154
onwards, the Taurus Express ran on the Baghdad Railway, linking Turkey,
Syria, and Iraq, and it constituted one of CICI’s main security prob-
lems (Fig. 7.1). This train, which operated three times a week, provided a
direct means of communication between the Germans and their agents in
Iraq. A number of sleeping-car attendants were known to be on the Nazi
payroll^8 ; many of the passengers acted—quite often in all innocence—as
international couriers. The Baghdad office of the Compagnie Internationale
des Wagons-Lits (CIWL) was itself considered highly suspect. Rigorous
control of both travellers and staff was therefore carried out by the FSS at
Tel Kotchek, where the train crossed into Iraq. Though geographically in
Syria, and thus nominally under French control, the crossing was held to be
of international significance to France, Syria, Britain, and Iraq. In fact, the
railway right-of-way marked the border between Syria and Turkey for over
350 km; the train criss-crossed the Turkish frontier three times and the
Syrian frontier four times before finally entering Iraq. This gave passengers
not one but several opportunities to embark or disembark along the track.
Fig. 7.1 Taurus Express from Baghdad to Istanbul at Meydan Ekbez (Syria),
1943, hauled by a German-built Turkish Kriegslok. Source: K.R.M. Cameron,
Royal Engineers