Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 January 2009
The European industrial revolution adversely affected the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century and was instrumental in its final collapse. The eastward flow of European goods grew rapidly in the years following the end of the Napoleonic era in 1815, and Ottoman lands soon became important markets for many European manufacturers. Their wares increasingly displaced traditional Ottoman products, made Ottoman handicraftsmen jobless, reduced Ottoman internal sources of taxes, and so contributed to eventual European control of Ottoman finances. These phenomena are well known and have received appropriate recognition as symptoms of an economic invasion that was aided by the diplomacy of West European consuls and ambassadors, and sanctified by largely unquestioned European arguments in favor of laissez-faire.
page 65 note 1 For an extensive treatment of Ottoman-European economic relations see Puryear, Vernon, International Economics and Diplomacy in the Near East, 1834–1853 (Stanford, 1935).Google Scholar For contemporary views see Hamlin, Cyrus, Among the Turks (London, 1878), pp. 57–60,Google Scholar and portions of Chevallier, Dominique, ‘Western Development and Crisis in the Mid-Nineteenth Century.…,‘ in Polk, William R. and Chambers, Richard L. (eds.), Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East: The Nineteenth Century (Chicago, 1968), pp. 205–22.Google Scholar
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page 66 note 2 These are well covered by Shaw, Stanford J., Between Old and New (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), pp. 138–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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page 67 note 1 MacFarlane, Charles, Turkey and Its Destiny, vol. 2 (London, 1850), pp. 603–8. Although generally unsympathetic with Ottoman efforts to industrialize, MacFarlane in 1847–8 personally visited most factories in the Istanbul-Izmit-Bursa areas. His factual reports of location, size, workers, equipment and production have proved accurate where comparative data is available. See vols. I, II, passim.Google Scholar
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page 71 note 6 The most complete analysis of the background of this convention is to be found in Puryear, esp. pp. 117 ff. Text in Issawi, Economic History, pp. 39, 40.Google Scholar
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page 73 note 3 JC, 6 March 1845.Google Scholar
page 73 note 4 FO 78/611, Cartwright to Aberdeen, Constantinople, 22 February 1845.Google Scholar
page 73 note 5 The Paris revolution of February 1848 was the cause of alarm in capitals as far east as Istanbul. A new grand vezir, Sarim Paşa, reportedly tightened control of Ottoman finances, including those associated with the new industries. MacFarlane, vol. II, pp. 599 ff.Google Scholar
page 73 note 6 FO 195/329, Dadian to Hensman, Istanbul, 13 Nov. 1848.Google Scholar
page 73 note 7 The Times (London), 23 Jan. 1850, p. 6. The Dadians apparently regained their personal properties since the family remained prosperous and several individuals were prominent in Porte affairs until the mid-1890s. They continued to hold the title and functions of barutcu başi until sometime between 1870 and 1889. See Boutros-Ghali, pp. 102–24.Google Scholar
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page 74 note 6 The Times, 29 Jan. 1845, p. 6;Google Scholar MacFarlane, vols. I, II, passim. For more moderate views of ‘jobbery’ see Hamlin, pp. 57–60, and JC, II Feb. 1845, p. 1.Google Scholar
page 75 note 1 Regular five-day summaries of the Sultan's activities in JC indicate that Abdülmecid visited even the nearest factories no more than once per year during the period 1843–8.Google Scholar
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