The illustration below shows that Kaiser Wilhelm II promised to turn a blind eye on the massacres (including massacres of Armenians) in exchange for cooperation in the construction of the Berlin-Baghdad railway.
The railway was funded and built by the German Empire to connect the city of Baghdad with Berlin via a railway line running through what is now Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. The project was never fully completed – the railway has only reached Konya in Turkey.
Illustration from the Hulton Archive / Getty Images.
