This paper examines the impact of transportation on the Ottoman Empire. More explicitly, it questions whether there exists a link between the rise and demise of the Ottomans, and their ability to control the routes used to transport marketable goods. The ensuing discussion consists of two major sections. The first part examines the period during which the Ottomans rose to power. It underlines the Ottoman economic behavior regarding transportation by highlighting their efforts to control the trade routes. The second section concerns the conditions of internal transportation in the Ottoman Empire. The purpose of this part of the paper is to demonstrate the self-sufficient nature of the Ottoman economy, and the strategies pursued by the decision makers to maintain the economic well-being of the Empire's constituents.
The foundation of the Ottoman state dates back to the beginning of the fourteenth century. It was, however, the military prowess and the rapid expansion of the Empire during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries which led the European states to perceive it as a great menace to their existence. This perception was not caused only by the Ottoman territorial gains, but were also due to their occupation of lands that were vital for the Eastern trade with Europe. Of particular significance to the Europeans was the conquest of Egypt, which served as a point of passage for the Asian goods on their way to Europe. Also crucial was the Ottoman control over the Black Sea and the straits of Ìstanbul which blocked the Russian, Venetian and Genoese trade through these bodies of water.
It is difficult to assume that the Ottomans were not conscious of the economic effects of their conquests. On the contrary, they appear to have believed that cutting the economic lifelines of their rivals was instrumental to their military success. Yerasimos argues that even before the fall of Constantinople in 1453, Ottomans were carefully executing their plans designed to insert themselves on the East-West trade route (1977; p.368). In 1454, an agreement was signed with the Venetians, imposing custom duties on them for the first time. Having severed the Black Sea trade from the Mediterranean by capturing the straits of Bosphorus, Ottomans proceeded to extend their reign over weakened regions of Eastern Anatolia and the Crimea (ibid.). Until late eighteenth century, foreign ships were denied entrance into the Black Sea for both economic and military reasons involving the Empire's capital. Almost all of the grain that supplied the capital city of Ístanbul came from the Balkans through the Black Sea (McGowan, 1981; p.26).
Whether the Ottoman conquest of Egypt was a significant event became an intriguing yet unresolved issue (Lybyer, 1915; Braudel, 1992; Lewis, 1968). Braudel claimed that it was not until the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope which diminished Egypt's significance in East-West trade, that the Ottomans were able to expand on the African continent (Brummet, 1994; p.17). Other studies also emphasized that the Mameluks who occupied Egypt at that time were weak and unable to resist Turkish military pressure (Ball, 1977; 140). Is it possible that Ottomans exerted too much pressure on the Mediterranean trade, thus unintentionally triggering the events that resulted in Da Gama's discovery? Lybyer explained that it was the Europeans' concerns to increase their profits on Eastern goods that prompted them to seek alternative routes, and not the Ottoman threat (Lybyer, 1915). The above accounts, though plausible, raise two important questions. First, if Braudel's assertion is true, why did the Ottomans capture an economically declining country that would entail costs rather than profits? Second, if the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope generated more profits by facilitating East-West trade, how can one explain the later revitalization of the Mediterranean trade mentioned in Braudel's work (1992; pp.383-406)?
1. Ottoman Finances and the Significance of Gold
The answer to the first question may lie in a better understanding of the European finances of that time. Even though each country issued its own currency and widely used it, gold was the dominant mode of payment in international trade transactions (Braudel, 1992; pp.339-81). The apparent shortage of precious metals was causing the Ottoman currency to be devalued against their major trading partners. For instance, an agreement signed with Venice around 1485 readjusted the exchange rate of the Venetian gold Ducat from 50 akçe to 54 akçe (Yerasimos; p.377).
An important provider of gold was the Sudanese mines. The significance of the Sudanese gold dust had long been recognized as a source of prosperity to the Northern shores of the African continent (Braudel, 1992; p.332-33). Although much of the Western Sudanese gold was being transferred to Europe by the Portuguese who, by that time, controlled the Western coasts of Africa, Egypt was also receiving a considerable portion of this extracted precious metal (Yerasimos; p.376). Moreover, the Venetians were fiercely competing with the Ottomans in their quest to capture the gold route (ibid.; p.383). The conquest of Egypt had several positive outcomes for the Ottoman Empire. First, the gold shortage was overcome, at least temporarily. Second, the grain supply to the Empire was supplemented through Egyptian production. Third, but not less significant, a commanding control was established over the Eastern trade routes that crossed Northeastern Africa and the Red Sea (ibid.), which later reemerged, as will be explained later. In the light of the above account, it is rather difficult to view Egypt's fall to the Ottomans as the result of a loss of interest in this part of the world. There is evidence to demonstrate that even after the emergence of the new seaborne trade routes, Egypt had enough economic appeal to attract the dominant powers of Europe.
2. The Red Sea and the Revitalization of the Mediterranean Trade Routes
The introduction of seaborne trade to and from the Far East admittedly affected the affluence that prevailed around Mesopotamia and the Eastern Mediterranean. However, commercial links that traversed through that area did not disappear as argued by some historians (Lybyer, 1915; Lewis, 1968; Ball, 1977). Most of these studies refer to a unique event that took place during the early 1500s, which involves some Venetians merchants who reported that they could not find any spices in Alexandria or Beirut (Braudel, 1992; p.384). This shortage, which was mostly related to the emergence of a Portuguese monopoly on Western European spice markets, did not last forever. As indicated by Braudel (1992; p.389), the old spice route recovered shortly after the turn of the century and gradually regained its significance. This recovery was due to a Turkish attempt to directly engage in spice trade with India through Diu, where the Portuguese eventually built a fort to block the Turkish-Indian connection (Ball, 1977; p.142). Regardless of the Portuguese effort, the Mediterranean pepper trade appeared to have been revitalized around the mid-1500s.
The successful return of the Mediterranean pepper, and trade in general, is not solely due to the Ottomans efforts around the Indian Ocean. On the contrary, the struggle between the Ottoman and Portuguese Empires to seize the control of the Eastern trade was ubiquitous. The Portuguese seemed to have taken the Ottoman challenge seriously for two reasons: their perception of Ottoman technology as equal, and the symbolic meaning of the struggle in the Indian Ocean as part of a larger crusade against Islam in the Mediterranean and North Africa (Coates, 1993; p.264).
Perhaps the most important instance of this tug-of-war is the Red Sea encounters of these two powers. Despite the assertions declaring the Mediterranean trade routes as inefficient or dead, neither the Ottomans not the Venetians seemed to have lost their interest in potential commercial paths that could shorten the distance between India and Europe. The journey around the Cape of Good Hope was long and dangerous, which often resulted in heavy losses in sunken ships and merchandise. Even records from the late 1500s, a century after the discovery, inform us of the difficulties of the voyage through the Atlantic. For instance, between 1582-1602, thirty eight vessels were lost in the Ocean, entailing a cost of 20 million gold Ducats (Yerasimos; p.393). These perils were rendering the Red Sea all the more attractive.
Being aware of the geographical advantages of the Red Sea both the Ottoman Empire and its opponent were competing to turn the trade scale on their side. It appears that there was a natural connection between the Red Sea and the Nile which later closed. Soon after their conquest of Egypt, the Ottomans began to contemplate a canal that would link the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. This sea route would not only give the leading edge to the Ottoman Empire on Eastern trade, but would also facilitate the transportation of the Sudanese gold to the capital, and that of the pilgrims to the Islamic Holy sites on the Arabian Peninsula (Yerasimos; p.393). Though battles during the first half of the sixteenth century ended with no apparent victor, by 1550, the Ottomans clearly dominated both coasts of the Red Sea (Coates, 1993; p.271). Official papers that documented trade during the second half of the 1500s also support this conclusion, as they reveal a dramatic increase in the amount of spice purchased by the Venetians from Alexandria (ibid.).
The above account discerns that the argument suggesting that the Mediterranean trade and its connection with that of the East had completely vanished are not well founded. In spite of a temporary economic stagnation following the discovery of alternative trade routes by the Portuguese, the trade in the Mediterranean and its environs recovered within the latter half of the 1500s. It should be noted that the Eastern trade that went through the Mediterranean suffered a real blow in the seventeenth century due to two reasons: the development of the Atlantic trade, and more importantly, the involvement of the Dutch and British in the Indian Ocean and Eastern trade (Ball; p.146).
The Ottoman Empire portrayed above was an international entity, which expanded its borders to places about which even most of the Ottoman subjects did not know. While examining the battles, struggles and fascinating diplomatic encounters, one often tends to forget that within that same country daily life carried on. It is certainly impossible to understand any issue that pertains to the economic and political structure of the Empire without putting its domestic panorama into the big picture. This section deals with the concept of transportation as existed within the borders of the Ottoman Empire. First, it looks at the roads as they relate to economic life. In doing so, caravan trade and its main elements are introduced. Then, it briefly touches upon the seaborne trade and other waterways which were significant in the Ottoman transportation.
1. The Culture of Economic Activities
Even though the first half of the paper emphasized the aspiration of the Ottoman Empire to control the trade routes, it should be noted that trade was not an end goal within itself. The genuine goal was to use trade for the maintenance of its internal well-being, economically and politically. Braudel cited a letter written by the French ambassador in Ìstanbul, in which the latter expressed his surprise that all the fabric imported by the Ottomans was only enough to clothe 800 thousand people while the population of the Empire was around 25 million (1982; p.476). This is simply a reflection of the Ottoman economic policy: self-sufficiency. For instance, Ìnalc_k concluded that the Ottoman trade policy was to provide the internal markets with sufficient amount of goods so that the people and the craftsmen in the cities would not suffer a shortage of necessities and raw materials (1974, pp.54-55). Masters argued that this was not a mercantilist policy as understood by the British, but rather the culmination of an Islamic philosophy of the economy that was based on centuries-old traditions and institutions of trade (1987; p.2). Therefore, it is important to establish that the primary concern for the Ottomans was not necessarily trade per se, but the adequate and dependable provisions that it could ensure for the people (Goffman, 1990; p.138). If the goal was the well-being of all the Ottoman subjects, if goods had to be shared, there had to be a mechanism of transportation that somehow connected the people who lived within the Empire.
2. Caravan Trade: Inland Transportation
Caravans and all the other elements of the caravan trade, such as the caravanserais or hans, have been part of the tail-like image of the Eastern world. They were certainly a vital part of the Ottoman economic network that spread all over the Empire. Camel caravans were not limited to the Middle East and Anatolia, and were widely used even in places where camels are not naturally present, such as the Balkans (Braudel, 1982; p.476). However, Faroqhi explains that caravans were often a combination of camels and horses, the former carrying the merchandise and the latter the merchants (1984; p.50). Long journeys sometimes required that members of the caravan sleep in the open, in tents when weather permitted, or in caravanserais when they found one on their way (Braudel, 1982). Minor caravanserais consisted of a roofed space, with little or no facilities where each individual had to care for his own food, drink, bed, and fire (ibid.). One of the exceptions was when the caravanserai was also the site of the market, in which case the inhabitants of the nearby villages provided food and fodder to make a living (Faroqhi; p.61). It is not certain how many caravanserais were available at the time, but according to anecdotal accounts dating from 1637 to 1687, numbers fluctuated between 40 and 70 (Masters, 1987; p.123).
Foreigners were not allowed to take part in the organization of the caravan, though they could use it to transport their goods; western merchants could go no further than Aleppo, Damascus, Ìzmir or Cairo (Braudel, 1982); all of which are either port cities or accessible from the coast. This is not surprising given that after the conquest of Ìstanbul, Venitians were not permitted to convey their business beyond the port, until later treaties granted them this privilege (Yerasimos, p.367). Nevertheless, the details and the practice of these restrictions are not very clear, as there are accounts of trade transactions conducted in Anatolian cities such as Bursa, where the non-Muslim merchant seems to have been present (Yerasimos; p.339).
Caravan trade also meant tax and toll revenues for those regions where the markets were. The central government imposed taxes on all commercial activities and also, tolls were collected from those who used the bridges to cross the rivers (Faroqhi; p.69). The tax and toll records provide a rich bundle of evidence as to the location and significance of the roads ,and markets around them. It is possible that the toll revenues, at least partly, were used for the construction and maintenance of the roads and bridges. Faroqhi found that while the construction costs were partly paid for by the central government, villagers who were likely to benefit from such construction were also expected to contribute with money or labor (p.65). Understandably, the Government preferred financial contribution; a fee per able-bodied villager had to be paid to avoid labor, and in most cases, this was given as the only option rather than making them work (ibid.).
Braudel wrote that the caravan trade was strictly run, well supervised, frequent and regular, which, put together, explained its efficiency (1982; p.476). Indeed, records show that, at least until the late 1600s, caravan routes were regularly and efficiently run. For instance, Masters gathered a chart showing rental costs for pack animals from Aleppo to various destinations in the Middle East during the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries (1987; p.113-14). Obviously, the most important criterion of any transportation network's efficiency is its ability to link various points to each other. For instance, a caravan departing Ìstanbul for Amasya, about 425 miles away, could reach its destination in less than a month even traveling by a roundabout route (Faroqhi; p.73). The rich network of roads in the Ottoman Empire not only facilitated commercial activities in distant places, but also provided a tremendous communication link between towns and cities.
It was the efficiency and independence of the caravan routes which rendered the Middle Eastern and the Mediterranean trade connections so resilient even when the Dutch and British were in strict control of the Indian Ocean. As Braudel explains, the silk trade remained strong in the Empire, even after the pepper and spice trades vanished, because the former traveled from its point of origin by caravan while the latter were carried seaborne until their destination (Braudel, 1982). In other words, caravan trade, fostered by the Ottoman government with great care, was never as vulnerable as was the seabound trade from the Far East.
3. The Ports and the Waterways
As emphasized repeatedly in this paper, seaborne trade occupies a very significant place in Ottoman transportation. This should be only natural, given that apart from the Anatolian Peninsula, borders of the Empire stretched to important bodies of water such as the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea and the Adriatic. The Black Sea perhaps constituted an exception among the others, as it was strictly closed to foreign ships for a long time.
What caused the Ottomans to turn the Black Sea into a Turkish lake should be explained in two stages, because the reason for the isolation of that sea immediately after the capture of Ìstanbul is different than the later period, in my opinion. The year 1453 marks only the conquest of Ìstanbul, while the coasts of the Black Sea, including those on Northwestern Anatolia, were home to several countries many of which were hostile to the Ottomans or engaged in trade relations that worked to the detriment of the Ottoman Empire (Yerasimos, 1977). Thus, a blockade of the Black Sea was designed to severe the ties of those countries from the Mediterranean by way of the Straits of Bosphorus. After most of the lands surrounding the Black Sea were invaded, however, entry to the Black Sea was denied for another reason: food and wood supplies of the capital (McGowan, 1981; p.12). Indeed, the quickly increasing population of Ìstanbul, concerns regarding an unexpected food shortage in the Sublime Porte, and smuggling activities around the Straits were the main causes of the Empire's extremely cautious policies regarding the Black Sea (Goffmann; p.32-37, McGowan; p.12).
Ìstanbul's grain, especially wheat, was coming from Bulgaria, Dobruja, the delta of the Danube and if necessary from Egypt (McGowan; p.13). The Danube was sometimes operational in conveying goods generating from upper regions in the Balkans (Ritter, 1976). Occasionally, when the garrison in Belgrade could not find sufficient local supplies, the grain traffic on the Danube did turn westbound (McGowan; p.15). Incidentally, any transfer of the foodstuffs that were deemed essential within the Empire required the permission of the authorities in the capital. This policy was due to the expectation from all Ottoman provinces to be self-sufficient (Faroqhi; p.82).
Anatolian Peninsula possesses rivers that are not navigable, with the exception of the Euphrates and the Tigris both of which pose dangers when navigated north of Baghdad due to their rough waters. Ottomans often showed an interest in building canals to connect different bodies of water, as manifested in their attempt to connect the Red Sea with the Nile. A similar project to link the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea through the river Sakarya failed during the early 1600s (ibid.; p.75).
Another success of the Ottomans is in the way they interlinked different modes of transportation. Ports were instrumental in providing such connection between the caravan and seaborne trade. Among such ports was Ìzmir which emerged as the leading entry point on the Aegean coast. Ìzmir's situation was interesting, because while it bore the self-sufficient characteristic of the Ottoman Empire with vast agricultural lands surrounding it, at the same time it became the major feeding port of Western Anatolia (Goffman; pp.138-40). It is no coincidence that this city's rise as a major port corresponds, more or less, to the time frame when the Eastern and Mediterranean trade routes were both recovering from the shock caused by the Portuguese discovery. As noted earlier, the caravan route stretching from Persia to the Aegean coast attracted the European merchants who were interested in the Eastern merchandise, especially silk (ibid.; pp.140-41). Another point in favor of Ìzmir was its central location vis-à-vis Bursa and Aleppo, both of which were leading centers of silk trade, but geographically not as fortunate as Ìzmir (Goffman; p.140, Masters; pp.87-88). Most merchants chose to conduct business in Ìzmir rather than spending tax and tolls on the caravan routes of Bursa and Aleppo. Soon, with the foundation of the Dutch and English Levant companies, the port of Ìzmir reinforced its significance, which it never lost even during the worst times of the Empire (Goffman; p.141). The case of Ìzmir is good evidence of the Ottoman transportation network's many successes in vitalizing the cities all around the Empire due to its efficiency and profitability.
Despite the common perception of the Western world that the Ottoman Empire lacked an economic rationale, and that its performance often carried traits of reactive invasion, the Ottomans had a decision making mechanism that often proved fruitful. This paper examines how the Ottoman transportation evolved during the two centuries following the conquest of Ìstanbul.
There is ample evidence concerning the adjustment of the Ottomans to the changing patterns of Eastern trade, particularly in the period following the discovery of the Cape of Good Hope. Instead of waiting for the tide to turn, Ottomans chose to go to the sources of the problem. Their endeavor was not limited to seeking alternative routes to revitalize the Mediterranean trade. On the contrary, as an emerging Great Power, they challenged the European economies which posed a threat to their existence and growth, often with great success. Their expansion during this time period appears to have been planned carefully and strategically. Although not fully responsible, the Ottoman initiative was instrumental in the return of Eastern and Mediterranean trade routes. It seems that the Ottoman conquest possessed an economic rationale.
Returning to the domestic lands, one finds a similar picture. The network of roads which linked remote corners of the Empire with its major trade centers, the caravan trade that operated efficiently often connecting rich ports of trade with inland production centers are the outcomes of strict, and at times relentless, central authority. The network of roads and its structural elements display one of the reasons how an empire as large as that of the Ottomans survived for more than six hundred years.
The transportation in the Ottoman Empire is a large, and fairly untouched topic that requires more studies from economic historians because, an attentive economic analysis of the Ottoman history will benefit researchers from all disciplines more than a mere recount of historical facts.
Bibliography
E. Emre Evren Ínsaat '89