The Eastern Telegraph Company in the Ottoman Empire at the End of the Nineteenth Century: A History of Imperial and Foreign Technology

Year 2023, Volume: 24 Issue: 1, 1 - 32, 06.01.2023

Pauline Lewis

https://doi.org/10.26650/oba.1144230

Abstract

This article examines the relationship between the Ottoman Telegraph Administration and the Eastern Telegraph Company, a British firm that built and managed the majority of the empire’s submarine telegraph cables. With telegraph stations along the empire’s shores, this company came to play a central role in intra- and trans-imperial communication. While on a superficial level the company appears to have controlled the underwater infrastructure in the empire, an examination of how the technology was actually operated reveals another story. By connecting company records with sources from the imperial administration from the 1860s until World War One, this article argues that the submarine telegraph network prompted an entangled relationship between the Ottoman state and the foreign company, whereby Ottoman actors affected company practice and the company mediated the Ottoman state’s emergence as a telegraphic power.

Keywords

Aram Margosyan, Margossian, çıkarımsal istatistik, Matematik tarihi, Sihirli kareler, Euler subay problemi, Türkiye

Ondokuzuncu Yüzyılın Sonunda Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nda Şark Telgraf Kumpanyası: İmparatorluk ve Yabancı Teknolojinin Bir Tarihçesi

Abstract

Bu makale Osmanlı telgraf teşkilatı ile, imparatorluğun denizaltı telgraf ağının büyük kısmını inşa eden ve işleten İngiliz firması Şark Telgraf Kumpanyası (Eastern Telegraph Company) arasındaki ilişkiyi incelemektedir. İmparatorluk kıyılarında kurulan telgraf istasyonları üzerinden bu şirket, imparatorluk içi ve dışı iletişim hizmetlerinde merkezi bir rol oynamıştır. Her ne kadar şirket, imparatorluğun denizaltı kablo ağının altyapısında söz sahibi olmuş gibi görünse de, teknolojinin fiilen nasıl uygulandığı incelendiğinde, durumun farklı olduğu anlaşılır. 1860lardan başlayan ve Birinci Dünya Savaşı’na kadar uzanan süre içinde şirket kayıtları ile imparatorluk kaynaklarının birlikte inceleyen bu çalışma, denizaltı kablo ağının Osmanlı devleti ile yabancı şirket arasında girift bir ilişkiye sebep olduğunu ortaya koymaktadır. Bu ilişki çerçevesinde, Osmanlı yöneticileri şirketin uygulamaları üzerinde etkili olurken, şirket de Osmanlı Devleti’nin telgraf alanında bir güç olarak doğmasına aracı olmuştur.

Keywords

Telgraf, denizaltı kabloları, Şark Telgraf Kumpanyası, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu, Aram Margosyan, Margossian, çıkarımsal istatistik, Matematik tarihi, Sihirli kareler, Euler subay problemi, Türkiye

References

• Archival Sources / Arşiv Kaynakları
• Telegraph Museum Porthcurno (POR)
• While there is limited documentation regarding the ethnic background of the Ottomans who were employed — or paid — by the Eastern Telegraph Company, it is notable that a number of them had Christian names. More research is needed to determine if there was such a trend, and if so, whether it was due to a prejudice on the part of the company, or disproportional access and interest on the part of Christian Ottomans for working with the firm.
• Eastern Telegraph Company Rule Book. London, 1883, POR DOC/ETC/5/184 India Joint Purse Agreement, May 28, 1878, POR DOC/ETC/1/96
• Financial Memoranda, Eastern Telegraph Company Limited. C.D. Adye, Reports for Dardanelles and Salonica Stations, September 1907, POR DOC/ETC/2/31
• “Sketches on Djedda Cable Repair,” by H.W. Ansell, January 1890. Housed at Telegraph Museum Porthcurno Archive, DOC/3/119
• “View of Galvanometer in Same Test. Oriental and ‘Eastern’ ideas of a ‘level.’” By H.W. Ansell, January 1890. Housed at Telegraph Museum Porthcurno Archive, DOC/3/119
• Letter from H.E. Blanchard to Mr. Halpin, February 1, 1889, POR DOC/ETC/5/123
• Letter from Jules Despecher to Feizi Pasha, Constantinople, July 20, 1873, POR DOC/ETC/1/79 Dardanelles-Port Lagos Concession, August 20, 1878, Article VII, POR DOC/ETC/1/79
• Letter from John Pender to Said Pasha, October 10, 1883, POR DOC/ETC/1/84 Duplicate Candia-Canea Cable, August 15, 1889, POR DOC/ETC/1/84 Odessa-Constantinople Concession, May 26, 1873, POR DOC/ETC/1/79
• Letter from James Anderson, Athens Divisional Manager of Eastern Telegraph Company, to V. Hekimian, Eastern Telegraph Company Representative to Sublime Porte, July 3, 1907, POR DOC/ETC/7/52
• Assimilation of Tariff between Turkey and Great Britain, via Odessa, July 12, 1905, POR BSTC/7/1 Anderson Letters, Letter from T.L. Greenwood to R.H. Finnis, September 9, 1902. POR DOC/ETC/7/52
• Anderson Letters, Letter from James Anderson to an Unnamed Managing Director. December 31, 1902, POR DOC/ETC/7/52
• T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Devlet Arşivleri Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (BOA)
• Convention for the Protection of Submarine Cables, March 14, 1884. BOA HR/HMS/ISO/167/13 Arrangement between İzzet Effendi and G. Serpos Effendi, February 14, 1881. BOA HR/HMS/ISO/234, no.37
• SALT Araştırma (SALT)
• Telgraf ve Posta Nezareti Saltanat-ı Seniye-i Telgraf Merakizine Mahsus Resmi Rehberdir = Administration impériale des Postes et Télégraphes : Guide officiel à l’Usage des Bureaux télégraphiques de l’Empire. Dersaadet = Constantinople: Asır Matbaası = Imprimerie Assir, 1905. SALT 384/Tel/C/1, no. 21
• İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi Atatürk Kitaplığı (AK)
• Telgraf ve Posta İstatistiki, 1317 (1900) AK ISTKA/2012/BIL/233, no. 10.
• Posta ve Telgraf Mecmuası, August and September 1888.
• International Telecommunication Union Library and Archive (ITU)
• Turkey: Loi du 9/21. Dispositions spéciales aux eux non territoriales.” Journal Télégraphique no. 4, April 1887.
• “Loi pour la répression des infractions à la convention international du 14 Mars 1884, relatives à la protection des cables sous-marins.” Bulletin Telegraphique et Postal 1, June 1888, 16.
• Unknown author, L’Union Télégraphique Internationale (1865-1915). Berne : Bureau International de l’Union Télégraphique, 1915.
• Published Sources / Basılı Kaynaklar
• Barak, On. On Time: Technology and Temporality in Modern Egypt. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2013.
• Bektaş, Yakup. “The Sultan’s Messenger: Cultural Constructions of Ottoman Telegraphy, 1847-1880.” Technology and Culture 41, 4 (2000): 669-696.
• Birdal, Murat. The Political Economy of Ottoman Public Debt: Insolvency and European Financial Control in the Late 19th Century. London: I.B. Tauris, 2010.
• Birdal, Murat. “Fiscal Crisis and Foreign Borrowing in the Ottoman Empire: Historical and Contemporary Discourses and Debates.” Journal of European Economic History no. 2 (2019): 83-107.
• Çelik, Zeynep. The Remaking of Istanbul: Portrait of an Ottoman City in the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
• Demir, Tanju. Türkiye’de Posta Telgraf ve Telefon Teşkilatının Tarihsel Gelişimi (1840-1920). Ankara: PTT Genel Müdürlüğü, 2005.
• Davis, Clarence B., Kenneth Wilburn, and Ronald Robinson. Railway Imperialism. New York: Greenwood Press, 199.
• Edgerton, David. “Innovation to Use: Ten Eclectic Theses on the Historiography of Technology.” History and Technology 16, 2 (1999): 111-136.
• Eldem, Edhem. “Ottoman Financial Integration with Europe: Foreign Loans, the Ottoman Bank and the Ottoman Public Debt.” European Review no. 13 (2005): 431-445.
• Ewing, E. Thomas. ‟A Most Powerful Instrument for a Despot: The Telegraph as a Trans-National Instrument of Imperial Control and Political Mobilization in the Middle East.” In The Nation State and Beyond: Governing Globalization Processes in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Edited by Roland Wenzlhuemer and Isabelle Lohr, 83-100. Berlin: Springer, 2013.
• Evans, Heidi Jacqueline. “The path to freedom”? Transocean and German Wireless Telegraphy, 1914-1922.” Historical Social Research 35, 1 (2010): 209-233.
• Findley, Carter V. Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman Empire: The Sublime Porte, 1789-1922. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1980.
• Greene, Jody. “Hostis Humani Generis.” Critical Inquiry 34, 4 (Summer 2008): 683-705.
• Günergun, Feza. “Salih Zeki ve Astronomi: Rasathane-i Amire Müdürlüğü’nden 1914 Tam Güneş Tutulmasına.” Osmanlı Bilimi Araştırmaları 7, 1 (2005): 97-122.
• Geyikdağı, Necla. Foreign Investment in the Ottoman Empire: International Trade and Relations, 1854- 1914. New York: Tauris Academic Studies, 2011.
• Hamadeh, Shirine. The City’s Pleasures: Istanbul in the Eighteenth Century. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008.
• Harvey, David. The New Imperialism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
• Headrick, Daniel. The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851-1945. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
• Issawi, Charles. The Economic History of Turkey 1800-1914. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1980.
• İslamoğlu-İnan, Huri. The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
• Jackson, Steven J. “Rethinking Repair.” In Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality and Society. Edited by Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo Boczkowski, and Kirsten Foot, 221-239. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2014.
• Kaçar, Mustafa. “Osmanlı Telgraf İdaresi’nin Kurulması ve İlk Telgraf Şebekesi.” In Çağını Yakalayan Osmanlı! Osmanlı Devleti’nde Modern Haberleşme ve Ulaştırma Teknikleri. Edited by Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu and Mustafa Kaçar, 47-78. Istanbul: IRCICA, 1995.
• Kasaba, Reşat. The Ottoman Empire and the World Economy. Albany: SUNY Press, 1988.
• Larkin, Brian. “The Politics and Poetics of Infrastructure.” Annual Review of Anthropology 42 (2013): 327- 43.
• Mann, Michael. “The Autonomous Power of the State: Its Origins, Mechanisms and Results.” European Journal of Sociology /Archives Européennes de Sociologie / Europäisches Archiv für Soziologie 25, 2 (1984): 185–213.
• Martykánová, Darina and Juan Pan-Montojo, “Discussing the Public Debt of the Eastern Mediterranean Countries (1820s-1910s).” Journal of European Economic History no. 2 (2019): 10-19.
• Martykánová, Darina. Reconstructing Ottoman Engineers: Archeology of a Profession. Pisa: Plus-Pisa University Press, 2010.
• McMeekin, Sean. The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany’s Bid for World Power. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2010.
• Mikhail, Alan. Nature and Empire in Ottoman Egypt: An Environmental History. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
• Minawi, Mostafa. The Ottoman Scramble for Africa: Empire and Diplomacy in the Sahara and the Hijaz. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016.
• Minawi, Mostafa. “Telegraphs and Territoriality in Ottoman Africa and Arabia during the Age of High Imperialism.” Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies 18, 6 (2016): 567-587.
• Müller, Simone M. Wiring the World: The Social and Cultural Creation of Global Telegraph Networks. New York: Columbia University Press, 2016.
• Owen, Roger. The Middle East and the World Economy, 1800-1914. New York: I.B. Tauris, 1993.
• Özyüksel, Murat. The Berlin-Baghdad Railway and the Ottoman Empire: Industrialization, Imperialism, Germany and the Middle East. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2016.
• Pamuk, Şevket. The Ottoman Empire and European Capitalism, 1820-1913: Trade, Investment, and Production. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
• Quataert, Donald. Social Disintegration and Popular Resistance in the Ottoman Empire, 1881-1908. New York: New York University Press, 1983.
• Quevedo, Javier Márquez. “Telecommunications and Colonial Rivalry: European Telegraph Cables to the Canary Islands and Northwest Africa, 1883-1914.” Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung 35, 1 (2010): 108-124.
• Russell, Andrew L. and Lee Vinsel. “After Innovation, Turn to Maintenance.” Technology and Culture 59, 1 (2018): 1-25.
• Shahvar, Soli. “Concession Hunting in the Age of Reform: British Companies and the Search for Government Guarantees; Telegraph Concessions through Ottoman Territories, 1855-58.” Middle Eastern Studies 38, 4 (2002): 169-193.
• Shaw, Stanford J. “The Nineteenth-Century Ottoman Tax Reforms and Revenue System.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 6, 4 (1975): 421-459.
• Thobie, Jacques. Intérêts et Impérialisme français dans l’Empire Ottoman (1895-1914). Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne-Imprimerie Nationale, 1977.
• Tuncer, Ali Coşkun. Sovereign Debt and International Financial Control: The Middle East and the Balkans, 1870-1914. Houndsmill: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015.
• Winseck, Dwayne R. and Robert M. Pike, Communication and Empire: Media, Markets, and Globalization, 1860-1930. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007.
• Wallerstein, Immanuel. The Modern World System. New York: Academic Press, 1974.
• Yazıcı, Nesimi. “Osmanlı Telgrafında Dil Konusu.” Ankara Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi (Ankara) 26 (1983): 751-764.