Baghdad Railway
Konya – Baghdad | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Route length: | 1597 km | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Countries: | Turkey , Syria , Iraq | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Baghdad Railway is in the former Ottoman Empire from Konya (now in Turkey ) to Baghdad (now in Iraq ) leading, built in between 1903 and 1918 about 3/4 of their total length of about 1,600 kilometers railway . It was not completed until after the Ottoman Empire, which ended in 1918. The 400 km long missing section, located in the subsequently created state of Iraq , was not built until the 1930s. After 1918, less than half of the railway line remained in the successor state of Turkey. About 150 km of route length (parallel to the main route in Turkey via Aleppo ) is in present-day Syria and about 840 km of route length in Iraq.
Including the Anatolian Railway Istanbul –Konya and connecting lines in Syria (including from Aleppo to Damascus ) and Iraq, the Baghdad Railway has a length of 3,205 km. The railway is a technically demanding structure and one of the most complex infrastructure projects of the time.
The so-called Hejaz Railway , which leads south from Damascus , was planned and built at the same time and can therefore also be counted as part of the Baghdad Railway in the broadest sense.
Route
The line continues the Anatolian Railway from Konya via Adana , Aleppo and Mosul to Baghdad and, after an extension, to Basra on the Persian Gulf . With the Hejaz Railway to Medina , connected by the Damas – Hama et Prolongements and Damascus railway , this railway system was pushed far into the south of the Ottoman Empire.
In order to avoid the line from being bombarded by artillery from the sea, the route ran inland. For example, only a branch line was laid to İskenderun , but the main line did not lead from there to Aleppo , but rather laboriously over the Nurgebirge , which made it necessary to build an eight-kilometer-long tunnel .
Creation of the Baghdad Railway
prehistory
In the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire had finally fallen behind the major European powers and had lost most of its Balkan territory; his capital Constantinople moved to the edge of the national territory. As the development in Europe and America showed, railways formed the basis for economic progress and expansion in the area. Based on these models, Sultan Abdülhamid II hoped to use the railway as a powerful, efficient and fast transport system to develop economically and politically stabilize his empire as far as the Persian Gulf , because major relocations of troops in the Ottoman Empire took months.
Similar plans had already been drawn up in the 1830s when the British Colonel Francis Chesney tried to build the Euphrates Valley Railway , but the completion of the Suez Canal was preferred.
Since the beginning of the 1880s, the German engineer Wilhelm Pressel was busy developing corresponding plans. He wrote: “If the railroads are able to increase the economic power of production and consumption of a country, this will be the case above all in Anatolia , where too often significant amounts of fruit perish due to a lack of internal means of transport and vast fields have to lie fallow . "
financing
The Ottoman Empire was financially heavily dependent on France through large French banks, which controlled the Banque Impériale Ottomane , and the Administration de la Dette Publique Ottomane , the administration of national debt. By commissioning British or German banks to finance the Baghdad Railway, the Sultan wanted to free his empire from this dependency. The British government welcomed this prospect as it was interested in stabilizing the " sick man on the Bosphorus " and exerting greater influence in the region. A collapse of the Ottoman Empire might have benefited Austria-Hungary and the Russian Empire . British banks, however, assessed the project as a financial risk business and refused to participate.
The Ottomans had positive experiences with the German Empire , among other things through the German military missions . Since German interests in the Ottoman Empire were limited to the economy and, in contrast to British and French colonial policy, were not aimed at gaining territories, this appeared less risky. Therefore, the railway construction should be given to a German corporation at the request of the Hohe Pforte .
The project was assessed differently in Germany. The German bank was initially not enthusiastic. After all, she was interested in the profitability of the railways and later the wealth of raw materials in Mesopotamia after large deposits of petroleum had been found there. The imperial government and, last but not least, the Foreign Office hoped to gain influence in this zone, which is otherwise dominated by British and French interests. Added to this was the aspect of prestige for German foreign policy, the success of which at that time lagged far behind the claims it had set itself. Kaiser Wilhelm II was personally committed to the construction of the railway and sent a bilingual congratulatory telegram to the construction workers with each completed section of the railway.
At the same time, new sales markets for German products should be opened up. German politics came into direct competition with French and, above all, British interests.
However, although the Baghdad Railway, like the German military missions, considerably intensified German-Ottoman relations and thus ultimately contributed to the entry of the Ottoman Empire on the side of the Central Powers into the First World War , the responsible director of Deutsche Bank, Georg von Siemens , judged who differed from diplomacy and politicians were forced to undertake the project, the Baghdad Railway was extremely critical throughout his life:
“The Anatolian railway is instantly being lifted into the sky by the German press, which otherwise has so little. But as a business? Good heavens! Since it always remains a minor matter, like the club of the harmless. Personally, this track has been quite useful to me because since that time people have started to believe in me, and that is useful when seriously pursuing great things, but this track itself is just a dead strand and His Majesty's enthusiasm for Mesopotamia is of no deeper value for German interests. "
In 1889, under Siemens' leadership, the Anatolian Railway Company was founded, in which German and Austrian companies were involved, including Philipp Holzmann , Friedrich Krupp AG , Borsig and Krauss-Maffei . These companies also supplied the material and equipment for the new railway line, which was initially to go from Constantinople to Konya via Ankara.
A new phase of German policy towards the Orient began in 1897 when the new German ambassador in Constantinople, Adolf Marschall von Bieberstein, took office . He managed to arrange the visit of the emperor for the following year. When Sultan Abdülhamid II made the offer to the emperor at the reception in the German embassy to award the concession for the construction of the line to Baghdad to the Deutsche Bank, Wilhelm II happily accepted. As a result, Georg von Siemens found himself in a precarious position, because if he refused, he ran the risk of losing the emperor's favor. Siemens decided to pursue the project. For this he was later elevated to hereditary nobility by Wilhelm II for his “great service to the Ottoman railway system”.
For the first time in the concession for the Eskişehir - Konya line of the Anatolian Railway of February 15, 1893 - to put it mildly - an extension to Baghdad was mentioned. The Anatolian Railway had already reached Ankara on December 31, 1892, and on July 29, 1896 the branch line to Konya was put into operation. In 1899 the preliminary agreement between Deutsche Bank and the Ottoman Empire was signed for the construction of the Baghdad Railway from Konya to Baghdad.
After the provisional license was granted, Siemens sought participation from banks in other countries. British banks, however, still showed no interest, and various New York banks also rejected the offer. Finally, Siemens was able to get the French Banque Impériale Ottomane as well as several banks from Austria-Hungary and Italy on board. The German Foreign Minister Adolf Marschall von Bieberstein was reluctant to see these efforts. The counter-performance of the Ottoman Empire was the assignment of the mining rights, especially for the oil and gas deposits, in a corridor of 20 km on both sides of the railway line. At that time Austria-Hungary already owned an oil refinery near Vienna .
On March 5, 1903, the final license was granted with a term of 99 years. Contract partners were the Anatolian Railway and the Ottoman Empire. Basra was determined as the end point as well as a point to be determined later on the Persian Gulf . On April 13, 1903, the Sociéte Impériale du Chemin de fer de Fer de Baghdad was founded under the leadership of Deutsche Bank. Deutsche Bank (40%), Banque Impériale Ottomane (30%), Anatolische Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft (10%), Wiener Bankverein and Schweizerische Kreditanstalt (7.5% each) and Banca Commerciale Italiana ( 5%).
Ultimately, the project was largely funded by the issuance of Turkish government bonds issued by Deutsche Bank. The first in 1904 was 54 million French francs , the second in 1910 was 108 million, and the third in 1912 was 60 million French francs.
After the First World War, Deutsche Bank transferred its shares in the Baghdad Railway to a Swiss bank in order to prevent the victorious powers from accessing them.
building
From 1899, investigations into the construction and routing were carried out with on-site expeditions. As the route led in large parts through untouched nature and scientifically unexplored area, important archaeological, botanical and zoological discoveries were made during the construction.
On July 27, 1903, the ten-year construction work began on the line. The railway was built with significant participation from German companies - above all the construction company Philipp Holzmann AG, whose construction management was Otto Riese (chairman of the executive board). In addition to the line work, Philipp Holzmann AG also took on the construction of many train stations and, above all, large train stations . The rails were supplied by Friedrich Krupp AG , and the locomotives came from Borsig , Cail , Hanomag , Henschel and Maffei .
During the construction of the line, over 35,000 workers were employed at times , often under extreme and dangerous conditions. “The railway represents the suffering of Armenian forced laborers.” The mountain sections in particular, which posed great challenges for civil engineers like Heinrich August Meißner , caused considerable difficulties . The crossing of the Cilician Gate and the Taurus Mountains in Asia Minor are the greatest achievements of this railway construction. The route through the Taurus leads to a maximum height of 1,478 meters. In addition to 37 tunnels with a length of twenty kilometers that had to be blasted through the rock, bridges and viaducts , including the Gavurdere viaduct , had to be built. In 1908, the German battle painter Theodor Rocholl toured the construction area and made paintings of individual construction sites on behalf of Deutsche Bank.
From 1904 to 1910 the construction of the railway was suspended due to the revolution of the Young Turks and the associated political reorientation of the Ottoman state. In 1911 the project of further construction to Basra was abandoned, and the concession for the line from Toprakkale to İskenderun was added . In 1912 construction began from Baghdad to the north under the direction of Heinrich August Meißner Pascha .
Political Consequences
If it went beyond Baghdad, this connection would have become the fastest and most economical route between Europe and India . But it was precisely because of this that the railway became the focus of the Eastern policy of the major European powers, which was intensified by the German propaganda, which spoke of a Berlin – Bagdad railway .
The project saw competition in the Middle East for Great Britain , France and Russia . Great Britain suspected the Baghdad Railway as an instrument of the German Reich, because it made it easier for a foreign superpower to gain access to the vicinity of its Indian possessions and enabled a German military base on the Persian Gulf. The completed railway line would also have increased German access to the Arab region. The Baghdad Railway also competed with British and Russian infrastructure projects: the Suez Canal, which was dominated by the British, and Russian railway projects in Iran . On the one hand, the Baghdad Railway contributed to the rapprochement between Great Britain, France and Russia and, on the other hand, was another reason for tensions between Germany and the surrounding world powers.
Attempts to involve Great Britain in the project nonetheless did not succeed at first because public opinion in Great Britain was annoyed by the expansion of the German battle fleet . When an agreement on the Baghdad Railway was finally reached on June 15, 1914 - after the French financiers had left and shortly before the outbreak of the First World War - because British representatives were also to be included on the supervisory board , it was too late to have any impact .
Openings
The Baghdad Railway was gradually opened to traffic in sections, see the following overview:
section |
Length (km) |
Opened |
annotation |
---|---|---|---|
Konya - Bulgurlu | 200 | October 25, 1904 | |
Bulgurlu– Ulukışla | 38 | July 1, 1911 | |
Ulukışla– Karapınar | 53 | December 21, 1912 | |
Karapınar– Dorak | 37 | October 9, 1918 | Transition over the Taurus Mountains |
Dorak - Yenice | 18th | April 27, 1912 | |
Yenice - Adana | 24 | 1886 | Part of the Mersin – Adana railway line |
Adana - Toprakkale - Mamure | 97 | April 27, 1912 | Branch line to İskenderun , opened on November 1, 1913 |
Mamure - İslahiye | 54 | August 1, 1917 | Crossing over the Nurgebirge |
İslahiye– Raju | 46 | October 19, 1915 | |
Radschu- Muslimiyya - Dscharablus | 188 | December 15, 1912 | |
Muslimiyya– Aleppo | 15th | December 15, 1912 | |
Jarablus - Tall Abyad | 101 | July 11, 1914 | |
Tall Abyad- at-Tu'aim | 62 | June 1, 1915 | |
at-Tu'aim - Rasulain | 41 | July 23, 1915 | |
Rasulain - Darbiziyya | 61 | February 1917 | |
Darbiziyya - Nusaybin | 59 | June 30, 1918 | |
Nusaybin– Tall Ziwan | 1933 | ||
Tall Ziwan– Tall Kotschek | May 2, 1935 | Nusaybin – Tall Kutschak together 82 km | |
Tall Kuchak - Samarra | 384 | July 15, 1940 | Sections also earlier |
Samarra - istabulate | 21 | October 7, 1914 | |
Istabulat – Sumika | 37 | August 27, 1914 | |
Sumika– Baghdad | 61 | June 2, 1914 |
First World War
Financial and political difficulties as well as technical problems - especially when building a tunnel through the Taurus - delayed construction progress before the First World War. When the Ottoman Empire entered the war on the side of the Central Powers , the construction work was driven forward from a military-strategic point of view.
Due to the maritime domination of the British Empire also in the Mediterranean, transports from Istanbul to Syria by ship were not possible.
The railway played an important role in the war for Germany because the German Reich wanted to use it to make itself independent of oil imports from the USA . In the event of a sea blockade , the failure of oil supplies could have been decisive for the war. The railway was decisive for the war in the Ottoman Empire because it was the only way to ensure that the southern front on the Suez Canal was adequately supplied with troops and weapons and that the Arab insurgents could be effectively combated.
In 1914 only 1,094 kilometers were completed. The gaps mainly because of the unfinished tunnel through the Taurus Mountains were narrow gauge - railways with a gauge bridges mm 600, which each time the unloading of all goods meant.
From October 1915, in the course of the Armenian genocide , the railway served as a means of transport for the systematic deportation of the Armenians from their settlement areas towards the Syrian Desert . The construction of the railway was delayed by the expulsion of Armenian specialists and workers; there was also a lack of Armenian doctors in the health service.
Consequences of the First World War
In 1918 the line between Istanbul and Nusaybin and between Baghdad and Samarra was completed over a length of about 2,000 kilometers. The routes were originally supposed to meet in Nusaybin and be connected there. Parts of the rail network had already been destroyed again during the war. The railway was initially under French and British administration according to the borders of the French and British occupation of the former Ottoman territory. In 1920 the Kemalist government took over parts of the route from the British military administration.
After the First World War, the political map was rearranged. The Ottoman Empire was divided and Mustafa Kemal proclaimed the Republic of Turkey on October 29, 1923 . The Baghdad Railway, the route of which extended over three new states (Turkey, Syria and Iraq), was initially unfinished. The gap covered around 485 kilometers of which 135 kilometers of rails had already been laid. On the sections of the route that were not yet in operation, passengers had to switch to buses or donkey carts.
French zone of occupation
The French occupying power established its own company, the Société du Chemin de fer Cilicie - Nord Syrie , for the standard-gauge lines in Turkey and Syria that did not belong to the Chemins de fer Damas-Hama et Prolongements (DHP) . October 20, 1921, the operating rights went to the Baghdad Railway between Pozantı in the Taurus and Nusaybin (821 km) and the branch paths to Mersin (49 km), İskenderun (59.6 km) and Mardin (25 km) to the Treaty of Ankara on this over. A little later it was renamed the Société d'Exploitation des Chemins de fer Bozanti - Alep - Nissibie et Prolongements (BANP).
Turkey
During the Turkish Liberation War , finally through the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, the south side of the railway line of the Baghdad Railway between Karkamış (Jarablus) and Nusaybin was established as the border between Turkey and Syria. All the station buildings along this route were on the south side, i.e. in Syria, and are named after places south of the route. Turkey, to which the track fell, erected new station buildings on the north side and named them after places on Turkish territory:
- Karkamış (Jarablus)
- Akçakale (Tall Abyad)
- Sayalı (at-Tu'aim)
- Ceylanpınar (Ras al-Ain)
- Şenyurt (Darbisiyya)
Operationally, this resulted in the unsatisfactory situation that internal Turkish traffic between İslahiye / Meydan Ekbaz and Achterin / Çobanbey became transit traffic . It took almost 40 years until the inner Turkish bypass was completed. This happened in individual sections:
- 1929: Fevzipaşa - Narlı - Gölbaşı (138 km)
- 1935: Narlı– Gaziantep (84 km)
- 1960: Gaziantep– Karkamış (91 km)
By law No. 506 of April 22, 1924, Turkey decided to buy back the Anatolian Railway , by law of May 24, 1924 this and the Baghdad Railway to Yenice became state administration and on May 23, 1927 the predecessor organization of the Turkish State Railway, the Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Devlet Demiryolları (TCDD). In 1933, the Adana – Fevzipaşa section was taken over by the TCDD as a further section of the Baghdad Railway, and the BANP dissolved on July 1, 1933. It was replaced by the Turkish Cenup Demiryolları (CD) for the remaining stretch on Turkish territory to the east of Çobanbey . The French-Syrian company Société Ottomane du Chemin de fer Damas-Hamah et Prolongements (DHP) became the operator there . It was not until 1948 that the remaining section of the route on Turkish territory from Çobanbey to Nusaybin was nationalized.
Iraq
The Iraq took over March 31, 1936 for 494,000 British pounds , the railway lines on its territory of Great Britain.
Completion and Extension
It wasn't until 1936 that Syria and Iraq began to fill the last void. On July 15, 1940, the railway line was continuously passable. 52 years after the concession was granted, the first “ Taurus Express ” from Istanbul reached Baghdad as its destination station.
The route was later extended to the southern Iraqi port city of Basra . The Baghdad Railway thus connected the Bosporus and the Persian Gulf . Due to the tense political relations between the neighboring countries of Turkey, Syria and Iraq, regular continuous rail traffic was rare. In addition, the strategic and economic importance of the railway line quickly waned shortly after it was completed by other means of transport.
Recent developments
Structural condition
Most of the route is passable. What it looks like in Iraq in this regard is not known due to the conditions there. In the more recent literature, the routes in Iraq are shown in the route diagram as operational. Most of the stations have been preserved in their original state.
The section (İskenderun–) Toprakkale – Narlı (–Malatya – Divriği) was electrified for heavy ore transport .
business
Taurus Express
The Baghdad Railway's most famous train was the Taurus Express (Toros Ekspresi) , which has been running since February 15, 1930. However, passengers in continuous traffic between Istanbul and Baghdad initially had to change into cars between Nusaybin and Kirkuk , as the continuous rail line was not completed until 1940. On July 17, 1940, the train was able to run continuously for the first time and consisted in its continuous part of sleeping cars from the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits (CIWL). The seat cars were provided by the participating railway companies, especially the TCDD.
The CIWL gave up the operation of their sleeping cars in the Taurus-Express in 1972, the TCDD took over this service. Due to political tensions, the train has only operated as an internal Turkish connection between Istanbul and Gaziantep since 1982 , but once a week it carried a sleeping car to Aleppo in Syria. On February 16, 2010, a connection from Mosul to Gaziantep was resumed, the opposite direction should be served from February 18. After the beginning of the civil war in Syria , all rail connections from Turkey to Syria and Iraq were suspended.
Other traffic
In 2002, an agreement between the Turkish and Iraqi railways decided to resume the direct connection from Istanbul to Baghdad. The Third Gulf War has so far prevented this plan from being implemented. Due to the war in Syria and Iraq, no international trains are currently operating in the region. Before the outbreak of war in 2011, traffic was as follows:
- The İslahiye / Meydan Ekbaz border crossing was used both by freight trains and by a weekly pair of trains on the Tehran - Van - Damascus connections .
- The Çobanbey / Achterin border crossing was reopened on December 22, 2009 after a 30-year shutdown. Passenger traffic across the border crossing was reopened on January 8, 2010 with two pairs of trains per week between Aleppo and Gaziantep .
- The Nusaybin / Qamishli border crossing was reopened in mid-February 2010 after being closed for decades. Freight trains ran here between Gaziantep (Turkey) via Syria to Mosul (Iraq). For a short time there was even passenger traffic between Nusaybin and Mosul, which was stopped again on March 18, 2010.
- The al-Yarubiyya / Tall al-Uwainat border crossing between Syria and Iraq was used for freight traffic.
The through car Istanbul – Aleppo , which was still in service a few years ago, has been discontinued. As a substitute, a through car drove twice a week (Wednesday and Saturday) from Mersin via Adana to Aleppo; the timetable is coordinated with the Taurus-Express. With the punctual arrival of the Taurus from Istanbul there was a waiting time of around five hours in Adana.
expansion
The Konya – Karaman and Adana – Toprakkale sections are intended to be upgraded to a high-speed line.
various
One passenger on the Baghdad Railway was Agatha Christie . In 1928 and 1930 she drove from Great Britain with the Orient Express to Istanbul and with the Taurus Express to Syria, where her husband, the archaeologist Max Mallowan , conducted excavations. She described her travel experiences in her autobiography Come, tell me how you live (“Remembering Happy Days”) , published in 1946, and incorporated them into some of her novels. The well-known crime novel Murder on the Orient Express begins with the departure of the Taurus Express from the Aleppo train station.
gallery
literature
- Mehmet Beşirli: European financial control in the Ottoman Empire from 1908 to 1914. The rivalries between British, French and German high finance and diplomacy before the First World War using the example of Turkish government bonds and the Baghdad Railway. Mensch und Buch Verlag, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-933346-51-7 .
- Benno Bickel: With Agatha Christie through the gorges of the Taurus. The Baghdad Railway in the mirror of literature and travelogues. In: Jürgen Franzke (ed.): Bagdadbahn and Hedjazbahn. German railway history in the Middle East. Tümmel, Nürnberg 2003, ISBN 3-921590-05-1 , pp. 120-124.
- Benno Bickel: Full steam ahead through the desert. Locomotive and operating history of the Hedjaz Railway and the Baghdad Railway. In: Jürgen Franzke (ed.): Bagdadbahn and Hedjazbahn. German railway history in the Middle East. Tümmel, Nürnberg 2003, ISBN 3-921590-05-1 , pp. 139-143.
- Benno Bickel: Baghdad Railway Timeline. In: Jürgen Franzke (ed.): Bagdadbahn and Hedjazbahn. German railway history in the Middle East. Tümmel, Nürnberg 2003, ISBN 3-921590-05-1 , pp. 160-162.
- Mustafa Sıtkı Bilgin: The construction of the Bagdad Railway and its impact on Anglo-Turkish relations, 1902-1913. In: OTAM (Ankara Üniversitesi Osmanlı Tarihi Araştırma veUygulama Merkezi Dergisi). Volume 16, 2004, pp. 109–129 (digitized version )
- Friedrich Heinz Bode: The struggle for the Baghdad Railway 1903-1914. A contribution to the history of German-English relations. Breslau 1941, Priebatsch. Also as a reprint: Aalen 1982, Scientia
- Jgnaz Civelli: German rails in Ottoman soil. A virtual journey with the Anatolian and Baghdad railways through history, perceptions, space and time. Grin, Munich 2013, ISBN 978-3-640-59495-5 .
- HSW Corrigan: German-Turkish Relations and the Outbreak of War in 1914: A Re-Assessment. Past and Present, No. 36 (April, 1967), pp. 144-152.
- Edward Mead Earle: Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Bagdad Railway. A Study in Imperialism . Russel & Russel, New York City 1923, USA. (Reprinted by Russel & Russel 1966).
- RJW Evans, Hartmut Pogge von Strandman: The Coming of the First World War. Oxford UP 1990.
- Karl Figdor : The kingdom of tomorrow (= 3-mark novels # 36). Ullstein, 1916, OCLC 250785427 : "First published as a serial novel from April 30, 1916 to June 3, 1916 in the Vossische Zeitung (Tue-Sat p.5, Sun p.17)" DNB 579809730
- Peter Heigl : “Up to track head 17.6, ballast is diligently driven and the tracks are tamped and straightened for the second time”. German civil engineers during construction work on the Hejaz and Baghdad railways. In: Jürgen Franzke (ed.): Bagdadbahn and Hedjazbahn. German railway history in the Middle East. Nuremberg 2003, ISBN 3-921590-05-1 , pp. 112–119.
- Peter Heigl: Gravel for the desert. The Baghdad Railway and its German civil engineers. Nuremberg 2004, ISBN 3-00-014268-1 .
- Ruth Henig : The Origins of the First World War. Routledge, London 2002.
- Max Florian Hertsch, Mutlu Er: The Baghdad Railway - An Outline of German-Turkish Relations. Collected Posts. (= Studies on historical research in modern times). Publishing house Dr. Kovac. Hamburg 2016, ISBN 978-3-8300-8787-8 .
- Dr. Sc. pole. Reinhard Hüber: The Baghdad Railway. Berlin 1943, Junker and Dünnhaupt (writings on world politics, issue 6 - Ed .: Prof. Dr. Alfred Six - German Institute for International Studies)
- Morris Jastrow, Jr .: The war and the Bagdad Railway. 1917, OCLC 1038769 .
- Shereen Khairallah: Railways in the Middle East 1856-1948 - Political and Economic Background. Beirut 1991, ISBN 1-85341-121-3 .
- Wolfgang Korn : Rails for the Sultan: The Baghdad Railway: Wilhelm II., Adventurers and spies. Torch bearer, Cologne 2009, ISBN 978-3-7716-4380-5 ( review in H-Soz-u-Kult ).
- Dirk van Laak : Imperial Infrastructure. German plans for the development of Africa from 1880 to 1960. Paderborn 2004, ISBN 3-506-71745-6 (excursus and comparative illustration).
- Dirk van Laak: About everything in the world. German imperialism in the 19th and 20th centuries. Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52824-4 .
- Jürgen Lodemann : With the Baghdad Railway through unknown Turkey. Diary of an inexpensive trip. Edition Isele, Eggingen 1990, ISBN 3-925016-62-7 .
- Johann Manzenreiter: The Baghdad Railway as an Example for the Development of Financial Imperialism in Europe (1872–1903). Bochum 1982 (Bochum historical studies, modern history, 2).
- Jonathan S. McMurray: Distant Ties. Germany, the Ottoman Empire, and the Construction of the Baghdad Railway. Westport 2001.
- Helmut Mejcher : The Baghdad Railway as an Instrument of German Economic Influence in the Ottoman Empire. In: Geschichte und Gesellschaft 1, 1975, pp. 447-481.
- Johannes Müller: Syria and the Hejaz Railway. In: Steam and Travel / Overseas Railways. 1/1989.
- Alkan Necmettin: The German world politics, the competition of the powers for the Ottoman legacy: the German-Ottoman relations in the German press 1890-1909. Lit, Münster 2003, ISBN 3-8258-7033-2 (also dissertation at the University of Freiburg im Breisgau 2003).
- Uwe Pfullmann: The Baghdad and Hedjaz Railway in the First World War 1914–1918. In: Jürgen Franzke (ed.): Bagdadbahn and Hedjazbahn. German railway history in the Middle East. Nuremberg 2003, ISBN 3-921590-05-1 , pp. 125-138.
- Murat Özyüksel: The Berlin - Baghdad Railway and the Ottoman Empire - Industrialization, Imperial Germany and the Middle East ( English ). IBTauris, London • New York 2016, ISBN 978 1 78076 882 3 , OCLC 949770739 .
- Erika Preissig, Günther Klebes: Railway construction and railway projects in the Orient and the economic and political goals pursued with them. In: Yearbook for Railway History. 21, 1989, pp. 43-102.
- Manfred Pohl : From Stambul to Baghdad. The story of a famous railroad. Piper, Munich, Zurich 1999, ISBN 3-492-04113-2 .
- Manfred Pohl, Jürgen Lodemann: The Baghdad Railway. History and present of a famous railway line. von Hase and Koehler, Mainz 1988, ISBN 3-7758-1189-3 .
- Werner Plumpe : The Baghdad Railway in: Deutsche Bank. The global house bank 1870-2020 , pp. 128-135, Propylaen, Berlin 2020, ISBN 978-3-549-10016-5 .
- Neil Robinson: World Rail Atlas and historical summary. Volume 8: The Middle East and Caucasus. 2006.
- Gregor Schöllgen : Imperialism and Balance. Germany, England and the Oriental Question 1871–1914. Oldenbourg, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-486-52001-6 (also habilitation thesis at the University of Münster (Westphalia) 1982).
- Gregor Schöllgen : Instrument of German world power politics. The Baghdad Railway in the Age of Imperialism. In: Jürgen Franzke (ed.): Bagdadbahn and Hedjazbahn. German railway history in the Middle East. Nuremberg 2003, ISBN 3-921590-05-1 , pp. 108–111.
- Fritz Seidenzahl: 100 years of Deutsche Bank, 1870–1979. Frankfurt 1970, DNB 458926639 (detailed description of the concession for the Anatolian Railway and the Baghdad Railway).
- John B. Wolf: The Diplomatic History of the Baghdad Railroad. 1973.
Movie
- The Baghdad Railway. Documentary film and docu-drama in 2 parts of 45 min. (Part 1: Departure into the unknown , Part 2: On dangerous paths ), Germany, France, Turkey. 2006 Book: Chiara Sambuchi and Roland May , directed by Roland May, production: Lavafilm (www.lavafilm.com), SWR , arte , Air Date: 3rd and 6th January 2007 arte, film side of the ARD with video clips and Synopsis ( Memento from May 5, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gisela Graichen, Horst founder: German colonies - dream and trauma . Ullstein book publisher. Berlin 2005, p. 252.
- ^ Wilhelm Pressel: The Anatolian Railway Network . Separately printed from the magazine of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy HADB. OR 5
- ^ Ludmilla Hanisch: In the slipstream of the Baghdad Railway - German-Turkish cultural relations . In: Georg Stauth and Faruk Birtek (eds.): 'Istanbul'. Spiritual wanderings from the 'world in pieces' . transcript, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-89942-474-4 , pp. 217–232, here p. 219 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
- ^ Schöllgen: Instrument of German world power politics. 2003, p. 108.
- ^ Lothar Gall : The Deutsche Bank, 1870-1995 . CH Beck, Munich 1995, p. 82.
- ^ Ludmilla Hanisch: In the slipstream of the Baghdad Railway - German-Turkish cultural relations . In: Georg Stauth and Faruk Birtek (eds.): 'Istanbul'. Spiritual wanderings from the 'world in pieces' . transcript, Bielefeld 2007, ISBN 978-3-89942-474-4 , pp. 217–232, here p. 220 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
- ^ Schöllgen: Instrument of German world power politics. 2003, p. 108 ff.
- ↑ a b c d Bickel: Time table of the Baghdad Railway. 2003, p. 160.
- ↑ Henner Fürtig : Brief history of Iraq. From the foundation in 1921 to the present. Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49464-1 , p. 15.
- ↑ Lothar Gall et al.: The Deutsche Bank: 1870–1995. CH Beck, Munich 1995, ISBN 3-406-38945-7 , p. 76 f.
- ↑ Bickel: Baghdad Railway Timeline. 2003, p. 160 f.
- ↑ bahnwelt.de
- ↑ This assessment is controversial. Against it speaks out: Wolfgang Korn: Mesopotamia. Cradle of civilization . Stuttgart 2004, p. 32 f. On the other hand, the statement there that excavation from archaeological excavations was used to a significant extent for the embankment of the Baghdad Railway is not very credible in view of the relatively small amount that arises during such an excavation, and In the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museums in Mannheim there are exhibits that were found during the construction of the railway.
- ↑ Bernd Freytag: At the behest of the emperor through wild Kurdistan. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. January 6, 2015, p. 19.
- ^ Schöllgen: Instrument of German world power politics. 2003, p. 110.
- ^ Schöllgen: Instrument of German world power politics. 2003, p. 111; Earle: Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Bagdad Railway. 1923, p. 259 ff.
- ^ Preissig, Klebes: Railway construction and railway projects in the Orient. 1989, p. 56, and Müller: Syria and the Hejaz Railway . 1989, p. 43.
- ↑ Handbook of Mesopotamia. Vol. II. 1917, p. 370.
- ↑ a b c d Bickel: Time table of the Baghdad Railway. 2003, p. 161.
- ↑ Müller: Syria and the Hejaz Railway . 1989, p. 43.
- ↑ a b Bickel: Time table of the Baghdad Railway. 2033, p. 162.
- ^ Robinson: World Rail Atlas and historical summary . 2006.
- ↑ a b Bickel: With full steam through the desert. 2003, p. 143.
- ↑ Timetable ( memento of March 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) of the TCDD for the Taurus Express, accessed on May 2, 2007.
- ↑ Today's Zaman: Train link between Turkey and Iraq to open soon ( Memento of October 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on June 4, 2013.
- ↑ The Man in Seat 61 ...: How to travel overland by train from London to Aleppo, Damascus & Syria , accessed on February 14, 2018
- ↑ Timetable ( Memento of May 2, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) of the TCDD for trains to the Middle East, accessed on April 29, 2007.
- ↑ IBSE telegram 230 (January 2010), p. 9.
- ↑ mr: Trains to Iraq again. In: Eisenbahn-Revue International. 4/2010, p. 195.
- ↑ fsp: route Gaziantep-Nusaybin-Mosul. In: IBSE telegram. April 2010, p. 5.
- ^ Finding out during an excursion by the German Society for Railway History
- ↑ The through coach Istanbul – Aleppo - contrary to all timetable information - never ran to Damascus, but only to Aleppo (information in Aleppo train station and at the Syrian Railway Directorate)
- ^ NN: High Speed Expansion in Turkey Shapes the Future of Travel . In: HaRakevet 116 (March 2017), p. 13, reproduced from: European Railway Review 22/5 2016, p. 113f.
- ↑ Bickel: With Agatha Christie through the gorges of the Taurus . 2003, p. 120 ff.
Web links
- CIOB - Chemin de Fer Impérial Ottoman de Baghdad. In: Trains of Turkey. June 20, 2020(English).
- Jean-Patrick Charrey: Map of the Taurus crossing. (gif; 119 kB) In: Trains of Turkey. September 2005, archived from the original on March 23, 2007 .
- Historical Society of Deutsche Bank e. V .: Baghdad Railway and Deutsche Bank. In: bankgeschichte.de. April 2004, archived from the original on July 18, 2004 .
- Historical Society of Deutsche Bank e. V .: Impressions. In: bankgeschichte.de. April 2004, archived from the original on March 29, 2012 .
- Krystian Woznicki: Baghdad Connection. In: Telepolis . October 7, 2004 .
- F. William Engdahl : By train from Berlin to Baghdad. Translated by Marlow Dräge and Helmut Böttiger . In: With the oil weapon to world power - The way to the New World Order. Böttiger, Wiesbaden, 1992 ( ISBN 3-925725-15-6 . Reproduced on studien-von-zeitfragen.net).
- Jürgen Lodemann: Memories of the Wilhelmine “spread of the German essence”. In: The Parliament . April 26, 2004, archived from the original on November 30, 2004 .
- Gerd Höhler : Ankara expects the new Baghdad railway to stimulate economic relations with Iraq. In: dag.de . Archived from the original on January 13, 2004 .
- Martin Hartmann : The Baghdad Railway and competing lines. In: Deutsche Levante-Zeitung . Aug 1, 1914, pp. 667-672 .
- Herbert Becker: The Baghdad Railway - Through the gorges of the Taurus. (mp3 audio; 21.1 MB; 22:47 minutes) In: Bayern-2 broadcast “ radioWissen ”. 2008 .
- Newspaper article on the Baghdad Railway in the 20th Century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .