designed to funnel political influence into the strategically viable regions of the Near East. The Railway was also designed to enrich Germany's coffers with natural resources with natural resources and trade with the Ottomans, their subjects, and their port cities... Over time, the Railway became the only significant route for Germany to reach its "place in the sun," and what began as an international enterprise escalated into a bid for diplomatic influence in the waning Ottoman Empire. Copyright 2016 by Ryan Michael Bukaty ii The years leading up to World War I were rocked by diplomatic crises, as the European Great Powers jockeyed for global influence. Replacing the conservative and diplomatically prudent Kaisers Wilhelm I and Friedrich III in 1888, Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II embarked on Weltpolitik or world policy in the 1890s. This aggressive quest for overseas colonies, combined with the construction of a German High Seas Fleet, was a bare-faced challenge to British and French imperial power.
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