IOR/L/PS/10/415/2

This part contains drafts and counter-drafts of the various agreements relating to the proposed construction of the Bagdad Railway [Baghdad Railway], comprising the following documents written in English, German and French:

• the Anglo-German Convention;
• an agreement between the Bagdad Railway Company and James Lyle Mackay, first Baron Inchcape;
• an agreement between the first Baron Inchcape and the Société Impériale Ottomane du Chemin de Fer de Bagdad;
• an agreement between the Ottoman Railway Company (the 'English Company') and the Anatolian Railway Company and Bagdad Railway Company (the 'German Companies').

Folio 85 is a map, titled 'Sketch Map to Shew Approximately Railways and Railway Projects and Navigation Concessions in Asiatic Turkey', displaying the routes of existing and proposed railways and river navigation.

The file also contains correspondence thereon between the India Office Political Department, the Foreign Office, the British Ambassador to Berlin (Sir William Edward Goschen), and the Imperial German Ambassador to London (Karl Max Fürst von Lichnowsky). The correspondence concerns the following: negotiations over the wording of the draft agreements; arrangements to limit competing lines between Konia [Konya] and Basra; the appointment of potential British Directors to represent shareholders on the Board of the Bagdad Railway Company; and disagreements between Deutsche Bank [the financiers] and Hakki Pasha over the area to be covered by the Smyrna-Aidin line. A number of India Office and Foreign Office minutes, providing details of meetings with German and Ottoman officials, are also found within the file.

In addition, the file contains correspondence between the Foreign Office and the firm Boulton Brothers and Company, who enquired into the terms of the Bagdad Railway, with a view to participating as a financial backer.