Berlin–Baghdad railway
The Baghdad railway, also known as the Berlin–Baghdad railway (Turkish: Bağdat Demiryolu, German: Bagdadbahn, Arabic: سكة حديد بغداد, French: Chemin de Fer Impérial Ottoman de Bagdad), was started in 1903 to connect Berlin with the then Ottoman city of Baghdad, from where the Germans wanted to establish a port on the Persian Gulf,[2] with a 1,600-kilometre (1,000 mi) line through modern-day Turkey, Syria, and Iraq.
The line was completed only in 1940. By the outbreak of World War I, the railway was still 960 km (600 miles) away from its intended objective. The last stretch to Baghdad was built in the late 1930s and the first train to travel from Istanbul to Baghdad departed in 1940.
Funding, engineering and construction were mainly provided by the German Empire through Deutsche Bank and the Philipp Holzmann company, which in the 1890s had built the Anatolian Railway (Anatolische Eisenbahn) connecting Istanbul, Ankara and Konya. The Ottoman Empire wished to maintain its control of the Arabian Peninsula and to expand its influence across the Red Sea into the nominally Ottoman (until 1914) Khedivate of Egypt, which had been under British military control since the Urabi Revolt in 1882. If the railway had been completed, the Germans would have gained access to suspected oil fields in Mesopotamia,[note 1] as well as a connection to the port of Basra on the Persian Gulf. The latter would have provided access to the eastern parts of the German colonial empire, and avoided the Suez Canal, which was controlled by British and French interests.
The railway became a source of international disputes during the years immediately preceding World War I.[3][4] Although it has been argued that they were resolved in 1914 before the war began, it has also been suggested that the railway was a manifestation of the imperial rivalry that was the leading cause of World War I.[5][6][7] Technical difficulties in the remote Taurus Mountains and diplomatic delays meant that by 1915 the railway was still 480 kilometres (300 mi) short of completion, severely limiting its use during the war in which Baghdad was captured by the British while the Hejaz railway in the south was attacked by guerrilla forces led by T. E. Lawrence. Construction resumed in the 1930s and was completed in 1940.
A recent history of this railway in the specific context of World War I neatly outlines in the prologue the German global interest in countering the British Empire, and Ottoman Turkey's regional interest in countering their Russian, French and British rivals on all sides.[8] As stated by a contemporary 'on the ground' at the time, Morris Jastrow wrote:[9]
Overview[edit]
Had it been completed earlier, the Berlin-Baghdad (ultimately a Hamburg to Basra) railway would have enabled transport and trade from a port in Germany through a port on the Persian Gulf, from which trade goods and supplies could be exchanged directly with the farthest of the German colonies, and the world. The journey home to Germany would have given German industry a direct supply of oil. This access to resources, with trade less affected by British control of shipping, would have been beneficial to German economic interests in industry and trade,[10] and threatening to British economic dominance in colonial trade.
The railway also threatened Russia, since it was accepted as axiomatic that political influence followed economic, and the railway was expected to extend Germany's economic influence towards the Caucasian frontier and into north Persia where Russia had a dominant share of the market.[11]
By the late 19th century the Ottoman Empire was weak, and cheap imports from industrialised Europe and the effects of the disastrous Russo-Turkish War (1877–78) had resulted in the country's finances being controlled by the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, composed of and answerable to the Great Powers.[12] The Europeans saw great potential to exploit the resources of the weakening empire, irrigation could transform agriculture, there were chromium, antimony, lead and zinc mines and some coal. Not least there were potentially vast amounts of oil.
As early as 1871 a commission of experts studied the geology of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and reported plentiful oil of good quality, but commented that poor transportation made it doubtful these fields could compete with those already operating in Russia and the United States. In 1901, a German report announced the region had a veritable "lake of petroleum" of almost inexhaustible supply.[13]
In 1872 German railway engineer Wilhelm von Pressel was retained by the Ottoman government to develop plans for railways in Turkey. However, private enterprise would not build the railway without subsidies, so the Ottoman Government had to reserve part of its revenues to subsidise its construction, thus increasing its debt to the European powers.[14]
The process of constructing a rail line from Istanbul to Baghdad began during 1888 when Alfred von Kaulla, manager of Württembergische Vereinsbank, and Georg von Siemens, Managing Director of Deutsche Bank, created a syndicate and obtained a concession from Turkish leaders to extend the Haydarpaşa – İzmit railway to Ankara. Thus, came into existence the Anatolian Railway Company (SCFOA, or ARC).[15]
After the line to Ankara was completed during December 1892, railway workshops were built in Eskişehir and permission was obtained to construct a railway line from Eskişehir to Konya; that line was completed in July 1896.[16] These two lines were the first two sections of the Baghdad railway. Another railway built at the same time by German engineers was the Hejaz railway, commissioned by Sultan Hamid II.
The Ottoman Empire chose to place the line outside the range of the guns of the British Navy. Therefore, the coastal way from Alexandretta to Aleppo was avoided. The line had to cross the Amanus Mountains inland at the cost of expensive engineering including an 8 km tunnel between Ayran station and Fevzipaşa.[17]
Russian view of the railway[edit]
The Russians also opposed the railway, being concerned about the territories in the Caucasus. Russian support for the railway was only achieved in 1910, when in a meeting between Tsar Nicholas II and the German Emperor Wilhelm II, the German Emperor assured the Tsar that no lines were planned into Kurdish or Armenian areas.[26]