The Making of the Modern Near East 1792-1923 (A History of the Near East) by Malcolm Yapp

Author:Malcolm Yapp [Yapp, Malcolm]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2014-01-09T05:00:00+00:00

Anatolia

During the period 1880–1914 western Anatolia enjoyed unprecedented prosperity. The population of Anatolia increased by approximately 50 per cent and by 1914 had reached a figure of 17.5 million. The greater part of this increase occurred in the northern coastal belt and in the west. There was considerable agricultural development. According to one estimate cereal production between 1876 and 1908 rose by 500 per cent. Although this figure seems far too high, there was certainly a substantial expansion of production. It was during this period that Anatolia displaced Russia and the Balkans as the principal supplier of grain to the huge Istanbul market, providing 75 per cent of its soft wheat by 1914. Other crops also showed large increases, especially raisins, tobacco and cotton. There was greater use of agricultural machinery, including ploughs, threshing machines and food-processing equipment. Perhaps because the revenues of Anatolia were not assigned to the payment of the interest on the Ottoman Public Debt the Ottoman government gave its attention to the improvement of Anatolian agriculture with agricultural schools, model farms and the agricultural banks which loaned 600 million piastres to nearly 800,000 cultivators in Anatolia during the reign of ‛Abd ül-Ḥamīd II. There was a predominance of smallholdings in the region; large landed estates existed chiefly in Adana which was the scene of settlement by Circassian immigrants who often gave up their lands to work as labourers on the large cotton estates which became a feature of the province. Unlike Egypt, however, there was little investment in large-scale irrigation schemes; several were planned at the end of the period but the only project which was completed was the Konya irrigation scheme in 1913, once again with the object of settling new immigrant workers. There can be little doubt that the constant influx of cheap labour supplied an important impetus to western Anatolian economic development. The major factor in the economic expansion, however, was certainly the development of railways from the 1860s onwards and the concentration of these in the western and north-western areas explains the location of the growth. It is quite easy to relate economic development to the arrival of the railway in each region; thus the dominance of cotton in Adana follows the opening of the Adana–Mersin railway in 1886. The railway also facilitated the development of Anatolian minerals, including chrome, iron, lead, silver, copper, lignite and coal, although the location of deposits in some cases made it difficult to utilize the potential of the railways without large investment.

A disproportionate share of the economic benefits went to the Greek population of Anatolia which was concentrated especially in the western and northern regions as well as in Istanbul and in towns generally. By 1914 the Greek population of Anatolia amounted to about 1.25 million, or a little over 7 per cent. The Greeks were especially involved in economic activities related to international trade. Accounts of their relations with the Muslim population differ: some observers comment upon the absence of hostility between the two communities;

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