Järnväg berlin bagdad

Military


Johann Georg von Siemens was one of the founders of the largest German bank institutions, the Deutsche Bank. He was a member of the family which has given the German electrical industry international fame. The new bank became not only a pioneer of German industries, but also an important factor in the foreign relations of the Empire, which it helped by the introduction of German capital to Turkey in Asia Minor, thereby securing the German Government a much more influential position with the Porte than it ever held before. He secured the concession for the Anatolian railways in , which were to blaze the way for German supremacy in what now remains of the Turkish Empire. In von Siemens proposed an "Imperial Ottoman Baghdad Railway" [a BBB line — Berlin, Byzantium, Bagdad] following a Berlin-Byzantium-Baghdad route, initially extending the existing Anatolian Railway to Ankara. French and English financiers were approached, but they declined to participate.

As an industrial enterprise, the project of a railway through a most notable historic region, and passing along a route which had resounded to the tread of armies thousands of years ago, was fraught with great possi

  • järnväg berlin bagdad

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    Of the various issues which confronted Europe at the outbreak of the war in , some thought the Bagdad Railway was the largest single contributing factor. Germany's support of Austria's contention that the Servian question was a matter for her to settle without European intervention, had a sinister substratum. The railway from Berlin-Vienna-Constantinople led through Belgrade, Nish and Sofia. The control of Servia, as of Bulgaria, was, therefore, essential to Germany for carrying out the Hamburg to Bagdad project, the very core of Pan-Germanism. A great mass of combustible material lay loosely about in the diplomatic workshops of Europe in As Morris Jastrow wrote "It was felt in England that if, as Napoleon is said to have remarked, Antwerp in the hands of a great continental power was a pistol leveled at the English coast, Baghdad and the Persian Gulf in the hands of Germany (or any other strong power) would be a centimetre gun pointed at India."

    Ever since the announcement was made towards the close of the year that the Turkish government had conceded to a German syndicate the privilege of building a railway to connect Constantinople with Bagdad through a transver

    The Berlin Baghdad Railway

    Murat Özyüksel is Professor of History and Political Science at Istanbul University. ‘In the era of globalization and Great Power rivalry before World War I, construction of railroads not only provided tillgång to raw materials and markets, it was also a means for Germany, Great Britain and France to carve spheres of influence especially in the Middle East. The Ottoman government was also interested in railroad construction in order to bring about political centralization and economic development. Each project unfolded through many stages of coalitions, negotiations and high-level politics. Murat Özyüksel, a leading historian of railroads in the Ottoman Empire, has skilfully combined Ottoman and europeisk archival sources with secondary materials to produce a fascinating and up-to-date konto of the Berlin–Baghdad Railway from to ’ Şevket Pamuk, Professor of Economics and Economic History, Istanbul Bosphorus University THE BERLIN – BAGHDAD RAILWAY AND THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE Industrialization, Imperial Germany and the Middle East MURAT ÖZYÜKSEL Published in by & Co. Ltd London • New York Copyright © Murat Özyüksel The right of Murat Özyüksel to be id