Chris Gratien, Georgetown University
The Ottoman government faced a dilemma similar to that of many states of its period. Better taxation, economic development, and general expansion of infrastructure and state power were necessary to raise revenues to build the army and state budget; however, projects involving technology whether in the military sphere or in issues of public health and transportation were expensive and required more money than was available. Thus, the Ottoman government contracted large loans from European lenders, leading to the bankruptcy of the Ottoman treasury in 1875 despite rising tax revenues following the Crimean War. During the last decades of the Ottoman Empire, a large portion of state revenue went to servicing this debt and European bankers gained control of a portion of the state budget through the Public Debt Administration.
All this is to say that while the Ottoman state pursued many ambitious projects, especially involving railroads, implementation sometimes proved difficult. This is a telegram from an Englishman named Medlicott who was managing the construction of a portion of the Baghdad railway in Iraq in 1910. This telegram might have the read and appearance of a ransom note, but is in fact the foreboding words of a project manager short on funds and in desperate need of a re-up. Here's the translation:
I have telegraphed your excellency three times for money, but I have received neither a response nor money. There are three thousand workers employed that will have to be dismissed because I cannot pay them. If work stops, the lives of the engineers will be in danger. I will not be responsible for the consequences. Responsibility for the loss and delay of work will be on the government, and the governor (vali, of Baghdad) will be responsible for the safety of the engineers. If I do not receive an immediate response, I will have to stop work. It has been seven days since I telegraphed for money that should have been put at my disposal by the 13th of May. Sir William has telegraphed for you to send me 40,000 Turkish (Ottoman) lira within three days.
The issue of paying engineers and European and Ottoman experts is one that comes up frequently in the records of the Ministry of Public Works (Ticaret ve Nafia). In fact the details of the projects themselves are often lost in the minutiae of financial bureaucracy. Unfortunately, what is less common is any mention of the situation of ordinary railroad workers, who as we might be able to gather, were not paid extremely well and could be placed in dire straits by just a week's stoppage of pay. One also wonders what the Ottoman frontier of early twentieth century Baghdad must have been like for the engineers to be in such danger (see Sam's post on firearms on the Adana rails).
For lovers of nerdy speculation, the message was possibly written up by a native Arabic speaker given the location and the odd spelling mistake of "telekraphe" for "télégraphe," which is nothing compared to the mistakes I would make if writing in French but a little embarrassing considering the medium. It would be an interesting but very common example in the Ottoman Empire of an Arab telegraph employee transmitting a message from an Englishman in French to an Ottoman official on the other end, which is a profound illustration of the complexity and diversity of the Ottoman linguistic world of the time.
Source: T-NFİ 1373/19 (23 Ca 1328)
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