CHAPTER II

BACKWARD TURKEY INVITES ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION

TURKISH SOVEREIGNTY IS A POLITE FORMALITY

The reign of Sultan Abdul Hamid II (1876–1909) began with a disastrous foreign war; it terminated in the turmoil of revolution. And during the intervening three decades of his régime the Ottoman Empire was forced to wage a fight for its very existence—a fight against disintegration from within and against dismemberment from without.

One of the principal problems of Abdul Hamid was the government of his vast empire in spite of domestic dissension and foreign interference. His subjects were a polyglot collection of peoples, bound together by few, if any, common ties, obedient to the Sultan’s will only when overawed by military force. In Turkey-in-Asia alone, Turks, Arabs, Armenians, Kurds, Jews, Greeks combined to form a conglomerate population, professing a variety of religious faiths, speaking a diversity of languages and dialects, and adhering to their own peculiar social customs. Of these, the Armenians were receiving the sympathy, support, and encouragement of Russia; the Kurds were living by banditry, terrorizing peasants and traders alike; the Arabs were in open revolt.[1]

Nature seemed to make more difficult the task of bringing these dissentient peoples under subjection. The mountainous relief of the Anatolian plateau lent itself to the success of guerrilla bands against the gendarmerie; a high mountain barrier separated Anatolia, the homeland of the Turks, from the hills and deserts of Syria and Mesopotamia, the strongholds of the Arabs. The vast extent of the empire—it is as far from Constantinople to Mocha as it is from New York to San Francisco—still further complicated an already tangled problem, for there were not even the poorest means of communication. Under these circumstances the authority of the Sultan was as often disregarded as obeyed. To police the country from the Adriatic to the Indian Ocean, from the borders of Persia to the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, was a physical impossibility. Universal military service was enforced only in the less rebellious provinces. It was almost out of the question to mobilize the military strength of the empire for defence against foreign invasion or for the suppression of domestic insurrection. Efforts to build up effective administration from Constantinople were paralyzed by incompetent, insubordinate, and corrupt officials.[2]

To these problems of maintaining peace and order at home there was added the equally difficult problem of preventing the extension of foreign interference and control in Ottoman affairs. The integrity of Turkey already was seriously compromised by the hold which the Great Powers possessed on Turkish governmental functions. Under the Capitulations foreigners occupied a special and privileged position within the Ottoman Empire. Nationals of the European nations and the United States were practically exempt from taxation; they could be tried for civil and criminal offences only under the laws of their own country and in courts under the jurisdiction of their own diplomatic and consular officials; in fact, they enjoyed favors comparable to diplomatic immunity. By virtue of treaties with the Sultan the Powers exercised numerous extra-territorial rights in Turkey, such, for example, as the maintenance of their own postal systems.[3]

The finances of Turkey, furthermore, were under the control of the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, composed almost entirely of representatives of foreign bondholders and responsible only to them. The Council of Administration of the Public Debt—composed of one representative each from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Turkey—had complete control of assessment, collection, and expenditure of certain designated revenues. In fact, it controlled Ottoman financial policy and exercised its control in the interest of European bankers and investors. Customs duties of the Sultan’s dominions might be increased only with the consent of the Great Powers. Almost all administrative and financial questions in Turkey were directly or indirectly subject to the sanction of foreigners.[4]

European governments were not content to interfere in the affairs of the Ottoman Empire. They sought to destroy it. Their zeal in this latter respect was limited only by their jealousies as to who should become the heir of the Sick Man. Russia encouraged the Balkan and Transcaucasian peoples to resist Turkish domination; France acquired control of Tunis and built up a sphere of interest in Syria; Great Britain occupied Egypt; Italy cast longing glances at Tripoli and finally seized it; Greece fomented insurrection in Crete. Germany and Austria-Hungary sought to bring all of Turkey into the economic and political orbit of Central Europe. The Powers rendered lip-service to the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire, but they never allowed their solemn professions to interfere with their imperial practices. At best Turkish sovereignty was a polite fiction—it was always a fiction, if not always polite.

The economic backwardness of Turkey emphasized the existing political confusion and instability. From one end of the empire to the other, it seemed, obstacle was piled on obstacle to prevent the modernizing of the nation. Brigandage made trade hazardous; there were almost no roads; the rivers of Anatolia and Cilicia were not navigable; the mineral resources of the country had been neglected; internal and foreign customs duties were the last straws to break the camel’s back—business was taxed to death. Agriculture, the occupation of the great majority of the people, was in a state of stagnation. The absence of systems of drainage and irrigation made the countryside the victim of alternate floods and droughts. Methods of cultivation were archaic: the wooden plow, used by the Hittites centuries before, was among the most advanced types of agricultural implements in use in Anatolia and Syria; harvesting and threshing were performed in the most antiquated manner; fertilization and cultivation were practically unknown. Markets were inaccessible; the peasant could not dispose of a surplus if he had it; therefore, production was limited to the needs of the family, and the Turkish peasant acquired a widespread reputation for inherent laziness.

Industrially, the Ottoman Empire had back of it a great past. The fine and dainty fabrics of Mosul; the famous mosque lamps, wonder-art of the glass-workers of Mesopotamia; the master workmanship of the coppersmiths of Diarbekr; the tiles of Erzerum; the steel work and the enamels of Damascus—all of these had been far-famed articles of world commerce for centuries. But Turkey in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was, industrially as well as politically, a “backward nation.” Her manufactures were conducted under the time-honored handicraft system, which long since had been discarded by her European neighbors. In other words, Turkey had not experienced the Industrial Revolution which was the modern foundation of Western society and civilization. But Turkey was victimized by the Industrial Revolution. Her manufactures—with the exception of some luxuries of incomparable craftsmanship—produced by outworn methods, found it increasingly difficult to compete even in the markets of the Ottoman Empire with the cheaper machine-made goods of Europe. The pitiless competition of the industrialized West eliminated the cottage spinner and weaver, the town tailor and cobbler. And yet for Turkey to adopt European methods—to introduce the machine, the factory, and the factory town—was for a time impracticable. There was no mobile fund of capital for the purpose, and even Young Turks were not in a position to furnish the necessary technical skill. As for foreign capital and foreign directing genius, they could be obtained only under promises and guarantees which might still further jeopardize the independence of the Ottoman Empire.[5]

THE NATURAL WEALTH OF ASIATIC TURKEY OFFERS ALLURING OPPORTUNITIES

It was not because of a lack of natural resources that Turkey was a “backward nation.” The Sultan’s Asiatic dominions were rich in raw materials, in fuel, and in agricultural possibilities. Anatolia, for example, is a great storehouse of important metals. A fine quality of chrome ore is to be found in the region directly south of the Sea of Marmora and in Cilicia, constituting sources of supply which were sufficient to assure Turkey first position among the chrome-producing nations until 1900, when exports from Russia and Rhodesia offered serious competition. There are valuable deposits of antimony in the vilayets of Brusa and Smyrna, as well as commercially profitable lead and zinc mines near Brusa, Ismid, and Konia. These metals, particularly chrome and antimony, are not only valuable for peace-time industry, but are almost indispensable in the manufacture of armor-plate, shells and shrapnel, guns, and armor-piercing projectiles.[6]

In the vicinity of Diarbekr there are mines, which, although not entirely surveyed, promise to yield large supplies of copper. Southern Anatolia is the world’s greatest source of emery and other similar abrasives. The famous meerschaum mines near Eski Shehr enjoy practically a universal monopoly. Boracite, mercury, nickel, iron, manganese, sulphur, and other minerals are to be found in Anatolia, although there is some question of the commercial possibilities of the deposits.[7]

Although Anatolia is not ranked among the principal fuel-producing countries of the world, its coal deposits are not inconsiderable. Operation of the chief of the coalfields, in the vicinity of Heraclea, was begun in 1896 by a French corporation, _La Société française d’Héraclée_, which invested in the enterprise during the succeeding seven years more than a million francs. The venture proved to be profitable, for by 1910 the mines were producing in excess of half a million tons of coal annually. In addition to coal, Anatolia possesses large deposits of lignite which, mixed with coal, is suitable fuel for ships, locomotives, gasworks, and factories.[8]

Oil exists in large quantities in Mesopotamia and in smaller quantities in Syria. The deposits are said to be part of a vast petroliferous area stretching from the shores of the Caspian Sea to the coast of Burma. As early as 1871 a commission of experts visited the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates for the purpose of studying the possibility of immediate exploitation of the petroleum wells in that region. They reported that although there was a plentiful supply of petroleum of good quality, difficulties of transportation made it extremely doubtful if the Mesopotamian fields could compete with the Russian and American at that time. The oil supply was then being exploited on a small scale by the Arabs and proved to be of sufficient local importance, as well as of sufficient profit, to warrant its being taken over by the Ottoman Civil List, in 1888, as a government monopoly.[9]

In 1901 a favorable report by a German technical commission on Mesopotamian petroleum resources stated that the region was a veritable “lake of petroleum” of almost inexhaustible supply. It would be advisable, it was pointed out, to develop these oilfields if for no other purpose than to break the grip of the “omnipotent Standard,” which, in combination with Russian interests, might speedily monopolize the world’s supply.[10] Shortly afterward, Dr. Paul Rohrbach, a celebrated German publicist, visited the Mesopotamian valley and wrote that the district seemed to be “virtually soaked with bitumen, naphtha, and gaseous hydrocarbons.” He was of the opinion that the oil resources of the region offered far greater opportunity for profitable development than had the Russian Transcaucasian fields.[11] In 1904 the _Deutsche Bank_, of Berlin, promoters of the Bagdad Railway, obtained the privilege of making a thorough survey of the oilfields of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, with the option within one year of entering into a contract with the Ottoman Government for their exploitation.[12] Shortly thereafter Rear Admiral Colby M. Chester, of the United States Navy, became interested in the development of the oil industry in Asiatic Turkey.[13]

The Near East possesses not only mineral wealth but potential agricultural wealth as well. Mesopotamia, for example, gives promise of becoming one of the world’s chief cotton-growing regions. In antiquity the Land of the Two Rivers was an important center of cotton production, and recent experiments have held out great inducements for a revival of cotton culture there. The climate of Mesopotamia is ideal for such a purpose. The length of the summer season is from six to seven months, with a constantly rising temperature, as contrasted with a shorter season and variable temperatures in America and Egypt. Frost is almost unknown. Rainfall is plentiful during the early part of the year and scarce, as it should be, during the growing period. The soil contains a good percentage of the essential phosphorus, potash, and nitrogen. It is believed that Mesopotamia can grow cotton as good as the best Egyptian and better than the best American product and at a considerably higher yield per acre.[14]

Extravagant prophecies have been made regarding the rôle of irrigation in bringing about an agricultural renaissance in Turkey-in-Asia. A writer in the Vienna _Zeit_ of August 31, 1901, predicted that as soon as the economic effects of irrigation and of the Bagdad Railway should be fully realized, “Anatolia, northern Syria, Mesopotamia, and Irak together will export at least as much grain as all of Russia exports to-day.” Dr. Rohrbach claimed that this probably would prove to be an exaggeration, but that certainly Mesopotamia would become one of the great granaries of the world.[15] Sir William Willcocks, the distinguished English engineer who had planned and supervised the construction of the famous irrigation works of the Nile, was no less enthusiastic about the prospects of Mesopotamia. “With the Euphrates and Tigris floods really controlled,” he wrote, “the delta of the two rivers would attain a fertility of which history has no record; and we should see men coming from the West, as well as from the East, making the Plain of Shinar a rival of the land of Egypt. The flaming swords of inundation and drought would have been taken out of the hands of the offended Seraphim, and the Garden of Eden would have again been planted.... Speaking in less poetical language we might say that the value of every acre in the joint delta of the two rivers would be immediately trebled before the irrigation works were carried out, and again increased many fold more the day the works were completed. Every town and hamlet in the valley from Bagdad to Basra would find itself freed from the danger, expense, and intolerable nuisance of flooding, and the resurrection of this ancient land would have been an accomplished fact.”[16]

Here in the Near East, then, was a great empire awaiting exploitation by Western capital and Western technical skill. No man could adequately predict its ultimate contributions in raw materials to Western industry, or accurately foretell its ultimate capacity in consumption of the products of Western factories, or confidently prophesy its final rôle in the promotion of Western commerce. But a trained and intelligent observer, surveying the situation at the opening of the twentieth century, could have said with a certain amount of assurance that there were two essential conditions to even a partial realization of the economic possibilities of the Ottoman Empire: the provision of adequate railway communications and the establishment of political security. The former of these conditions was met, in part, during the régime of Abdul Hamid and his successors, the Young Turks. The second, in spite of earnest efforts by loyal Ottomans, has not yet been satisfied.

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.

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES

[1] Count L. Ostrorog, _The Turkish Problem_ (Paris, 1915, English translation, London, 1919), Chapter II; Leon Dominian, _The Frontiers of Language and Nationality in Europe_ (London, 1917); V. Bérard, _Le Sultan, l’Islam, et les puissances_ (Paris, 1907), pp. 15 _et seq._; E. Fazy, _Les Turcs d’aujourd’hui_ (Paris, 1898); A. Vamberry, _Das Türkenvolk_ (Leipzig, 1885); A. Geiger, _Judaism and Islam_ (London, 1899). Regarding Arab nationalism, in particular, _cf._ N. Azoury, _Le réveil de la nation arabe_ (Paris, 1905); E. Jung, _Les puissances devant la révolte arabe_ (Paris, 1906). A fascinating tale of the Arab separatist movement during the Great War is that of L. Thomas, “Lawrence: the Soul of the Arabian Revolution,” in _Asia_ (New York), April, May, June, 1920. _Cf._, also, H. S. Philby, _The Heart of Arabia_ (2 volumes, New York, 1923).

[2] There is a wealth of material upon the problems of the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Abdul Hamid. In particular, consult the following: A. Vamberry, _La Turquie d’aujourd’hui et d’avant quarante ans_ (Paris, 1898); C. Hecquard, _La Turquie sous Abdul Hamid_ (Paris, 1901); G. Dory, _Abdul Hamid Intime_ (Paris, 1901); Sir Edwin Pears, _The Life of Abdul Hamid_ (London, 1917); W. Miller, _The Ottoman Empire, 1801–1913_ (Cambridge, 1913), Chapters XVI-XVIII; N. Verney and G. Dambmann, _Les puissances étrangères dans le Levant, en Syrie, et en Palestine_ (Paris, 1900); Baron von Oppenheim, _Von Mittelmeer zum persischen Golfe_ (2 volumes, Berlin, 1899–1900); Lavisse and Rambaud, _Histoire Générale_ (12 volumes, 1894–1901), Volume XI, Chapter XV;