Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Bagdad Railway: A study in imperialism

by Edward Mead Earle

Forces Are at Work for Regeneration

Probably there was no group of men more fully aware of the needs of Turkey than the members of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration. They were concerned, it is true, solely with obtaining prompt payment of interest and principal of Ottoman bonds and with improving Ottoman credit in European financial markets. But the accomplishment of this purpose, they realized, was altogether out of the question in the continued presence of political instability and economic stagnation. One must feed the goose which lays the golden eggs. They sought some means, therefore, of establishing domestic order in the Ottoman Empire, of lessening the constant danger of foreign invasion, and of providing a tonic for the economic life of the nation. All of these purposes, it was believed, would be served by the encouragement of railway construction in Turkey.

The interest and imagination of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration were stimulated by the plans of the eminent German railway engineer Wilhelm von Pressel, one of the Sultan’s technical advisers. Von Pressel had established an international reputation because of his services in the construction of important railways in Switzerland and the Tyrol. In 1872 he was retained by the Ottoman Government to develop plans for railways in Turkey, and a few years later he assumed a prominent part in the construction of the trans-Balkan lines of the Oriental Railways Company. No one knew more than von Pressel of the railway problems of Turkey; few were more enthusiastic about the rôle which rail communications might play in a renaissance of the Near East.

Von Pressel foresaw the possibility of establishing a great system of Ottoman railways extending from the borders of Austria-Hungary to the shores of the Persian Gulf. In this manner the far-flung territories of the empire would be brought into communication with one another and with the capital, and an era would be begun of unprecedented development in agriculture, mining, and commerce. A market would be provided for the crops of the peasantry; the hinterland of the ports of Constantinople, Smyrna, Mersina, Alexandretta, and Basra would be opened up; heretofore inaccessible mineral resources would be exploited. Foreign commerce might be restored to the prosperity it had once enjoyed before the Commercial Revolution of the sixteenth century replaced the caravan routes of the Near East by the new sea routes to the Indies. Mesopotamia might be transformed into a veritable economic paradise. The railways also would insure political stability, for rapid mobilization and transportation of the gendarmerie to danger points would enable the Sultan’s Government to suppress rebellions of the turbulent tribesmen of Kurdistan, Mesopotamia, and Arabia. Peace and prosperity were goals within easy reach, thought von Pressel, if Turkey could be provided with a comprehensive system of railways.[17]

To the Ottoman Public Debt Administration peace and prosperity were means to reaching another goal—a full treasury. Greater income for the Turkish farmer, miner, artisan, and trader would mean greater opportunities for the extension of tax levies. And the greater the tax receipts the greater would be the payments to the European bondholders and the greater the value of the bonds themselves. Obviously, railway construction would improve Turkish credit in the financial centers of the world. But, for the time, the Ottoman Government had at its disposal neither the capital nor the technical skill to carry into execution the plans for an ambitious program of railway building, and private enterprise showed no disposition to interest itself without substantial guarantees. It was under these circumstances, therefore, that the Ottoman Public Debt Administration recommended to the Sultan that certain revenues of his empire should be set aside for the payment of subsidies to railway companies.[18]

The Public Debt Administration were not unaware that the payment of railway subsidies would materially increase the amount of the imperial debt and mortgage certain of the imperial revenues. But they were confident that railways would be a powerful stimulant to economic prosperity in Turkey and would ultimately increase the revenues of the Government by an amount in excess of the amount of the subsidies. They believed that generous initial expenditures in a worth-while enterprise might yield generous final returns. As an instance of this they could point to the development of sericulture in Turkey. Under the auspices of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration tens of thousands of dollars were expended in the reclamation of more than 130,000 acres of land and the planting thereon of over sixty million mulberry trees. As a result, the silk crop increased more than tenfold during the years 1890–1910, with a result that there was a corresponding increase in the 10% levy (or tithe) on agricultural products in the regions affected. If the Public Debt Administration were actuated by self-interest, at least it was intelligent and far-sighted self-interest.[19]

But Sultan Abdul Hamid was no less interested than foreign bondholders in the extension of railway construction in his empire. Railways could be utilized, he believed, to serve his dynastic and imperial ambitions. Effective transportation was essential to the solution of at least three vexatious political problems: first, the problem of exercising real, as well as nominal, authority over rebellious and indifferent subjects in Syria, Mesopotamia, Kurdistan, Arabia, and other outlying provinces; second, the problem of compelling these provinces, by military force if necessary, to contribute their share of blood and treasure to the defence of the empire;[20] third, the problem of perfecting a plan of mobilization for war, on whatever front it might be necessary to conduct hostilities. The maintenance of order, the enforcement of universal military service, the collection of taxes in all provinces of the empire, and defence against foreign invasion—all of these policies would be seriously handicapped, if not paralyzed, by the absence of adequate railway communications.

For strategic reasons, if for no other, Abdul Hamid would have especially favored the Bagdad Railway. For strategic reasons, also, he supplemented the Bagdad system with the famous Hedjaz Railway—from Damascus to the holy cities of Medina and Mecca—one of the achievements of which the wily old Sultan was most proud.[21] The completion of these two railways would have extended Turkish military power from the Black Sea to the Persian Gulf, from the Bosporus to the Persian Gulf. General von der Goltz epitomized their military importance in the following terms: “The great distance dividing the southern provinces from the rest of the empire was not the only difficulty in holding them in control; it made Turkey unable to concentrate her strength in case of great danger in the north. It must not be forgotten that the Osmanlie Empire in all former wars on the Danube and in the Balkans has only been able to utilize half her forces. Not only did the far-off provinces not contribute men, but, on the contrary, they necessitated strong reënforcements to prevent the danger of their being tempted into rebellion. This will be quite changed when the railroads to the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea are completed. The empire will then be rejuvenated and have renewed strength.”[22] The General might have added that the new railways might conceivably be utilized for the transportation to the Sinai Peninsula of an army intended to threaten the Suez Canal and Egypt.[23]

The Ottoman Government made it plain from the very start that the Bagdad Railway, in particular, was intended to serve military, as well as purely economic, purposes. The concession of 1903 contained a number of explicit provisions regarding official commandeering of the lines for the objects of suppressing rebellion, conducting military maneuvers, or mobilizing in the event of war. Furthermore, the Ottoman military authorities insisted that strategic considerations be taken into account when the railway was constructed. For example, the sections of the Bagdad line from Adana to Aleppo were carried through the Amanus Mountains, in spite of formidable engineering difficulties and enormous expense, although the railway could have been carried along the Mediterranean coast with greater ease and economy. The latter course, however, would have exposed to the guns of a hostile fleet the jugular vein of Turkish rail communications. From an economic point of view the Amanus tunnels were the most expensive and most unremunerative part of the Bagdad Railway; strategically, they were indispensable. This point was emphasized in 1908, when the Ottoman General Staff refused to consider a proposal to divert the line from the mountain passes to the shore.[24]

One of the most frequent criticisms of Turkish railway enterprises in general, and of the Bagdad Railway in particular, is that they were military as well as economic in character. Such criticisms, however, must be discounted, for potentially every railway is of military value. And in the European countries few railways were constructed without frank consideration of their adaptability to military purposes in time of war. Railways, in fact, were one of the most important branches of Europe’s “preparedness” for war. Which European nation, therefore, was in a position to cast a stone at Turkey for adopting this lesson from the civilized Occident? If the Ottoman Empire had a right to prepare for defence against invasion, it had the right to make that defence effective—at least until such time as its neighbors, Russia and Austria, should abandon military measures of potential menace to Turkey.

Germans and Turkish Nationalists contended that there was a certain amount of cant in the righteous indignation of the Powers that Turkey should become militaristic. Was Russia, they said, as much interested in the welfare of Turkey as she was angered at the active measures of the Sultan to prevent a Russian drive at Constantinople via the southern shore of the Black Sea? Was France as much concerned with the safety of Turkey as she was solicitous of the imperial interests of her ally? Was Great Britain engaged in preserving the peace of the Near East, or was she fearful of a stiffened Turkish defence of Mesopotamia or of a Turkish thrust at Egypt?[25] For the Sultan to have admitted that foreign powers had the right to dictate what measures he might or might not take for the defence of his territories would have been equivalent to a surrender of the last vestige of his sovereignty. Obviously this was an admission he could not afford to make.

Whatever else Abdul Hamid may have been, he was no fool. To assume that this shrewd and unscrupulous autocrat walked into a German trap when he granted the Bagdad Railway concession is naïve and absurd. Abdul Hamid was not in the habit of giving things away, if he could avoid it, without adequate compensation for himself and his empire. As Lord Curzon said, there was no axiom dearer to the Sultan’s heart than that charity not only begins, but stays, at home.[26] Abdul Hamid knew that the granting of railway subsidies would mortgage his empire. He knew that mortgages have their disadvantages, not the least of which is foreclosure. But mortgages also have their advantages. Abdul Hamid granted extensive railway concessions, carrying with them heavy subsidies, because he hoped the new railways would strengthen his authority within the Ottoman Empire and improve the political position of Turkey in the Near East.