|
Baghdad Railway, railroad of international importance linking Europe with Asia Minor and the Middle East. The line runs from Istanbul, Turkey, to Basra, Iraq; it connected what were distant regions of the Ottoman Empire. The railroad was initially financed chiefly by German capital; its Anatolian sections were completed in 1896. The ambitious project was then formed to extend the railroad to Baghdad, and a company, again backed chiefly by German capital, was organized for the purpose. Immediate protests were made to Turkey by France, Russia, and, particularly, Great Britain, which saw in the projected line a direct threat to its empire in India. Operations were held up for several years by these international representations and by engineering difficulties, but in 1911 work was resumed. By playing on imperialistic rivalries, the construction of the railroad was a factor in bringing about World War I. By the end of the war only a stretch between Mosul and Samarra remained to be completed on the main line, which Syria and Iraq later undertook and finished.
By 1915 the railway ended some 50 miles east of Diarbakr (now called Diyarbakır). Another spur, heading east from Aleppo, ended at Nasibin (now called Nusaybin). Additionally some rail was laid starting in Baghdad reaching north to Tikrit and south to Kut. This left a gap of some 300 miles between the railroad lines. Additionally, there were three mountains which the railroad was going to go through, but the tunnels through these three mountains were not complete. So the railroad was, in fact, broken into four different sections at the start of the war. The total time to get from Istanbul to Baghdad during the war was 22 days.[24] The total distance was 1,255 miles (2019 km). The breaks in the railroad meant that the Ottoman government had significant difficulties in sending supplies and reinforcements to the Mesopotamian Front. The fighting in Mesopotamia remained somewhat isolated from the rest of the war. During the conflict, Turkish and German workers laboured to complete the railway for military purposes but with limited manpower and so many more important things to spend money on, only two of the gaps were closed.
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/boshtml/bos139.htm
|
