Railroads, Rifles, and the Most Dangerous Animal of All

Samuel Dolbee, New York University

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In the late nineteenth century, the Ottoman Empire fell into calamitous debt, primarily through borrowing aimed at shoring up the military and public works.  And as we all know, the best way to get out of debt from spending on public works is more spending on public works.  European investors and Ottoman officials alike viewed railroads as the quintessential example of this axiom, as they would open up vast swaths of the Anatolian hinterland to world markets and Ottoman taxation alike. 

But as the above document shows, the path between local reality and capitalist fantasy was less smooth than boosters in Pera may have hoped.  The construction of railroads involved many obstacles, ranging from the difficulty of securing a contract to the challenge of engineering a particularly steep grade.  Today's document, however, from April 1914, concerns a slightly more basic roadblock: wild animals.

The issue in question is whether railroad guards on the portion of the Baghdad railway between Adana and Mersin should be permitted to carry arms.  Given that "the railroad guards are found searching and patrolling the lines day and night and that significant parts of the railroads are outside of the cities and towns" the Ottoman Interior Ministry official reasoned that "for reasons of self defense from wild animals (hayvanat-i vahşiyye) and the like" the guards ought to be armed.

The use of wild animals as the justification for bearing arms rings true. The mountainous, forested areas around Adana provided habitat for a vast array of large fauna that would keep a solitary railroad guard awake at night.  The claim makes even more sense if we extend the definition of animal beyond the wolves, hyenas, jackals, and maybe even tigers that prowled these verdant slopes to the most dangerous predator of the age: humans.  Indeed, the lush environs also gave refuge to recalcitrant tribes, smugglers of timber, and all types of bandits, thieves, and robbers.  The implication of people in this category was likely not lost on those reading the document either.  One of the adjectives of choice in Ottoman bureaucratese for the various groups of people who eluded, evaded, and even challenged state control was "vahşi", beastly or wild, the same word used to modify animals in the Interior Ministry document above.

BOA DH-EUM-MTK 76/6 (8 Ca. 1332)

beasts

railroads