The German involvement in Ottoman economic development: banking, railways and other investments, 1888-1914

Abstract

Throughout the nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was in a process of integration into the world economy. This thesis endeavored to set the historical context, in which Germany became a capitalist European power and attempted to expand its area of economic influence into the Ottoman Empire for almost three decades. In analyzing the developments in the economic relations between the Ottoman Empire and Germany between the years of 1888 and 1914, it is argued that railway and other infrastructural transportation constructions, financed and operated by the Deutsche Bank and companies under its patronage, opened the way for further German involvement. The main concentration of this thesis is not to discuss German imperialism; rather, the objective of this thesis is to analyze the German involvement in Ottoman economic development between 1888 and 1914 by focusing on different domains of German economic activities, banking, railways, agriculture, and other investments, within the Ottoman Empire. In this thesis, primary and secondary sources are used to particularize some of the undertakings of the Deutsche Bank and its subsidiary company the Anatolian Railway Company in the Ottoman Empire. The major contribution of this thesis is its primary concentration on the organization and institutionalization of the German capital in the Ottoman Anatolia and its articulation of the tools and methods employed for broadening German involvement in the Ottoman Empire.