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Limited Revolution: The Impact of the Anatolian Railway on Turkish Transportation and the Provisioning of Istanbul, 1890–1908*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Donald Quataert
Donald Quataert
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of History, University of Houston
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Abstract

Developmental investment abroad was an integral part of the industrialized nations' foreign policies in the decades before World War I. A notable case was the German Empire's investment in the Anatolian Railway. Inspired by the astounding success of North American railroad development in settling vast untilled areas and creating great quantities of cheap food grains, the Germans built a railroad into the thinly populated central plain of Turkey. But the hoped-for revolution was limited by social and political factors that overrode the purely economic, as Professor Quataert demonstrates in a study with broad implications for present-day development programs in third-world countries.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , Summer 1977 , pp. 139 - 160
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1977

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References

1 Studies of the Anatolian Railway usually have been subsumed under those of its extension, the Bagdad Railway, have a European perspective, and focus on politicaldiplomatic events. See, for example, Earle, Edward Mead, Turkey, the Great Powers and the Bagdad Railway (New York, 1923Google Scholar); Wolf, John B., The Diplomatic History of the Bagdad Railway (Columbia, Missouri, 1936Google Scholar). For a recent, general survey based on such earlier studies, see Karkar, Yakub N., Railway Development in the Ottoman Empire, 1856–1914 (New York, 1972Google Scholar). Financing of the line is treated in, for example, Morawitz, Charles, Les finances de la Turquie (Paris, 1902), 586–594Google Scholar and the sources cited in n. 4.

2 Issawi, Charles, “Asymmetrical Development and Transport in Egypt, 1800–1914,” in Polk, W. R. and Chambers, R. L., eds., Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East (Chicago, 1968), 383–400Google Scholar; Fogel, Robert William, Railroads and American Economic Growth (Baltimore, 1964Google Scholar); Taylor, George Rogers and Neu, Irene D., The American Railroad Network, 1861–1890 (Cambridge, Mass., 1956CrossRefGoogle Scholar); Westwood, John N., A History of Russian Railways (London, 1964Google Scholar); and Gerschenkron, Alexander, “Problems and Patterns of Russian Economic Development,” in Black, Cyril E., ed., The Transformation of Russian Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), 42–72Google Scholar. For an Ottoman government view, see, for example, Baş Bakanlık Arşıvı (Prime Minister's Archives, Istanbul, hereafter BBA) Yildiz 14 88/38 88 12.

3 The decline in rail transport rates noted later in this study and the eventual rise of railroad revenues above the kilometric guarantee amounts provide indirect evidence of rail-induced changes. The question of the line's economic impact requires further study; see, for example, Société du chemin de fer ottoman d'Anatolie, Bericht des Verwaltungsrathes über das … Betriebsjahr (1. Januar bis 31. December …) for the years 1889–1914 (hereafter Annual Report(s). From 1901, the reports appear under the German company name: die Anatolische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft. Great Britain, Accounts and Papers (hereafter A + P) 1892, 84, Fawcett at Ankara, 16 June 1892 and 1893–1894, 97, Wrench at Istanbul, 24 April 1893. Zentrales Staatsarchiv, Potsdam, Auswärtiges Amt (hereafter ZStA,AA) Nr. 53738, B1. 75 and 8730, B1. 30. Eren, Ahmet Cevat, Türkiye'de goc ve gocmen meseleleri Tanzimat devri, ilk kurulan Göçmen Komisyonu, cikarilan tüzükler (Istanbul, 1966Google Scholar), is a comprehensive account of Balkan Muslim refugees moving to Anatolia in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Many were settled by the government along the railroad.

4 Other lines included, in 1914, the 67 km. Adana-Mersin line in southeast Turkey, the 42 km. Bursa-Mudanya line in the northwest and the Bagdad Railway, extending some 400 km. from Konya to the Syrian border. In 1914, the Anatolian Railway comprised 36 per cent of all track in Turkey. See M. Hecker, “Die Eisenbahnen der asiatischen Türkei,” Archiv für Eisenbahnwesen, 1914, pp. 744–800, 1057–1087, 1283–1321, and 1539–1584 for an excellent, technical summary of Ottoman railways.

5 Naumann, Edmund, Vom Goldnen Horn zu den Quellen des Euphrat (Munich, 1893), 421Google Scholar for contemporary discussion of the controversy over camels' carrying capabilities. For discussion of the camel's superiority over wagon transport in the Middle East see Bulliet, R. W., “The Camel and the Wheel,” in Annales staff, , ed., Social Historians in Contemporary France (New York, 1972), 46–58Google Scholar and a book of the same title by Bulliet, (Cambridge, Mass., 1975).

6 Derived from Great Britain, Foreign Office (hereafter FO) 195/1584, Devey at Erzurum, July 4, 1887; A + P 1890–1891, 88, Hampson at Erzurum, July 16, 1891; Cuinet, Vital, La Turquie d'Asie: géographie administrative, statistique descriptive et raisonnée de chaque province de l'Asie Mineure, I (Paris, 1892), 635–638Google Scholar; and Naumann, Vom Goldnen Horn, 420. Stratil-Sauer, G., “Cereal Production in Turkey,” Economic Geography, 9 (October, 1933), 326CrossRefGoogle Scholar, notes that in c. 1933, grain shipped from Erzurum to Trabzon accrued transport costs greater than its original selling price in the interior.

7 Annual Report, 1892; Naumann, Vom Goldnen Horn, 421 and 426; ZStA,AA, Nr. 15071, B1. 50–55; and, Verney, Noel and Dambmann, George, Les puissances étrangères dans le Levant en Syrie et en Palestine (Paris, Lyon, 1900), 226Google Scholar. The Ankara-Izmit rate of 0.65 piasters tkm. is the lowest caravan rate found by this writer.

8 Annual Reports, 1889–1898; FO 195/1934, Richards at Ankara, October 24, 1896; A+P 1907, 93, Waugh quoting Wylie at Konya, n. d. and 1894, 88, Cumberbatch at Ankara, April 20, 1894; Gabriel, A., Les Dessous de l'administration des chemins des fer Ottomans d'Anatolie et de Bagdad (Istanbul, 1911), 80Google Scholar.

9 Tarif IX of the Cahier des Charges of the original concession for the Ankara line; also, clipping from the Berliner Tageblatt, February 1, 1897, enclosed with the Annual Reports in the Deutsche Bank archive. By comparison, rates on “granger railroads” in the United States averaged about 1.2 cents a ton-mile for all classes of freight in these years; Interstate Commerce Commission, Statutes of the Railways of the U.S. (annual 1887— ).

10 Clipping from the London Times, September 9, 1905, in ZStA,AA, Nr. 6667, Bl. 15–15r; Annual Reports, 1895–1897; and Le journal de la chambre de commerce de Constantinople (hereafter JCCC), September 9, 1893, p. 421.

11 Annual Reports, 1895–1897; Times clipping cited in n. 10. This impression is corroborated by a study of grain exports from the Anatolian ports of Samsun, Trabzon, and Mersin, which fail to decline after construction of the railroad. For a contrary statement, that most Kayseri exports were going via Ankara, see Revue commerciale du Levant, bulletin mensuel de la chambre de commerce française de Constantinople (hereafter Revue),. Nr. 204, March 20, 1904, pp. 316–319.

12 Annual Reports, 1895–1897.

13 ZStA,AA, Nr. 15070, Bl. 29–30; clipping from the London Times, October 3, 1905, in ZStA,AA, Nr. 6667, Bl. 117–118; Revue Nr. 226, January 31, 1906, pp. 105–106.

14 ZStA,AA, Nr. 15071, Bl. 50–55 and Nr. 15070, Bl. 26–26r.

15 Hecker, “Die Eisenbahnen,” 1539; ZStA,AA, Nr. 15070, Bl. 26–26r. For similar statements from less sympathetic observers see: Revue Nr. 191, February 28, 1903, pp. 287–294 and 333–336; A+P 1904, 101A, Hampson at Konya, n. d.

16 ZStA,AA, Nr. 11796, Bl. 18–18r; Nr. 57336, Bl. 31; and Nr. 8730, Bl. 29. The population estimate is for 1903.

17 Ibid.; Annual Reports, 1889–1914; Hecker, “Die Eisenbahnen” 1540–1541.

18 Annual Reports, 1889–1914; for a convenient table giving merchandise and grain shipments on the two sections, 1889–1907, see Pech, E., Manuel des sociétés anonymes fonctionnant en Turquie, 4th ed. (Istanbul, 1909), 68Google Scholar.

19 Annual Reports, 1890–1903. There was some tendency for equalization of shipping among the Eskişehir-Konya section stations but Kütahya occasionally shipped nearly onehalf of all merchandise. Availability of storage and handling facilities, as well as productivity, helped to determine the volume of goods shipped from a station. For example, the superior facilities at Eskişehir attracted commerce from areas up to twenty hours' distant. See clipping from the London Times, December 28, 1904, in ZStA,AA, Nr. 11796, Bl. 104.

20 ZStA,AA, Nr. 8730, Bl. 29, 38–42 and Nr. 15071, Bl. 20r 23; JCCC, October 23, 1897. Annual Reports and other sources often listed only Getreide without further designation in the tables of commodities shipped. Wheat, barley and other grains were listed separately for five years, 1896, 1897, and 1902–1904. During these years, wheat averaged 60 per cent of all grain shipped, barley 37 per cent, and maize, oats, and rye the balance. See Annual Reports, 1896–1897; ZStA,AA, Nr. 53738, Bl. 168–168r and Nr. 53739, Bl. 112.

21 Altogether, the military purchased 13 per cent of all rail-shipped grains in 1896. See ZStA,AA, Nr. 8730, Bl. 30 and 38–42; Nr. 11655, Bl. 146–148; and Annual Report, 1896, which notes that 23,250 tons of Getreide were shipped for the military. ZStA,AA, Nr. 53736, Bl. 30 suggests that, in 1894, 12,000 tons of cereals were procured in Anatolia for the military.

22 A methodological appendix discussing the problems of determining actual bread consumption in Istanbul and the procedures employed in this article is available from the author.

23 For the provisioning of Istanbul in the seventeenth century, when Anatolian areas with easy sea access played a more important role than in the subsequent century, see Mantran, Robert, Istanbul dans la seconde moitié du XVlIe siècle (Paris, 1962), esp. 187–194Google Scholar; for the eighteenth century, see Güçer, Lütfi, “XVIII yüzyil ortalarinda Itanbul'un iaşesi lüzumlu hububatin temini meselesi,” Istanbul Üniversitesi, lktisat Fakültesi Mecmuasi, XI, 1–4 (1949–1950), 397–416Google Scholar; and Alexandrescu-Dersca, Marie Mathilde, “Contribution à l'Étude de l'approvisionnement en blé de Constantinople au XVIII-e siècle,” Studia et Acta Orientalia I, 1957, pp. 13–37Google Scholar.

24 Egypt gained autonomy in 1768, lost it later in the century, and then, with the rise of Mehmet Ali in the early nineteenth century, embarked on a separate course. Thrace remained part of the empire but under constant threat of European attack.

25 United States, House of Representatives, Consular Reports of the United States, 1876, pp. 890–894; Ibid., Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Monthly Consular Reports, 1881, pp. 306–307; market summaries in the Istanbul newspapers Levant Herald, 1887–1889 and JCCC, 1885–1886. The market summaries from 1890 (Levant Herald) and the years 1892–1908 (JCCC) also were utilized in this study. The summaries, which note the wheat and flour quantities received and sold in Istanbul, were totalled to yield annual receipts of each commodity from the various suppliers. The tables derived from these summaries form the statistical basis for the remainder of the article, and they can be obtained from the author.

26 The pre-railroad contribution of Anatolia to Istanbul provisioning was held back by Ottoman tariff policy. Until 1893, wheat and, until 1894, flour, shipped by water within the empire paid 8 per cent internal customs duties. Turkey, Ministry of Justice, Düstur, birinci tertib, VI (Ankara, 1939), 1337–1338 and 1430–1433Google Scholar. Also, JCCC, March 11, 1893, p. 108; August 26, 1893, p. 403; and November 24, 1894.

27 Market summaries in Levant Herald, 1890, and JCCC, 1892–1908.

28 Hariciye Arşivi (Foreign Office archives, Istanbul), Idare Tasnifi, Dosya 191 and 296; JCCC, December 19, 1896, p. 501.

29 Price data for both rail-area and foreign wheats was available from the JCCC market summaries for eleven years: 1893, 1896, 1898–1903, and 1906–1908. During six years — 1893, 1898, 1899, and 1906–1908 — the price of comparative grades of rail wheat exceeded that of foreign. As will be demonstrated shortly, however, most Anatolian wheats entering the Istanbul market probably were not comparable but inferior in quality to imported wheat.

30 ZStA,AA, Nr. 8730, Bl. 46, for an excellent 1902 analysis of factors pushing up labor costs; also, Ibid., Nr. 6725, Bl. 139, for a 1912 report. To stimulate wider use of modern agricultural equipment, the state offered import duty exemptions and sent agronomists to demonstrate machinery in the railroad areas. See, for example, BBA: Orman 1318, Sevval Nr. 5; Orman 1319, Zilkade Nr. 1; Bab-1 Âli Evrak Odasi (hereafter BEO) 151706, 159642, 178438 and 179836.

31 Haulage charges were 103 piasters and handling fees 63 piasters; see ZStA,AA, Nr. 15071, Bl. 54, and Nr. 15070, Bl. 126–126r. Also, Gabriel, Les Dessous, 80. These rates marked a sharp decrease from 1893, when haulage and handling charges of 208 piasters comprised 32 per cent of the market price of top-grade Ankara wheat.

For comparative purposes: in the United States, the very low charges for the New York-Chicago haul accounted for about 9 per cent of the U.S. selling price of wheat. See JCCC, February 29, 1908, and compare with, for example, Girard, L., “Transport,” in The Cambridge Economic History of Europe, VI, Part I, The Industrial Revolutions and After (Cambridge, 1966), 265Google Scholar.

32 Hecker, “Die Eisenbahnen” 1539–1542; A+P 1904, 101A, Waugh at Istanbul, March 21, 1904; and FO 195/1977, Shipley at Ankara, December 6, 1897, quoting the railway report of Major Law. The relationship between the Anatolian Railway Company as a foreign-owned enterprise and the level of its shipping and storage charges is being investigated by the present writer.

33 A railway company director, von Gwinner, declared the Anatolian Railway rates to be the lowest in Europe, overlooking the fact that in many countries, e.g., Germany, railroads were instruments of national economic policy and their rates often a product of internal political compromise. In Prussia, grain freight rates between 1891 and 1893 were 0.15 piasters tkm. for the first 301 km. and 0.10 piasters thereafter. But in 1894, a higher, flat rate of 0.22 piasters tkm. was introduced as part of the post-Bismarckian realignment in imperial Germany. In the U.S., grain shippers paid, around 1897, as little as the equivalent of 0.06 piasters a ton-kilometer (about 0.4 cents a ton-mile) for the Chicago-New York run and 0.13 piasters (0.9 cents) elsewhere in the country, and these rates were subject to widespread rebating. In Russia, about 1888, wheat shippers paid the equivalent of 0.26 piasters up to 386 km. but 0.08 piasters a ton-kilometer for the next 1,336 km. These rates were reduced substantially in 1893. In France, on the Railway du Nord, rates, for a run equivalent to the Ankara-Haydarpaşa trip, averaged the equivalent of 0.07 piasters tkm. In the Danubian areas, the river continued to carry over 70 per cent of all exports. Grain shipments down the river cost 0.01–0.03 piasters a ton-kilometer. These rates, for example, were 11–33 per cent of the Chicago-New York rail rates. U.S. rates quoted were derived from Fogel, Railroads, 4, 24; Taylor, The American Railroad Network, 2; and Meyer, Hugo Richard, Government Regulation of Railway Rates (New York, 1905), esp. 4–10, 144, 164–165. For the actual, over-all average rate on “granger” railroads, see note 9Google Scholar.

34 ZStA,AA, Nr. 53736, B1. 36–38, contains a good summary of flour-milling facilities in Istanbul. A report, drawn from a common source, was published in JCCC, July 20, 1895, p. 338, and also includes a survey of the various flours consumed in the city.

35 Derived from market summaries in Levant Herald, 1889–1890 and JCCC, 1892–1908. Supporting tables are available from the author. During 12 years of the period under study, the railroad regions supplied 1 per cent or less of total flour receipts.

36 Düstur, birinci tertib, VII (Ankara, 1941), 362–364Google Scholar, for an 1899 imperial decree exempting rye from internal customs duties in an effort to deter shippers from mixing rye with wheat. JCCC, June 14, 1902, p. 185, notes the railway company abolishing the discriminatory rate against rye. See, ZStA,AA, Nr. 53736, Bl. 30 and JCCC, March 14, 1896 for examples of miller and consumer attitudes towards the mixed grain. The continued presence of mêlée also suggests that cultivators were not committed sufficiently to the cash economy to take the steps necessary for the removal of rye from the wheat fields.

37 Market summaries in JCCC, 1892–1908. Marseilles provided over one-half of flour receipts in two years, 1900 and 1908, and more than one-quarter of the annual receipts in 1899 and 1907. Rumania, Bulgaria and Russia generally furnished between 67 and 97 per cent of the flour receipts.

38 BBA: BEO 86748, 112394, 202678; Nafia 1316, Safer Nr. 5; Nafia 1324, Zilkade Nr. 1 and Zilhicce Nr. 2. ZStA,AA, Nr. 15071, Bl. 22–27, which notes that the Ankara mill was run with imported coal. Revue Nr. 227, February 28, 1906, p. 139.

39 Annual Reports, 1889–1914. In the 1890s, flour shpiments averaged 2,500 tons, climbed to an annual average 8,400 tons between 1900 and 1910 and, in the final prewar years, to 16,000 tons.

40 JCCC, October 6, 1894, p. 471 and March 28, 1896. The state did cooperate in impeding the entry of U.S. flour through a variety of ruses concerning its gluten content and elasticity. Groups seeking to block the imposition of import duties included foreign diplomatic representatives and, probably, Istanbul merchants with established connections in the flour-exporting countries. For a more exhaustive treatment of government relations with Istanbul millers and bakers and the question of bread prices in Istanbul see Hoell, M., “The Ticaret Odasi: Origins, Functions, and Activities of the Chamber of Commerce of Istanbul, 1885–1899,” (doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 1973), 151–174Google Scholar.

41 The 1897 Anatolian contribution to Istanbul wheat receipts may have resulted from the government decision as well as from the war with Greece. For preference to consumers, see, for example, JCCC, March 7, 1896, p. 109; October 5, 1896, p. 469; November 16, 1901, pp. 361–362; December 7, 1901, p. 385; and May 17, 1902, p. 153. Also, JCCC, April 25, 1896, p. 199. Encouragement to producers took the form of import duty exemptions for agricultural machinery (see n. 29) and free seed grain distribution to cultivators along the railroad and elsewhere. See, for example, BBA: Orman 1312, Safer Nr. 2; Orman 1314, Safer Nr. 3; BEO 160233, 203203 and 221964.

42 Derived from Hecker, “Die Eisenbahnen” 1082, 1545–1546 and tables on 1554–1558. Also, Morawitz, Les finances, 586–594. The pressure which the German government applied to bring the Deutsche Bank into the Bagdad railway project suggests that the bank was not impressed with the financial performance of the Anatolian Railway Company.