Berlin–Baghdad railway


The Baghdad railway, also known as the Berlin–Baghdad railway, 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, with a line through modern-day Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. Jean-Pierre Filiu, in his 2022 book History of the Middle East, summing up the situation on the eve of the First World War, says of this railway, "The British ensured that the last stretch of the railway line, linking Baghdad to the port of Basra on the Persian Gulf, was reserved for them". The current line from Baghdad to Basra was not opened until 2014.
The line was completed only in 1940. By the outbreak of World War I, the railway was still 960 km 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 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 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, 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. 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. Technical difficulties in the remote Taurus Mountains and diplomatic delays meant that by 1915 the railway was still 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 the railway in the specific context of World War I neatly outlines in the prologue the German global interest in countering the British Empire, and the Ottomans' regional interest in countering their Russian, French and British rivals on all sides. As stated by a contemporary 'on the ground' at the time, Morris Jastrow wrote:

Overview

Had it been completed earlier, the Berlin-Baghdad 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 German colonies and the world. The journey home to Germany would have given German industry a direct supply of oil. The access to resources, with trade less affected by British control of shipping, would have been beneficial to German economic interests in industry and trade, and threatening to British economic dominance in colonial trade.
The railway also threatened Russia since it was accepted as axiomatic that political followed economic influence, and the railway was expected to extend Germany's economic influence towards the Caucasian frontier and into northern Persia, where Russia had a dominant share of the market.
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 had resulted in the country's finances being controlled by the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, composed of and answerable to the Great Powers. 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 that the 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.
In 1872, the 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 and so the Ottoman government had to reserve part of its revenues to subsidise its construction and thus increase its debt to the European powers.
The process of constructing a rail line from Istanbul to Baghdad began in 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.
After the line to Ankara had been completed during December 1892, railway workshops were built in Eskişehir. and permission was obtained to construct a railway line from Eskişehir to Konya; the line was completed in July 1896. Both 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.

Baghdad Concession

In 1898 and 1899, the Ottoman Ministry of Public Works received many applications for permission to construct a railway to Baghdad; it was not because of lack of competition that the Deutsche Bank was finally awarded the concession. A Russian plan was rejected for fear of it extending Russian influence in Istanbul. A well-financed British plan collapsed because of the outbreak of the Boer War. A well-financed French proposal, titled the Imperial Ottoman railway, enabled it to become financiers of the winning Deutsche Bank plan.
Other nations of Europe paid little attention to the building of the railway lines until 1903, when the Ottoman Government gave an Ottoman corporation permission to build the railway line from Konya to Baghdad. The Baghdad Railway Company was controlled by a few German banks.
There was concern in Russia, France and the United Kingdom after 1903 as the implications of the German scheme to construct a great Berlin-Baghdad railway became apparent. A railway that would link Berlin to the Persian Gulf would provide Germany with a connection to its southernmost colonies in Africa: with German East Africa and German South-West Africa. The railway might eventually have strengthened the Ottoman Empire and its ties to Germany to shift the balance of power in the region.
Despite obstructions at the diplomatic level, work slowly began on the railway. Both geographical and political obstacles prevented the completion of the Baghdad railway before World War I commenced in 1914. Much of the construction work was undertaken by Philipp Holzmann.

Route

The railway passed through the following towns and places, NW to SE:
The Adana – Yenice – Mersin railway existed prior to the construction of the Bagdad railway and was used for the latter in its Yenice–Adana section.

Modern line sections

; Main lines
; Branch lines
; Connected lines
  • Eskişehir – Afyonkarahisar – Konya railway
  • Fevzipaşa – Narlı – Yolçatı – Kurtalan railway
  • Narlı – Karkamış railway
  • Damascus – Hama – Aleppo railway
  • Hama – Latakia railway
  • Aleppo – Deir ez-Zor – Abu Kamal railway
  • Deir ez-Zor – Qamishli railway
  • Haditha – Baiji – Kirkuk railway
  • Baghdad – Al-Qa'im – Husaybah & Al-Qa'im – Akashat railway
  • Baghdad – Basra high-speed railway

    British view of the railway

The initial reaction of the United Kingdom was one of strong support. A long article outlining the positive benefits of the enterprise appeared in Times. However, a plan for an extension from Basra towards the Persian Gulf faced opposition from the British and as a result, the emir of Kuwait refused to rent any storage facilities to the Germans.
The railway would eventually compete with British trade in Mesopotamia, but that would not happen for many years. However, in 1906, the Hamburg-American Steamship Line announced its intention to run regular steamships between Europe and the Persian Gulf. After a futile price war, the British lines, which had lost their monopoly, came to agreement in 1913 with their competitors and ended a rivalry that had caused considerable political concern.
In 1911 the railway company looked to build a branch line to Alexandretta from Aleppo to pick up on the valuable trade of Northern Syria and the Northern Mesopotamian valley. However, the Young Turk government could not offer further railway concessions without raising customs duties from 11 to 14 percent. Such a raise required the agreement of all powers but was vetoed by Britain after Sir Edward Grey spoke in the House of Commons: "if the money is to be used to promote railways which may be a source of doubtful advantage to British trade.... I say it will be impossible for us to agree to that increase... ".
The British realised that the railways would be slightly too close to their oilfields in Persia. They were worried that the Young Turks could block off oil supplies vital for the Royal Navy.
The main British commercial interest that the British government insisted was protected, was that of the Right Honourable James Lyle Mackay, Baron Inchcape of Strathnaver. As well as being the foremost shipping magnate of the British Empire, Lord Inchcape was a director of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company and of the D'Arcy Exploration Company. On 23 February a contract was signed in London between Lord Inchcape and the Baghdad Railway Company. In March 1914, the German government was obliged to recognise southern Mesopotamia, as well as central and southern Persia, as the exclusive field of operations of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.