The Berlin-Baghdad Railway and the Ottoman Empire

Industrialization, Imperial Germany and the Middle East

Murat Özyüksel

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781786721624
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politik & Internationale Beziehungen
• Subtopic: Kolonialismus & Postkolonialismus

Railway expansion was the great industrial project of the late 19th century, and the Great Powers built railways at speed and reaped great commercial benefits. The greatest imperial dream of all was to connect the might of Europe to the potential riches of the Middle East and the Ottoman Empire. In 1903 Imperial Germany, under Kaiser Wilhelm II, began to construct a railway which would connect Berlin to the Ottoman city of Baghdad, and project German power all the way to the Persian Gulf. The Ottoman Emperor, Abdul Hamid II, meanwhile, saw the railway as a means to bolster crumbling Ottoman control of Arabia. Using new Ottoman Turkish sources, Murat Ozyuksel shows how the Berlin-Baghdad railway became a symbol of both rising European power and declining Ottoman fortunes. It marks a new and important contribution to our understanding of the geopolitics of the Middle East before World War I, and will be essential reading for students of empire, Industrial History and Ottoman Studies.

CHAPTER ONE

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE

Introduction to the History of the Ottoman Railways

The economic structure of the Ottoman empire was not mature enough to support railway construction. Nevertheless, as early as the 1830s, a British officer named Chesney had formulated the very first railway project to be carried out in the Ottoman territory. Given the conditions at that time Chesney's project, one of those initiatives put by the British to reach out to India through the Persian Gulf, could not be realized. The first railway concessioners in Anatolia were also British, who obtained a concession in 1856 for the İzmir–Aydın Railway. The incentives for British capital to construct this line were the raw material resources of the region, and its potential as an assured market for finished goods. However, the company could not complete the first 70 km of the railway in due time. In such cases, even though the agreement entitled the Ottoman government to seize the precautionary money and take over the management of the company, Ottoman authorities instead decided to extend the period by three years. The reason behind the decision of the Ottoman government, of granting additional privileges to the company, instead of enjoying its aforementioned rights, explains the increasing importance attached by Ottoman rulers to railway construction in the country. The same two general reasons that led Ottoman rulers to support railway construction throughout the country also held true for the Izmir–Aydin region. The first was the hope that railway construction would help ease the financial bottleneck that the country was besieged by. As predicted, between 1856 and 1909, agricultural taxes collected from the regions where the Izmir–Aydin Railway passed soared by 13 times. The second reason was that mounting internal and external unrest could be averted by rapid soldier deployment. Such unrest had an adverse impact on the economic life of the region as well.¹

Meanwhile, the British constructed a second railway that would connect Izmir to Kasaba. Thanks to the Aydin and the Kasaba Railways, the British could hold sway over the western Anatolian region very rapidly. Railway constructions were followed by an upswing of the British trade in the region and British investments shifted to other sectors like mining and municipal services. Besides these, the completion of the railway and the newly enforced Ottoman land law in 1866, which enabled foreigners to possess land, led the British to next establish capitalist ranches.² To a great extent the expectations of Ottoman rulers were also met in that, with the resolution of the transportation problem, security was ensured and production increased.³

Since the period of Ottoman Reform, the Tanzimat, Ottoman rulers had attached great importance to political integration with Europe. The positive atmosphere created in Europe after the Crimean war fuelled the aspiration to construct a railway that would connect the Ottoman empire with Europe. The Tanzimat bureaucrats had underlined the significance of railways for the Ottoman empire in the proposals that they submitted to the sultan.⁴ Moreover, the 1856 trip of the Ottoman Sultan Abdülaziz to Europe with his nephews Murat and Abdülhamid had created a positive influence on the sultan and the princes about railways.⁵

Therefore in 1869, an agreement for Rumeli Railways was signed with the banker, Baron Hirsch. However, after a short time it was understood that Hirsch did not have the financial capacity to execute such a project. Although the Ottoman empire would in the end have a railway of 1,279 km, these lines would not ultimately be connected to the Austrian network. That is to say, the Ottoman dream to connect to Europe via the railways did not come true.⁶ In spite of these shortcomings Rumeli Railways nevertheless realized significant military services. According to the contemporaneous historian Engelhardt these examples indicated how much the Ottoman empire could be successful in the future if it constructed railways in an efficient manner.⁷

Although the Ottoman empire lacked the capital accumulation necessary to finance railways, and it was short of experienced technical personnel, in 1871, Sultan Abdülaziz issued a decree for surrounding the entire Asian territory with a railway network. Because the mishaps with Baron Hirsch had shattered the credibility of private entrepreneurs, the government decided to construct the railway on its own. When the government started laying the rails from Haydarpaşa to İzmit, Abdulaziz realized the difficulties of such a gigantic project. In February 1872, he invited and commissioned the German engineer Wilhelm von Pressel to the Directorate General of Asian Ottoman Railways to design a railway project to meet his goals. Pressel had already proved his merit in fulfilling the missions that he undertook in Germany, Switzerland and the Roumelia railways.⁸

In the years 1872–3, Wilhelm von Pressel formulated a detailed railway project, which was 4,670 km in length. In line with the sultan's requests, Pressel's project commenced from Haydarpasa and reached Basra.⁹ In those years, the Ottoman economy was foundering because of the unrestrained debts that it had begun to incur during the Crimean War. At the end of this process, the government had to reduce the interest rate of the internal and external debts by half for five years.¹⁰ The government was unable to operate the line that was constructed up to İzmit and leased it to a British company for 20 years.¹¹ Apparently, with the bankruptcy of the Ottoman treasury in 1875, Pressel's project had to be shelved, which marked the end of the dream to construct a railway by government initiative. When a similar project was being prepared by Minister of Public Works, Hasan Hilmi Pasha, in 1880, it was already obvious that initiatives of such scale could not be realized without collaboration with European investors.¹²

After 1875, European financial circles ceased to apply for concession to the Sublime Porte. It was natural that capital holders were reluctant to undertake new investments on the territory of an empire, which was swirling in a spiral of debt. The revival of European investors’ interest in the Ottoman railways after 1881 can be explained with the establishment of the Office of Public Debts, known as Düyun-ı Umumiye.¹³ This office was in charge of collecting the revenues allocated for kilometre guarantees and reimbursing them to railway companies.¹⁴ That is to say, the existence of the Public Debts Council removed the risks associated with the Ottoman empire's insolvency.

In later years, organic bonds between the railway companies and the Düyun-ı Umumiye appeared. Members of the board of directors of the railway companies were also at the same time members of the Düyun-ı Umumiye Council. The British representative on the Council, Sir Vincent Caillard, was elected to the board of the Anatolian Railway Company immediately. Major Sir Edward Fitzgerald, who was elected British representative to the Council in 1897 in place of Caillard, was at the same time appointed also to Caillard's place on the board of directors of the Anatolian Railway Company.¹⁵ Managers, who served in both the Düyun-ı Umumiye and in a railway company, would naturally enough pursue the interests of the companies whenever there was a disagreement between the Ottoman government and railway companies.¹⁶

The elimination of the risks associated with the Ottoman empire's insolvency once again attracted foreign capital to undertake railway investments in the Ottoman territory. The Sublime Porte started to receive applications for railway concessions one after another. Among these applications were British entrepreneurs like Cazalet and French entrepreneurs like Collas.¹⁷ However, the Deutsche Bank was also among the competitors and Abdülhamid would opt for the Germans in granting concession. The Anatolian and Baghdad Railways, which would be constructed by Deutsche Bank, were to become the engine of Ottoman–German relations. By then, imperialist states had to also take into consideration Germany in their competition in the Ottoman empire.

Historical Development of Ottoman–German Relations

A) The Bismarck period (1871–88)

Germany managed to establish its union after winning the 1870–1 war with France. At the end of the war Germany annexed Alsace and Lorraine and obliged France to pay war reparations. In the following years, Bismarck's policies were influenced by a concern to prevent France from waging a war of revenge by isolating it within Europe. In any case, conflicts concerning colonial expansion were preventing Britain and France from acting in unison in those years. The powers, the alliance of which with France would worry Bismarck, were the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires. It was for this reason that in 1872 Bismarck reached an agreement called the League of the Three Emperors with the Austrian and Russian emperors. This agreement accepted the European status quo as something that was not to change, and in this way the German–French border was confirmed by Austria and Russia.¹⁸

Relations with Russia influenced Bismarck's attitude towards the Ottoman empire. He did not want problems related to the Ottoman empire to damage relations with Russia. It was during a speech in 1876 at the Reichstag that he pronounced the widely quoted and famous statement “I would not exchange the bones of a single Pomeranian soldier for all of the lands of the Balkans”, that is related to this matter.¹⁹ However, the main contradiction of Bismarck's policy consisted of the impossibility of keeping Austria and Russia within the same alliance. Both countries asked for Germany's help in the policies they followed against each other in the Balkans. When in 1878, during the Congress of Berlin, Austria sided with Britain against Russia, Russia left the League of the Three Emperors. Following this, Germany understood that their conflicting interests in the Balkans made it impossible to keep Russia and Austria together, and established a new alliance with Austria in 1879. Considering all, Bismarck had reached the conclusion that keeping a united “German Block” was necessary for a permanent and long-term policy.²⁰

Following these developments, Bismarck was able to follow a more flexible policy towards the Ottoman empire. For example, he accepted Sultan Abdülhamid's request for a German Military Commission to help in the reform of the Ottoman army. The intention of using an Ottoman army directed by German officers during a probable war with Russia had led Bismarck to take this decision. Vice-chairman of the General Staff Graf von Waldersee went even further stating that war with Russia was inevitable. It was for this reason that Waldersee championed the idea that the Ottoman army had to be strengthened and turned into an ally of Germany.²¹

This statement by Waldersee led to conflict with Bismarck, because Bismarck still considered the Ottoman army to be a reserve force to be used in case panslavist and anti-German ideas should gain dominance in Russia, but at the same time he continued to make efforts not to sever ties with Russia more than was absolutely necessary.²² Sure enough, in 1881 he took the opportunity presented by the increase in disagreements between Russia and Britain and led the way for a restoration of the League of the Three Emperors. In this way, he made sure that in case of a war between Germany and France, Russia and Austria would remain impartial. However, because of contrasts between Russia and Austria in the Balkans this alliance was short lived. It was upon this, and with the aim of preventing Russia from going over completely to the side of France, that he signed a treaty of guarantee with this state in 1887.²³

In conclusion we can say that during the time of Bismarck, the Ottoman empire was not very important for Germany. Bismarck's main worry related to the contrast between Germany and France. It was for this reason that while, on the one hand, he was establishing an alliance with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he was, on the other hand, simultaneously making efforts to at least prevent Russia from going over to the opposing camp. Within this framework, Bismarck did not follow a policy of containment of Russia's aspirations concerning the Ottoman empire; however, he refrained from actively supporting it. Another aspect of the flexible policy Bismarck followed in the case of the Ottoman empire was his hope that in case of an inevitable conflict with Russia he could use the help of Ottoman armies.²⁴

B) Wilhelm II and Weltpolitik

In 1888, following the ascension to the throne of Wilhelm II as emperor, there was a substantial change in Germany's Ottoman policy. Wilhelm thought that the cautious approach of Bismarck was needless, and opted for an expansionist policy like other imperialist states. As a result of this divergence in opinions, Bismarck had to resign in 1890.²⁵ Germany's expansionist policy known as Weltpolitik is generally identified with Emperor Wilhelm. But actually, what led Wilhelm to follow a colonialist policy was not so much his personality and political views as the need for new markets and for cheap sources of raw materials of German industry, which had developed enormously in a very short time span. If, in addition to this economic factor, you also take into consideration Germany's political conditions of the time, you will see that it would have been difficult to follow a different policy, because there was no party that might formulate an alternative policy and stand behind it in a determined way. The SPD (Sozialistische Partei Deutschland) was not strong enough and, what is more, as far as imperialism was concerned it followed an unreliable policy of compromise rather than a socialist one. The only current with which they might form a political alliance consisted of the liberals, but the liberals were openly in favour of Weltpolitik. As for cooperation between socialists and conservatives, who were not happy with Germany's policy of strengthening its navy, the ...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Abbreviations
• Map
• Introduction
• 1. Historical Development of Railway Construction in the Ottoman Empire
• 2. The Struggle for the Baghdad Railway Concession
• 3. From Concession to Constitution (1903–8)
• 4. The Second Constitutional Period
• 5. The Process of Delayed Agreements
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography