ABSTRACT
The projects for Mesopotamian railways were so closely related to economic potentialities that a resume of the commercial opening of the region by an English firm will be worth while. While the British Government refused to take any official action in 1857 toward opening the Euphrates Valley route by means of a railway, interest continued in some quarters. There was some talk, for instance, of building a Jaffa to Jerusalem railway for the commercial opening of Syria, with the object of extending a branch of the road subsequently to the Persian Gulf. The reorganized Euphrates Valley Railway Company, however, with Lord Stratford de Redcliffe as Chairman of the Board of Directors, entered the diplomatic field first. In December, 1878, it was reported in London that Ambassador Layard, on behalf of a group of British promoters, had submitted to the Turkish Government in a lengthy document a project for the construction of a Euphrates Valley line.
