The Baghdad Railway (Turkish: Bağdat Demiryolu, German: Bagdadbahn, French: Chemin de Fer Impérial Ottoman de Baghdad), was built from 1903 to 1940 to connect Berlin with the (then) Ottoman Empire city of Baghdad, where the Germans wanted to establish a port in the Persian Gulf, with a 1,600 kilometres (990 mi) line through modern-day Turkey, Syria, and Iraq.
Funding and engineering was mainly provided by German Empire banks and companies, which in the 1890s had built the Anatolian Railway (Anatolische Eisenbahn) connecting Constantinople, Ankara and Konya. The Ottoman Empire desired to maintain its control of Arabia and to expand its influence across the Red Sea into the nominally Ottoman (until 1914) Khedivate of Egypt, which had been militarily controlled by the United Kingdom since the Urabi Revolt in 1882. The Germans gained access to and ownership of oil fields in Iraq, and with a line to the port of Basra would have gained better access to the eastern parts of the German colonial empire, bypassing the Suez Canal.
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 argued that the railway was a leading cause of the First World War. Technical difficulties in the remote Taurus Mountains and diplomatic delays meant that by 1915 the railway was still 480 kilometres (300 mi) short of completion, severely limiting its use during the war in which Baghdad was occupied 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 history of this railway in the context of World War I history has lately emerged to describe the German interests in countering the British Empire, and Turkey's interest in countering their Russian rivals. As stated by a contemporary 'on the ground' at the time, 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 42-centimetre gun pointed at India."
Read more about Baghdad Railway: Overview, The Baghdad Concession, Route, British View of The Railway, Role in Origins of World War I, During The War, After The War, Current Situation, Bibliography
Famous quotes containing the word railway:
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)