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British Finance and Foreign Policy in Turkey: The Smyrna-Aidin Railway Settlement 1913–14

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

D. McLean
D. McLean
Affiliation:
Pembroke CollegeCambridge
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Extract

It was often difficult in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to distinguish the interests of European financiers and concession holders operating overseas from the political policies of their respective governments. Concessions from a weak regime, in regions where political disorder and economic hardship were apparent, gave the power which held them a basis for the development of political influence in the country; and a basis too for an exclusive sphere of economic enterprise or, in the event of a total disintegration of the native administration, for a sphere of political influence which might follow a general partition among the European powers. In this context, railway enterprise was especially important. Railways promoted trade, and they could bring prosperity and progress to the areas through which they passed. They allowed military mobility too; and could be thus offensive or defensive instruments to be manipulated in accordance with economic and strategic interests.

Type
Communications
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , June 1976 , pp. 521 - 530
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

1 Platt, D. C. M. discusses the question of official attitudes towards private investment overseas in Finance, Trade, and Politics in British Foreign Policy 1815–1914 (Oxford, 1968).Google Scholar

2 For what is, in many respects, a comparable study to the present one see McLean, D., ‘Chinese Railways and the Townley Agreement of 1903’, Modern Asian Studies, VII (1973).Google Scholar

3 General surveys of British financial interests and foreign policy in Turkey are given in Platt, , Finance, Trade, and Politics, pp. 181–218Google Scholar; and Feis, H., Europe: the World's Banker 1870–1914 (New Haven, 1930), pp. 313–60.Google Scholar

4 For a full story of the Bagdad Railway venture see Earle, E. M., Turkey, the Great Powers, and the Bagdad Railway (New York, 1923)Google Scholar, and Chapman, M. K., Great Britain and the Bagdad Railway (1948)Google Scholar, See also Francis, R. M., ‘The British withdrawal from the Bagdad Railway project’, Historical Journal XVI (1973).Google Scholar

5 Minute by Mallet on Rathmore to Foreign Office, 23 May 1913, Public Record Office, F.O. 371/1800.

6 Grey, to Dering, 4 Nov. 1913, F.O. 371/1844.Google Scholar

7 The diplomatic background to the problem of the Aegean Islands is covered in a very readable article by Bosworth, R., ‘Britain and Italy's Acquisition of the Dodecanese, 1912–15’ Historical Journal, XIII (1970).Google Scholar

8 Memorandum by Parker, 2 Dec. 1913. F.O. 371/1844.

9 Memorandum by Parker, 11 Dec. 1913, F.O. 371/1800.

10 Grey to Mallet, 8 Nov. 1913, F.O. 371/1800.

11 Crowe to Rathmore, 9 Dec. 1913, F.O. 371/1800.

12 Mallet to Grey, 1 Feb. 1914, F.O. 371/2117.

13 Slaughter to Parker, 6 Feb. 1914, F.O. 371/2117.

14 Clerk to Slaughter, 14 Feb. 1914, F.O. 371/2118.

15 Minutes by Parker, Clerk, and Crowe on Rodd to Grey, 3 Mar. 1914, F.O. 371/2118.

16 Minute by Grey on Rodd to Grey, 3 Mar. 1914, F.O. 371/2118.

17 Grey to Goschen, 21 Mar. 1914, F.O. 371/2118.

18 Minutes by Parker and Crowe on Slaughter to Parker, 20 Mar. 1914, F.O. 371/2118.

19 Grey to Hakki Pasha, 25 Apr. 1914, F.O. 371/2118.

20 Corbett to Parker, 23 May 1914, F.O. 371/2119.

21 Grey to Hakki Pasha, 25 Apr. 1914, and Grey to Goschen, 21 Mar. 1914, F.O. 371/2118.