Deutsche Bank was founded in Berlin in 1870 as a specialist bank for foreign trade.[8] The bank's statute was adopted on 22 January 1870, and on 10 March 1870 the Prussian government granted it a banking license. The statute laid great stress on foreign business: "The object of the company is to transact banking business of all kinds, in particular to promote and facilitate trade relations between Germany, other European countries and overseas markets."[9] The bank's first domestic branches, inaugurated in 1871 and 1872, were opened in Bremen[10] and Hamburg.[11] Its first foray overseas came shortly afterwards, in Shanghai[12] (1872) and London[13] (1873). Already, at this early stage, the bank was looking further afield, making investments in North and South America, Asia, and Turkey. Major projects in the early years of the bank included the Northern Pacific Railroad in the US[14] and the Baghdad Railway[15] (1888). In Germany, the bank was instrumental in the financing of bond offerings of steel company Krupp (1879) and introduced the chemical company Bayer to the Berlin stock market. Deutsche Bank's early decades were a period of rapid expansion. Issuing business began to grow in importance in the 1880s, and in the 1890s it really took off. The bank played a major part in the development of Germany's electrical-engineering industry, but it also gained a strong foothold in iron and steel. A solid base in Germany permitted the financing of business abroad, which in some cases kept the bank occupied for years, the best-known example being the Baghdad Railway. The second half of the 1890s saw the beginning of a new period of expansion at Deutsche Bank. The bank formed alliances with large regional banks, giving itself an entrée into Germany's main industrial regions. Joint ventures were symptomatic of the concentration then under way in the German banking industry. For Deutsche Bank, domestic branches of its own were still something of a rarity at the time; the Frankfurt branch[16] dated from 1886 and the Munich branch from 1892, while further branches were established in Dresden and Leipzig[17] in 1901. In addition, the bank rapidly perceived the value of specialist institutions for the promotion of foreign business. Gentle pressure from the Foreign Ministry played a part in the establishment of Deutsche Ueberseeische Bank[18] in 1886 and the stake taken in the newly established Deutsch-Asiatische Bank[19] three years later, but the success of those companies in showed that their existence made sound commercial sense. When in spring 1914 the "Frankfurter Zeitung" told its readers that Deutsche Bank was "the biggest bank in the world",Frankfurter Zeitung, Erstes Morgenblatt, 5 March 1914. The claim marked the highpoint but at the same time the end of an era. During World War I, the source of the visionary vigor that had driven many a determined company to succeed gradually dried up.