SavedAdd your journal

Journals / Anadolu Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi / 2026 / Volume: 27 Issue: 1

BAGHDAD RAILWAY CAPITAL ACCUMULATION AND LOGISTIC NEEDS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN PERIOD

Mücahit Çitil(HARRAN ÜNİVERSİTESİ)0000-0002-6788-7115
Pages
—
Publication Date
2026-03-26
🏛️Bibliographic metadata and full text access for this article are provided via DergiPark.
DergiPark Record ↗
✨

AI Summary & Key Takeaways

AI Insight
⚡ TL;DR(Too Long; Didn't Read)

The study highlights that the Baghdad Railway experience offers important lessons on financing models, technology transfer and social impact assessment for today's infrastructure projects.

📌 3 Key Takeaways

🎯
Objective & Hypothesis:This study analyzes the Baghdad Railway project, built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from the perspective of capital accumulation and logistics needs.
📊
Key Findings & Data:The study shows that the Baghdad Railway served three main purposes: creating a safe investment area for German capital, creating markets for industrial products, and providing access to strategic raw materials.
💡
Conclusion & Impact:The study highlights that the Baghdad Railway experience offers important lessons on financing models, technology transfer and social impact assessment for today's infrastructure projects.
🔬Design:Modeling & Simulation
📍Scope:Comprehensive Sample
⚙️Variables:Baghdad Railway · Capital Accumulation · Ottoman Empire

Abstract

This study analyzes the Baghdad Railway project, built in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, from the perspective of capital accumulation and logistics needs. The research examines how the railway project functioned in the capital accumulation process of late capitalism and how it responded to the changing logistics needs of the period. The analysis, based on Harvey's concept of "spatial fixation" and Arrighi's theoretical framework on capital accumulation cycles, reveals the multi-layered and contradictory nature of the project. The study shows that the Baghdad Railway served three main purposes: creating a safe investment area for German capital, creating markets for industrial products, and providing access to strategic raw materials. From the perspective of the Ottoman Empire, the project was seen as a part of modernization efforts, a tool for strengthening territorial integrity, and an economic development drive. The transfer of risk to the Ottoman treasury through the kilometer guarantee system reflects the contradictory nature of the railway financing model. The research also reveals that the effects of the railway on transforming trade networks, marketing agricultural production, access to raw material resources, and military-strategic capacity were not homogeneous, with some regions and social groups benefiting while others were marginalized. The study highlights that the Baghdad Railway experience offers important lessons on financing models, technology transfer and social impact assessment for today's infrastructure projects.

🔖

Cite This Article

Çitil, M. (2026). BAGHDAD RAILWAY CAPITAL ACCUMULATION AND LOGISTIC NEEDS IN THE LATE OTTOMAN PERIOD. Anadolu Üniversitesi İktisadi ve İdari Bilimler Fakültesi Dergisi, Volume: 27 Issue: 1. https://doi.org/10.53443/anadoluibfd.1736210

📄 Full Text PDF Viewer

📄

PDF görüntüleyici hazırlanıyor...

References (55)

  1. Adas, M. (2006). Dominance by design: Technological imperatives and America’s civilizing mission. Harvard University Press.
  2. Ahmad, F. (1993). The making of modern Turkey. Routledge.
  3. Arrighi, G. (1994). The long twentieth century: Money, power, and the origins of our times. Verso.
  4. Brenner, R. (2006). The economics of global turbulence: The advanced capitalist economies from long boom to long downturn, 1945–2005. Verso.
  5. Çetinkaya, Y. D. (2014). The young Turks and the boycott movement: Nationalism, protest and the working classes in the formation of modern Turkey. Bloomsbury Publishing.
  6. Duben, A., & Behar, C. (2002). Istanbul households: marriage, family and fertility, 1880-1940 (Vol. 15). Cambridge University Press.
  7. Earle, E. M. (1923). Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Bagdad Railway: A study in imperialism. The Macmillan Company.
  8. Earle, E. M. (1966). Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Baghdad Railway: A Study in Imperialism (2nd Ed.). Russell & Russell.
  9. Eldem, E. (2005). Ottoman financial integration with Europe: foreign loans, the Ottoman Bank and the Ottoman public debt. European Review, 13(3), 431–445. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1062798705000554
  10. Engin, V. (1992). Rumeli demiryolları [Unpublisjed doctoral dissertation]. Marmara Universitesi, İstanbul.
  11. Gallagher, J., & Robinson, R. E. (2023). The imperialism of free trade, 1815–1914. In Imperialism (pp. 244–259). Routledge.
  12. Harvey, D. (2003). The new imperialism. Oxford University Press.
  13. Harvey, D. (2006). Limits to capital. Verso.
  14. Headrick, D. R. (1988). The tentacles of progress: Technology transfer in the age of imperialism,1850-1940. Oxford University Press.
  15. Henderson, W. O. (1948). The Lancashire Cotton Famine 1861-65. Manchester University Press.
  16. Hilferding, R. (2019). Finance capital: A study in the latest phase of capitalist development. Routledge.
  17. Hobsbawm, E. J. (1989). The age of empire: 1875-1914. Vintage Books.
  18. Hobson, J. A. (2018). Imperialism: A study. Routledge.
  19. Issawi, C. (2013). An economic history of the Middle East and North Africa. Routledge.
  20. Kandiyoti, D. (1988). Bargaining with patriarchy. Gender & Society, 2(3), 274–290.
  21. Karkar, Y. Nasif. (1975). Railway development in the Ottoman Empire: 1856-1914, An economic interpretation. Vantage Press.
  22. Karpat, K. (1985). Ottoman population 1830-1914: Demographic and social characteristics. University of Wisconsin Press.
  23. Kasaba, R. (1988). The Ottoman Empire and the world economy: The nineteenth century. Suny Press.
  24. Kent, M. (1996). Oil and Empire: British Policy and Mesopotamian Oil, 1900-1920. Macmillan.
  25. Keyder, C. (2020). State and class in Turkey: A study in capitalist development. Verso Books.
  26. Kocacık, F. (1980). Balkanlar’dan Anadolu’ya yönelik göçler (1878-1890). Osmanlı Araştırmaları, 1(1), 137–190.
  27. Koçak, C. (1986). Türkiye’de milli şef dönemi:(1938-1945). Yurt Yayınları.
  28. Kurmuş, O. (2018). Emperyalizmin Türkiye’ye girişi. Yordam Kitap.
  29. Kushner, D. (2016). The Hejaz Railway and the Ottoman Empire: Modernity, industrialisation and Ottoman Decline. Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs, 10(3), 545–548. https://doi.org/10.1080/23739770.2016.1239401
  30. Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. Oxford.
  31. Lenin, V. I. (2015). Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism. In Conflict after the Cold War (pp. 319–326). Routledge.
  32. Luxemburg, R. (2003). The accumulation of capital. Routledge.
  33. Marx, K. (1990). Capital: A critique of political economy (Vol. 1). Penguin Books.
  34. Marx, K. (1992). Capital: A critique of political economy (Vol. 2). Penguin Books.
  35. Massey, Doreen. (1994). Space, place and gender. University of Minnesota Press.
  36. McMeekin, S. (2010). The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s bid for world power. Harvard University Press.
  37. McMurray, J. S. (2001). Distant ties: Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and the construction of the Baghdad Railway. Praeger.
  38. Mitchell, T. (2002). Rule of experts: Egypt, techno-politics, modernity. University of California Press.
  39. Ochsenwald, W. (2020). Re-reading TE Lawrence’s seven pillars of wisdom. International Journal of Middle East Studies, 52(3), 559–563.
  40. O’connor, J. (1973). The fiscal crisis of the state. St. Martin’s Press.
  41. Ortaylı, I. (2010). Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Alman nüfuzu. Timaş Yayınları.
  42. Owen, E. R. J. (1993). The Middle East in the world economy, 1800-1914. Taruis.
  43. Özyüksel, M. (2014). The Hejaz Railway and the Ottoman Empire: Modernity, industrialisation and Ottoman decline. I.B. Tauris.
  44. Pamuk, Ş. (2005). Osmanlı-Türkiye iktisadî tarihi 1500-1914. İletişim Yayınları.
  45. Pamuk, Ş. (2018). Türkiye’nin 200 yıllık iktisadi tarihi. Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları.
  46. Quataert, D. (1973). Ottoman reform and agriculture in Anatolia, 1876-1908. University of California.
  47. Quataert, D. (1983). Social disintegration and popular resistance in the Ottoman Empire, 1881-1908: Reactions to European economic penetration. New York University Press.
  48. Quataert, D. (1994). The age of reforms, 1812-1914. In An economic and social history of the Ottoman Empire 2 (pp. 759–943). Cambridge University Press.
  49. Quataert, D. (2005). The Ottoman Empire, 1700-1922. Cambridge University Press.
  50. Said, E. W. (2016). Orientalism. In Social theory re-wired (pp. 402–417). Routledge.
  51. Smith, N. (1984). Uneven development: Nature, capital, and the production of space. Oxford.
  52. Tekeli, İ. (1985). Tanzimat’tan Cumhuriyet’e kentsel dönüşüm. In Tanzimat’tan Cumhuriyet’e Türkiye ansiklopedisi (Vol. 4) (pp. 878–890). İletişim Yayınları.
  53. Toprak, Z. (1982). Türkiye’de “millî iktisat”. Yurt Yayınları.
  54. Trumpener, U. (2015). Germany and the Ottoman Empire, 1914-1918. Princeton University Press.
  55. Yıldırım, K. (2018). Osmanlı’da işçiler: 1870-1922 Çalışma hayatı, örgütler, grevler. İletişim Yayınları.