THE NEWS AGENCIES IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE:
HAVAS, REUTERS AND THE OTTOMAN TELEGRAPH AGENCY
(1862-1914)
A Ph.D. Dissertation
January 2019
THE NEWS AGENCIES IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE:
HAVAS, REUTERS AND THE OTTOMAN TELEGRAPH AGENCY
(1862-1914)
To My Family
THE NEWS AGENCIES IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE: HAVAS, REUTERS
AND THE OTTOMAN TELEGRAPH AGENCY (1862-1914)
The Graduate School of Economics and Social Sciences
of
In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of
ANKARA
January 2019
ABSTRACT
THE NEWS AGENCIES IN THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE: HAVAS, REUTERS
AND THE OTTOMAN TELEGRAPH AGENCY (1862-1914)
Uçan, Ceren
Ph.D., Department of History
Supervisor: Asst. Prof. Dr. Evgeniy R. Radushev
January 2019
Established in the nineteenth century, Havas, Reuters and Wolff’s became three
major and influential news agencies in the world. Especially Havas and Reuters
gave utmost importance to the Ottoman Empire and competed to gain control of
news collecting and dissemination in the imperial capital. Being challenged by the
Great Power politics of the century, the Ottoman Empire tried to have control of the
news Havas and Reuters disseminated in the empire and abroad along with other
carriers and makers of information through financial means. Not satisfied with the
outcomes of this policy, the empire searched for ways to have its own news agency
for more than three decades. The Ottoman Telegraph Agency, the first semi-formal
news agency of the Ottoman Empire came into existence in 1911.
Keywords: Havas, Ottoman Empire, Ottoman Telegraph Agency, Reuters.
iv
ÖZET
OSMANLI İMPARATORLUĞU’NDAKİ HABER AJANSLARI: HAVAS,
REUTERS VE OSMANLI TELGRAF AJANSI (1862-1914)
Uçan, Ceren
Doktora, Tarih Bölümü
Tez Danışmanı: Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Evgeniy R. Radushev
Ocak 2019
On dokuzuncu yüzyılda kurulan Havas, Reuters ve Wolff's dünyanın üç büyük ve
etkili haber ajansı olmuştur. Özellikle Havas ve Reuters, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'na
büyük önem atfederek imparatorluk başkentinde haber toplama ve yayma
faaliyetlerini kontrol altına alabilmek için kıyasıya bir rekabet içerisine girmiştir.
Osmanlı İmparatorluğu, Yüzyılın Büyük Güçleri ile devam eden mücadelesi
kapsamında diğer bilgi üreten ve taşıyan yapılar ile beraber Havas ve Reuters'in
hem İmparatorluk toprakları üzerinde hem de dışarıda haber toplama ve yayma
faaliyetleri üzerinde finansal yöntemler ile kontrol elde etmeye çalışmıştır.
Yürüttüğü bu politikanın sonuçlarından memnun kalmayan imparatorluk, otuz yılı
aşkın bir süre boyunca kendi haber ajansına sahip olmanın yollarını aramıştır. Bu
çerçevede, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu’nun ilk yarı resmi haber ajansı olan Osmanlı
Telgraf Ajansı 1911’de ortaya çıkmıştır.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Havas, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu, Osmanlı Telgraf Ajansı,
Reuters.
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This dissertation, while an individual work, has come into existence with the
support and contributions of numerous people. I would like to express my deepest
gratitude to my supervisor Asst. Prof. Dr. Evgeniy R. Radushev, and members of
my dissertation supervision committee, Prof. Dr. Özer Ergenç and Asst. Prof. Dr.
Berrak Burçak. I am also thankful to my dissertation examining committee
members, Prof. Dr. Mehmet V. Seyitdanlioğlu and Prof. Dr. Ömer Turan for their
contributions. I would also like to thank my professors at İ.D. Bilkent University,
Asst. Prof. Dr. Oktay Özel, Asst. Prof. Dr. David Thornton, and Asst. Prof. Dr. Paul
Latimer, who contributed to my formation as historian. I would like to thank to The
Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TUBITAK) Science
Fellowship and Grant Programmes Department (BIDEB) for funding my research at
the United Kingdom with the grant 2214/A and making this dissertation possible. I
would also like to thank my friends at İ.D. Bilkent University, Sinan Çetin, Fatih
Pamuk, Abdürrahim Özer, and Müzeyyen Karabağ for their support. Finally, I am
grateful to my parents and my brother for always supporting me and my work.
vi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................. iii
ÖZET ........................................................................................................................ iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................................................................... v
TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................ vi
CHAPTER I: THE FORMATION OF THE NEWS AGENCIES IN THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY, THEIR RISING IMPORTANCE AS BUSINESS
VENTURES, AND THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE ................................................... 1
1.1. Objectives of the Study ................................................................................. 17
1.2. Primary Sources ............................................................................................ 20
1.3. Literature Review .......................................................................................... 21
1.4. Structure of the Dissertation.......................................................................... 29
CHAPTER II: HAVAS, WOLFF’S, REUTERS AND THE GOVERNMENTS
.................................................................................................................................. 31
CHAPTER III: THE REUTER FAMILY’S ENTERPRISES AND THE
BRITISH EMPIRE ................................................................................................ 55
CHAPTER IV: THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE ..................................................... 114
4.1. Decentralization and an Overview of Centralization Policy in the Ottoman
Empire ................................................................................................................ 115
4.2. History of Telegraphy in the Ottoman Empire ........................................... 121
4.3. The Empire’s Endeavor to Establish a Telegraph Agency ......................... 126
CHAPTER V: THE OTTOMAN TELEGRAPH AGENCY (AGENCE
TELEGRAPHIQUE OTTOMANE) AND ITS SUCCESSORS ...................... 153
CHAPTER VI: L’AGENCE MILLI (THE NATIONAL OTTOMAN
TELEGRAPH AGENCY), LA TURQUIE AND L’AGENCE ORIENTALE
D’INFORMATIONS ........................................................................................... 153
6.1. l’Agence Milli (The National Ottoman Telegraph Agency) ....................... 176
6.2. La Turquie ................................................................................................... 183
6.3. l’Agence Orientale d’Informations ............................................................. 184
CHAPTER VII: CONCLUSION ........................................................................ 186
BIBLIOGRAPHY................................................................................................ 189
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
THE FORMATION OF THE NEWS AGENCIES IN THE
NINETEENTH CENTURY, THEIR RISING IMPORTANCE AS
BUSINESS VENTURES, AND THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
Developments during the eighteenth century caused the establishment and
rise of news agencies in the next century. While the expansion of the printing press
and long-term changes in literacy, the industrial revolution, the growth of a
capitalist economy, and improvements in transportation and communication created
a modern society, the news agencies took their respected place in this contemporary
world. In the nineteenth century, the concept of ‘information’ was reformulated.
‘Information’ became ‘news’, a commodity to collect and distribute.1 This act of
collecting and distributing news created the first international or global media
1 Oliver Boyd-Barrett and Terhi Rantanen, “The Globalization of News,” in The Globalization of
News (London: Sage Publications, 1998), 1.
2
organizations, the news agencies. These agencies were also among the very first
transnational or multinational corporations.2 Their significance was such that:
The news agencies were among the world’s first organizations to
operate, not only globally, but to operate globally in the
production and distribution of ‘consciousness’, through the
commodification of news, in ways which had very significant
implications for our understanding or appreciation of time and
space.3
The industrial revolution and the transformation of the capitalist market
made news agencies necessary. The stock exchange rates were the most important
commodity of the three major European news agencies during their first years. With
the introduction of new machine technologies and steam power from the late
eighteenth century onwards, the nature of capitalist enterprise was transformed, and
factories with hundreds of employees became the typical form of a business unit.
This transformation occurred most rapidly within the cotton industry. In Britain,
between 1792 and 1850, the number of factories increased from about 900 to over
1,400, whereas, between 1750 and 1850, the quantity of raw materials processed by
the cotton industry increased more than 200 times.4
As the victor of the Industrial Revolution, Britain’s industrial economy was
such that:
… it harnessed the power of a million horses in its steam-engines,
turned out two million yards of cotton cloth per year on over
seventeen million mechanical spindles, dug almost fifty million
tons of coal, imported and exported £170 millions worth of goods
in a single year. Its trade was twice that of its nearest competitor,
France: in 1780 it had only just exceeded it.5
Throughout the nineteenth century, all areas of the globe were being
discovered and mapped, world population doubled, and it was held together more
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., 5.
4 Leslie Hannah, The Rise of the Corporate Economy (London: Methuen, 1983), 8–10.
5 Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848 (New York: Vintage Books, 1996), 51.
3
tightly than ever with the moving of goods, people, capital and ideas by more
advanced methods of communication and transportation compared to the previous
century:6
Now the major fact about the nineteenth century is the creation of
a single global economy, progressively reaching into the most
remote corners of the world, an increasingly dense web of
economic transactions, communications and movements of goods,
money and people linking the developed countries with each other
and with the undeveloped world….This globalization of the
economy was not new, though it had accelerated considerably in
the middle decades of the century.7
A system of semaphores preceding the electric telegraph, created in 1793 by Claude
Chappe, was used effectively during the French Revolution and its aftermath by
French governments for the next fifty years. By 1850, France had five thousand
kilometers of lines and 566 stations. Because of this large investment in Chappe’s
system, France was to fall behind Britain in building telegraph lines after the
founding of the electric telegraph. In 1837, while William Cooke and Charles
Wheatstone built the first telegraph line in Britain, Samuel Morse developed and
patented his code. Morse opened the first public telegraph line in 1844 between
Baltimore and Washington. Whereas the first line was built in the Ottoman Empire
in 1854, during the Crimean War by the British Empire, which dominated the
telegraphic communication of the century, in terms of technology, cadre, and a web
of telegraph lines, by the 1840s, a telegraph network was already covering Europe
and the eastern United States.8 In 1895, world submarine cables extended 300,000
6 Ibid., 13–14.
7 Ibid., 62.
8 Daniel R. Headrick, The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International Politics 1851-
1924 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 11–28.
4
kilometers and land lines were over a million kilometers in length, carrying 15,000
messages daily.9
The nineteenth century was not only a time for the global economy but was
also the age of colonial empires. Rapid expansion of the electric telegraph was due
to the security concerns of the colonial empires. Between 1880 and 1914, territories
were partitioned by Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands,
Belgium, the USA and Japan. Britain added four million square miles to its
territories and controlled one quarter of the globe, France acquired 3.5 million,
Germany took possession of more than one million, Belgium and Italy gained just
under one million square miles each, and the USA and Japan acquired around
100,000 each.10 Possessing vast and distant territories, the empires had a great need
for electric telegraphy, allowing them to communicate with their colonies and
ensure the central government control:
As soon as areas were pacified, bureaucratic controls replaced the
free-wheeling agents of the frontier period. And inevitably the
controls operated through the telegraph wires and cables.11
The cable lines connecting an empire with its colonies were not only valuable in
enabling imperial governments to communicate with their agents in the periphery,
and to instruct and monitor their civil servants, but also to protect and preserve their
colonies against the threat of invasion by foreign empires. As such, the British
Empire was connected with its major colonies and naval bases through cable lines
which only passed through British territory or a friendly power.12
In the 1880s, large-scale businesses started to adopt limited liability
company status: “between 1885 and 1907 the number of firms in domestic
9 Ibid., 28.
10 Hobsbawm, Age of Empire, 59.
11 Headric, Invisible Weapon, 68.
12 Ibid., 98.
5
manufacturing and distribution with quotations on the London stock exchange grew
from only sixty to almost 600, and the provincial stock exchanges ‘were almost of
greater importance in relation to home securities than London’”.13 The capital
surplus in Britain and France turned their stock markets into the largest supplier of
capital.14 In 1915, capital exported from Europe was almost fifty times greater than
that exported in 1825.15 Between 1870 and 1914, emphasis on capital export was
not focused on the colonies but on places with more developed economies. America
was the leader of capital import with fourteen billion dollars, followed by the
colonial world with eleven billion dollars (only a small percentage of this went to
Africa). Europe received around seven billion dollars, Russia imported four billion
dollars, the Ottoman Empire imported one billion dollars and Austria-Hungary
received two billion dollars.16
The founders of the Havas, Wolff’s and Reuters agencies realized the need
for financiers, bankers and businessmen to obtain stock exchange rates in this new
era of global economy and colonial empires.17 In their humble beginnings, the
agencies only provided their clients with stock exchange rates and political news
that could influence the stock market, demonstrating the significance of capitalist
enterprise transformation into news agency formation. The founder of the Agence
Havas, Charles-Louis Havas (1783–1858), who was a bankrupt businessman, was
13 Hannah, Corporate Economy, 20.
14 Ibid.
15 Henk Wesseling, The European Colonial Empires 1815-1919 (Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2004),
27.
16 Ibid., 124.
17 The names of the news agencies changed several times throughout the period in question. As it
does not serve the purpose of this work to follow the name and administration changes of each
agency, the conventional shorthand usage, as explained in Alexander Scott Nalbach’s, “The Ring
Combination: Information, Power and the World News Agency Cartel,” will be taken into account:
“The conventional shorthand in the literature on the telegraphic news agencies is ‘Havas’ for the
Agence Havas, ‘Reuters’ (although the firm name retained the apostrophe until 1984) for Reuter’s
Telegram Company (Limited), and either ‘Wolff’s’ or ‘the Continental’ (after 1865) for Wolff’s
Telegraphisches-Bureau-Continental Telegraphen-Compagnie.” (PhD diss., University of Chicago,
1999), 6.
6
the first to notice the possibilities the news business offered. After being arrested for
debt in January 1832, in August Havas opened a translation office which he
reorganized as the Agence Havas in 1835. Havas’ enterprise was the first
information bureau for the press. Dr. Bernard Wolff (1811–79), the founder of
Wolff’s Telegraphic Bureau, and Paul Julius Reuter, the founder of Reuters, worked
at the Agence Havas as translators.18
Working at Havas only briefly in 1848, Wolff returned to Berlin the very
same year to found his own newspaper, the National-Zeitung. In 1849, he
established the Telegraphic Bureau, which served financial and commercial groups.
Wolff’s bulletins included market quotations and political news affecting the
market. Until 1855, the bureau did not sell political and general news to the press.
Paul Julius Reuter (1816–99) also worked at Havas in 1848 and then established his
own business in Paris in the spring of 1849. Like Havas, Reuter and his wife were
translating extracts from leading French newspapers to send them to provincial
newspapers in Germany. Reuter’s office lasted only until the summer of 1849.
Having failed in Paris, Reuter moved to Aachen in Prussia where he carried
information between the unconnected points of the Prussian and French telegraph
systems. However, in the spring of 1851, the gap between Berlin and Paris was
closed. Having lost his advantage in financial news collecting, Reuter moved to
London in the summer of 1851.19 Like Wolff’s, Reuter’s bulletins included political
news that could affect market rates. He started selling general news to the London
press in 1858.20
18 Alexander Scott Nalbach, “Poisoned at the Source? Telegraphic News Services and Big Business
in the Nineteenth Century,” Business History Review, vol. 77, no. 4 (Winter 2003), 580–81.
19 Graham Storey, Reuters’ Century 1851-1951 (London: Max Parrish, 1951), 9–12.
20 Nalbach, “Poisoned at Source?” 581–82.
7
In 1865, Reuter reorganized his agency as Reuter’s Telegram Company
(Limited), a joint-stock enterprise. The new board had four members who were
bankers and traders in India and China. That same year, by means of newly raised
capital, Reuter tried to buy Wolff’s agency, together with Havas. To resist the
takeover, Wolff asked for help from Wilhelm I of Prussia. Under the king’s
initiative, Berlin bankers provided for the agency and became stockholders of the
new joint-stock holding firm, the Continental Telegraphen-Compagnie (Continental
Telegraph Company), founded on 20 May 1865 to transfer capital to Wolff’s. The
Havas agency was incorporated at 8.5 million francs in July 1879, and Baron
Frédéric-Émile d’Erlanger, a financier, became the stockholder of 637,000 francs
worth of shares.21
The capital surplus formed in this new global economy not only developed
the news agency business but also the news agency owners. As they gained wealth
and reputation through their news businesses, they started to take part in foreign
investments. The major stockholders of Havas and Wolff’s were financiers, and
while Reuter family members became investors with the wealth they gained through
their news agency, the rest of the board members were bankers and traders in the
new joint-stock holding company. As a product of modernization, Reuters gave its
founder and his family the opportunity to become capitalist investors through the
wealth they gained from the news agency business. Produced by the capitalist
economy, the news agencies contributed to the perpetuation of the capitalist system.
The major stockholders of the news agencies profited from the incomes of
the agencies, as well as from the influence they gained from having control of
21 Ibid., 584–86.
8
information.22 In some cases they managed to direct public policy and in some cases
they failed to do so. However, as will be discussed later through an examination of
the investments of the Reuter family, they always tried to impose policy on
governments which was beneficial to their financial interests.
Before World War I, the main European news agencies sought to secure
subsidies and privileges from every government possible. This policy helped them
to reduce the costs of their businesses. By prior access to official information they
could disseminate news faster than their competitors. The policy of the three major
European news agencies is explained thus:
In the case of nineteenth-century telegraphic news agencies,
official efforts to guide or control public opinion were not
imposed from above by authoritarian regimes upon reluctant
media struggling to maintain their independence. On the contrary,
Bernhard Wolff, Julius Reuter, Edouard Lebey, Sigmund
Engländer and Melville Stone all hounded palaces and foreign
offices both at home and abroad for subsidies or privileges,
volunteering their distribution networks for official publicity and
offering up blue-penciled copies of suppressed telegrams as proof
of their political reliability.23
The owners and managers of the international news agencies regarded the news
business like any other sector in trade and sought means to maximize their profits.
The subsidies, subscriptions, and reduced telegraph rates offered by governments to
these agencies were made in vain or, at best, helped these governments for only
short periods of time. This was because the agencies signed secret agreements with
22 John Atkinson Hobson, Imperialism: A Study (Michigan: the University of Michigan Press, 2006),
60. In his book, Hobson explains that the financial houses were directing public opinion and,
therefore, public policy by holding the ownership of major newspapers: “The direct influence
exercised by great financial houses in ‘high politics’ is supported by the control which they exercise
over the body of public opinion through the Press, which, in every ‘civilized’ country, is becoming
more and more their obedient instrument. While the specifically financial newspaper imposes ‘facts’
and ‘opinions’ on the business classes, the general body of the Press comes more and more under the
conscious or unconscious domination of financiers…In Berlin, Vienna, and Paris many of the
influential newspapers have been held by financial houses, which used them, not primarily to make
direct profits out of them, but in order to put into the public mind beliefs and sentiments which
would influence public policy and thus affect the money market.”
23 Nalbach, “Ring Combination,” 571.
9
several governments around the same time in order to promote the finances of their
agencies and be able to collect and disseminate news faster. Serving the interests of
an empire was the discourse the news agencies used to conclude agreements with
governments. Once Reuters signed secret agreements with the Ottoman Empire, the
British Empire and the Japanese Empire, all around the same time.
Because the major European news agencies were in communication with
several governments at one time, the Ottoman Empire did not manage to keep them
under its complete control. By the end of the nineteenth century, after decades of
trying to control them by granting or withdrawing allowances and privileges, the
Ottoman Empire acknowledged the need to establish its own news agency. The
Ottoman statesmen’s judgement on this matter was that each major European news
agency was serving the interests of its domestic empire. Therefore, the Ottoman
Empire had to establish a news agency under its complete control, and only in its
service.
Despite searching for ways to establish a news agency, the empire only
managed to do so in the twentieth century. When finally its attempts bore fruit and
the Ottoman Empire founded its semi-formal news agency in 1911, during the
Second Constitutional Era, hostility between the European states was on the rise. As
an early indication of rising tension between the countries, in 1909, when the news
alliance contract was due to be renewed for another ten years, on Continental’s
demand, which was under pressure from the German Foreign Office, it was agreed
that: if a receiving agency refused to include a dispatch to its bulletin and service it,
the sending agency could demand its distribution in its ally’s reserved territory by
covering its expenses. Such dispatches would still be distributed by the receiving
10
agency but they were to carry the word ‘Tractatus’ (‘handling’ in Latin) to separate
them from the regular dispatches.24
Introducing telegraphic communication to the Ottoman Empire in 1855 was
part of state policy to consolidate the power of the center, which had been pursued
since the eighteenth century, like the launching of the postal system in 1834, and the
railways in 1856. Moreover, the news agencies, especially the European ones, were
regarded as tools to promote the empire’s image abroad, which was vital for
preserving the empire. Communication between the imperial center and the
provinces was the key in consolidating the center’s authority, as emphasized by
Frederick W. Frey: “Laxity in the execution of orders from the capital, banditry, the
sway of the local ağas, all varied inversely with the excellence of communications
contact between elite and mass.”25 From Selim III’s reign, in the last years of the
eighteenth century, Ottoman statesmen recognized the contemporary military,
economic and administrative challenges and addressed them. These policies
pursued by the Ottoman sultans to consolidate the power of the imperial center are
referred to as ‘reforms’ in Ottoman historical scholarship. Informing Ottoman
subjects about the reforms and being connected to them through a flow of
information were objectives of Ottoman statesmen, as were, simultaneously, trying
to influence foreign news agencies and later founding a semi-formal Ottoman news
agency.
Moreover, telegraphic communication did not only mean the circulation of
information promptly within the empire but also between the empire and the world.
The foreign telegraphic agencies were significant for the Ottoman Empire as they
24 Ibid., 558.
25 Frederick W. Frey, “Political Development, Power, and Communications in Turkey,” in
Communications and Political Development, ed. Lucian W. Pye (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1963), 306.
11
were the carriers and makers of news.26 In the nineteenth century, Ottoman
statesmen were familiar with the concept of public opinion:
They recognized its existence both in their own Empire and in
European countries. As the number of newspapers grew, one finds
more and more references to Efkâr-i umumiye, public opinion.27
They were also aware that having a positive image abroad was vital for the empire’s
survival.28 As stated by Roderic Davison, “in nineteenth-century Europe the
Ottoman Empire had an ‘image problem’”; it was regarded as an oppressive and
backward empire.29 Therefore, Ottoman statesmen took measures to influence
public opinion in Europe.30 The establishment of a permanent Ottoman diplomatic
corps by Mahmud II was the beginning of these Ottoman efforts to change this
perception, which was called a “public relations campaign” by Davison.31 Besides
the regular duty of representing the Ottoman Empire and its views to the
government to which they were appointed, permanent Ottoman representatives
abroad also had the duty to represent the empire to the foreign public. The empire
also assigned representatives to international organizations and joined most of the
major international exhibitions, starting with the Crystal Palace Exhibition in
26 Terry N. Clark, ed., Gabriel Tarde On Communication and Social Influence: Selected Papers
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969), 304. Gabriel Tarde’s opinion on journalism and
newspapers shows the power of the telegraphic news agencies as they were the suppliers of
information for journals and newspapers: “Journalism both sucks in and pumps out information,
which, coming in from all corners of the earth in the morning, is directed, the same day, back out to
all the corners of the earth, insofar as the journalist defines what is or appears to be interesting about
it, given the goals he is pursuing and the party for which he speaks. His information is in reality a
force which little by little becomes irresistible. Newspapers began by expressing opinion, first the
completely local opinion of privileged groups, a court, a parliament, a capital, whose gossip,
discussions, or debates they reproduced; they ended up directing opinion almost as they wished,
modelling it, and imposing the majority of their daily topics upon conversation.”
27 Roderic H. Davison, Nineteenth Century Ottoman Diplomacy and Reforms (İstanbul: Isis Press,
1999), 351.
28 Selim Deringil, The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of Power in the
Ottoman Empire 1876-1909 (Spain: Bookchase, 2004), 172.
29 Davison, Ottoman Diplomacy, 351.
30 Ibid.
31 Ibid.
12
London, in 1851.32 Furthermore, as part of the campaign to improve the Ottoman
image the empire gave subventions to some European newspapers as early as
1846.33 The Sublime Porte hired European writers to publish books, paid journalists
and newspaper owners to plant articles prepared by the Sublime Porte in
newspapers, and published some of its important reform documents in French, such
as the Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane, and distributed them to European governments. 34
The Tanzimat reforms were designed by Ottoman statesmen who were
aware of the importance of the imperial image. The Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane,
declared on 3 November 1839, initiated the Tanzimat period of reform. Although it
was presented as contributing to the modernization of the empire by promising a
guarantee of life, property, chastity, honor, the re-regulation of taxation and the
military service, and prohibiting execution without trial and bribery, it was also
prepared to please the Great Powers.35 Mustafa Reşid Paşa, architect of the 1839
edict, realized, while working as an ambassador in Paris and later in London, that
the western public had been hostile to the Ottoman Empire ever since the Greek
uprising, as the Greeks were regarded as part of western civilization.
Believing that it was necessary to first influence the western general public
in order to influence western statesmen, Mustafa Reşid Paşa advised the Sultan to
increase the number of embassies. Ambassadors were then to use the local press to
influence the public, a practice which was used by himself as well.36 Known for
being a proponent of Ottoman accession to the concert of Europe, Mustafa Reşid
Paşa contributed to the edict’s formation, which had two purposes:
32 Ibid., 353–54.
33 Ibid., 355.
34 Ibid., 355–56.
35 Hanioğlu, Brief History, 73.
36 Enver Ziya Karal, “Gülhane Hatt-ı Hümayunu’nda Batı’nın Etkisi,” in Tanzimat: Değişim
Sürecinde Osmanlı İmparatorluğu, ed. Halil İnalcık and Mehmet Seyitdanlıoğlu (Ankara: Türkiye İş
Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2008), 123–24.
13
In a sense, the document served as an assurance to the Great
Powers that demanded domestic reforms in return for future
recognition of the Ottoman Empire as a member of the concert of
Europe…Thus, the edict was directed both inward and outward, at
once a serious commitment to reform out of self-interest and an
appeasing gesture directed at Europe.37
The second and final phase of the Tanzimat started with the declaration of a
new edict, the Hatt-ı Hümayun, on 15 February 1856. Shortly after its proclamation,
on 30 March 1856, the Paris Treaty was signed, ending the Crimean War and
making the Ottoman Empire a member of the concert of Europe. Hanioğlu, the
historian, further emphasized the Ottoman statesmen’s desire to promote a positive
image in Europe in order to preserve the empire:
The Tanzimat leaders were undoubtedly sincere in their desire to
reinvigorate the empire through reform. But the reforms served
another principal goal for them: acquiring the international
respectability required for membership in the European concert.
The dual purpose of the reforms was especially evident in those
innovations aimed at achieving equality before the law: advancing
such equality promoted the cohesiveness of a fractious
multinational empire, and at the same time placated European
public opinion which was increasingly sensitive to the inequality
of the empire’s Christians…Winning over public opinion in
Europe was not merely a question of popularity; it was crucial for
the defense of the empire.38
He underlined that French and British support in the Crimean War was for the first
time an outcome of the “pro-Ottoman pressure of public opinion” besides strategic
concerns, and described the war as “a great victory for Ottoman public
diplomacy”.39
During the following decades, deliberately trying to prove that it was a Great
Power, as recognized by the Treaty of Paris in 1856, the Ottoman Empire continued
to make an appearance in world events by providing financial aid to humanitarian
37 Hanioğlu, Brief History, 73.
38 Ibid., 76.
39 Ibid., 77.
14
deeds, having representatives in international organizations, participating in
international exhibitions of industrial and agricultural goods, and sending
representatives to celebrations, funerals and international conferences.40
The Ottoman saw himself as an equal participant in the zero-sum
games of world politics, and demanded to be treated as such. The
European saw him as an anomaly, a master who should really be
servant, a ruler who should really be a subject. It was this
dichotomy which produced the Ottoman obsession with image
and a determination to defend it against all slights, insults and
slurs. Even worse, of course, was the possibility of being
ignored.41
The image that the Ottoman Empire wanted to promote of itself, and was obsessed
with, was a modern, civilized and strong empire with a long and glorious history,
and a land of great natural beauty.42
Abdülhamid II’s concern about the image of the Empire was rooted in the
events known as the Bulgarian horrors, which took place in 1876, shortly before his
accession to the throne. Since the summer of 1875, Christian rebels had been
organizing attacks on Muslims in Herzegovina, which eventually spread all over
Bosnia and Herzegovina. The empire suppressed these attacks harshly by force.
Attacks against the Muslim population also started to take place in Bulgaria in
1876, initiated by a couple of hundred rebels who had been trained in the Russian
Empire. While 300 Muslims were massacred by the rebels, 2,100 rebels were killed
by the Ottoman forces, among whom were Bulgarians who were not involved in the
attacks.43
40 Deringil, Well-Protected Domains, 353.
41 Ibid., 171.
42 Selim Deringil, “II. Abdülhamid döneminde Osmanlı Dış İlişkilerinde ‘İmaj’ Saplantısı,” in Sultan
II. Abdülhamid ve Devri Semineri: 27-29 Mayıs 1992 (İstanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat
Fakültesi Basımevi, 1994), 149–62.
43 Kemal Karpat and Robert W. Zens, “I. Meşrutiyet Dönemi ve II. Abdülhamid’in Saltanatı (1876-
1909),” in Genel Türk Tarihi Cilt 7, ed. Hasan Celâl Güzel and Ali Birinci (Ankara: Yeni Türkiye
Yayınları, 2002), 286–87.
15
These events were presented to the European public as if the Muslim
fanatics were massacring innocent Christians. William Ewart Gladstone, the British
Liberal Party leader who later became prime minister four times (1868–74, 1880–
85, 1886 and 1892–94), used these events as a way to criticize the policy of his
opponent, Benjamin Disraeli, Conservative Party Leader and British Prime Minister
(1868, 1874–80), which he described as “questionable and erroneous”.44 The
pamphlet, referring to the Ottomans as the Turkish race, described them in the
following manner:
They were, upon the whole, from the black day when they first
entered Europe, the one great anti-human specimen of humanity.
Wherever they went, a broad line of blood marked the track
behind them; and, as far as their dominion reached, civilization
disappeared from view. 45
Another issue that challenged the Ottoman Empire in the international arena
was the Armenian problem. Incidents that took place in 1894, in the district of
Sasun, followed by conflict between the Muslims and Armenians in 1895 and 1896,
drastically lowered Ottoman prestige in Europe.46
To win over foreign public opinion, especially European, the empire wanted
to control the foreign telegraphic news agencies, which were the suppliers of news
to the foreign press. Abdülhamid II tried to win them over by financial means.
However, realizing that this method was not working well to promote a positive
image of the Ottoman state, and feeling uneasy about not being able to express and
defend itself, the Ottoman statesmen acknowledged the need to establish an
Ottoman telegraphic news agency. Despite their endeavors, the Ottoman Empire
44 William Ewart Gladstone, Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East (London: William
Clowes and Sons, 1876), 12.
45 Gladstone, Bulgarian Horrors, 12.
46 Erik J. Zürcher, Turkey: A Modern History (London: I.B. Tauris, 2004), 83.
16
only managed to set up its first semiformal telegraphic news agency, loyal only to
the empire, in 1911.
The Ottoman Telegraph Agency was founded by the initiative of Salih
Gürcü47. Gürcü, owner and manager of a Parisian journal La Turquie Nouvelle,
recognized the opportunities offered in the news agency business and asked for a
permit on 25 June 1909 to establish an agency called the Gürcü Agency in the
Ottoman capital; this was intended to be the semiformal agency of the empire. Salih
Gürcü did not succeed in making his agency the semiformal instrument of the
empire, but he did manage to turn another one, the Ottoman Telegraph Agency,
which he founded in August 1909, into the semiformal news agency of the empire
in the second half of 1911.
In 1914, Gürcü lost his administrative position in the Ottoman Telegraph
Agency. The duty of transforming the agency was given to Hüseyin Tosun, who
was a deputy of Erzurum at the time. The Ottoman Telegraph Agency was renamed
the National Telegraph Agency (Agence Milli) in 1914, La Turquie in 1919, and
finally l’Agence Orientale d’Informations in 1922. Planned for decades, based on
British intelligence reports, the semiformal Ottoman news agency served the
interests of the Ottoman Empire. However, the empire, under occupation, lost its
agency completely to the Allies in 1919; when the National Telegraph Agency
signed an agreement with Havas and Reuters, it was renamed the Havas-Reuter-
Turkish Agency, and was used to ease the occupation of Anatolia.
47 Salih Gürcü was referred as Gürcü or Gourdji in the Ottoman documents and Gourji, Gurji or
Gourdji in the British documents. To have consistency, he will be referred as Salih Gürcü throughout
the dissertation, unless it is a direct quote from a primary source in English or French.
17
1.1. Objectives of the Study
It is not the object of this dissertation to discuss the arguments regarding the public
sphere, as seen in Jürgen Habermas’ The Structural Transformation of the Public
Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society. What is important is that,
as discussed by Cengiz Kırlı, the perception of Ottoman statesmen changed with
regards to the public and public opinion after the 1840s. The legitimacy of public
opinion was implicitly accepted by Ottoman statesmen, and rather than denying or
silencing public opinion, it became a source they consulted indirectly.48 This
perception change, consulting the public in order to construct a public opinion,
started in Europe in the eighteenth century. While the phenomenon was described
by Michel Foucault as a “discovery of political thought”,49 it was referred to by
Keith Michael Baker as a “political invention”.50
When the coffeehouse was first introduced to Istanbul in the mid-sixteenth
century, conversations on state affairs were regarded as gossip and the only reason
for the empire to monitor them and other places where people gathered was to catch
48 Cengiz Kırlı, Sultan ve Kamuoyu: Osmanlı Modernleşme Sürecinde ‘Havadis Jurnalleri’ (1840-
1844) (İstanbul: Türkiye İşbankası Kültür Yayınları, 2009), 13–25.
49 Paul Rabinow, ed., The Foucault Reader: An Introduction to Foucault’s Thought (New York:
Pantheon Books, 242. In an interview Foucault stated: “What was discovered at that time and this was
one of the great discoveries of political thought at the end of the eighteenth century was the idea of
society. That is to say, that government not only has to deal with a territory, with a domain, and with
its subjects, but that it also has to deal with a complex and independent reality that has its own laws
and mechanisms of reaction, its regulations as well as its possibilities of disturbance. This new reality
is society.”
50 Keith Michel Baker, Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French Political Culture in the
Eighteenth Century (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 168: “Many studies of the idea
of public opinion assume the existence of some corresponding social referent as a residual fact of
common life in any society ̶ a kind of perpetual noise in the system which must in some way be
taken account of, whether or not its existence if formally acknowledged by political actors or
explicitly designated under the rubric of ‘public opinion.’ Others see it as a specific phenomenon of
modern societies, brought into being by long-term changes in literacy, by the growth of capitalism
and the commercial expansion of the press, by the bureaucratic transformation of particularistic
social orders into more integrated national (and now international) communities. Without denying
the importance of these latter developments, I wish to insist on the significance of public opinion as
a political invention rather than as a sociological function.”
18
those who conversed about the state and punish them. However, in the nineteenth
century, the practice changed drastically:
By recording these opinions without the purpose of persecuting political
gossipmongers, the state turned the oral into the literal, the anonymous
into the authored, and the elusive into the tangible. This was, in fact, the
process in which rumor became news; and the individual opinions that
were hitherto persecuted for their political content became a public
opinion to which the nineteenth-century Ottoman state was obliged to
appeal.51
In an age when ‘information’ became ‘news’, ‘individual opinions’ became ‘public
opinion’, and governments and rulers appealed to the public, the Ottoman Empire
lacked the means to infiltrate the public.
A change in the Ottoman statesmen’s perception of public opinion made the
nineteenth-century news agencies significant for the empire. The Ottomans wanted
to construct their own version of foreign and domestic public opinion as they
regarded it to be a necessity in order to preserve the territorial integrity of the
empire. As a tool to influence public opinion, especially foreign, Ottoman statesmen
tried to take advantage of foreign news agencies. However, the news agencies and
the empire had different agendas, which ultimately rendered this cooperation
unfruitful for the latter. For Havas, Wolff’s and Reuters, news was a commodity
that could be sold to any individual, company or empire that was willing to pay for
it. These agencies developed different discourses for every potential customer. The
package they offered the Ottoman Empire was to influence the perception of
statesmen and the general public in foreign societies. While the news agencies were
exporting their ‘commodities’ by taking advantage of international politics and
51 Cengiz Kırlı, “Coffeehouses: Public Opinion in the Nineteenth Century Ottoman Empire,” in
Public Islam and the Common Good, ed. Dale F. Eickelman and Armando Salvatore (Leiden: Brill,
2004), 96. For further information on coffeehouses in the Ottoman Empire, see also Yaşar Ahmet,
ed., Osmanlı Kahvehaneleri: Mekan, Sosyalleşme, İktidar (İstanbul: Kitap Yayınevi, 2017). See also,
Robert Darnton for circulation of news in the eighteenth century: “An Early Information Society:
News and the Media in Eighteenth-Century Paris,” American Historical Review, vol. 105, no. 1
(February), 1995.
19
contemporary tensions between the different empires, the circulation of news was a
matter of survival for the Ottoman Empire. It is argued in this dissertation that the
Ottoman Empire founded the Ottoman Telegraph Agency to empower the imperial
center, improve its image to preserve the empire, and counteract imperialism.
The timeframe the thesis covers is between 1862 and 1914. The first
telegraphic line of the Ottoman Empire was built in 1854 and began operating in
1855 during the Crimean War. Although Havas and Reuters had agents in
Constantinople to report war news throughout the Crimean War,52 it is very likely
that these agents were not correspondents working in these agencies but rather
locals, or British and French merchants residing in the imperial capital, who
reported to the agencies. There is no information regarding the operations of Havas,
Wolff’s or Reuters in Constantinople until 1862. In that year, Levant Herald started
to use Reuters’ telegrams,53 in 1866 Havas took over the subscribers in
Constantinople,54 and in 1869 Reuters’ Constantinople office was opened.55
Because permanent operations of the international news agencies do not seem to
have started until 1862, based on the contemporary documents available, the
dissertation starts with this date. Yet, it also briefly summarizes the arrival of the
telegraphic communication system to the Ottoman Empire. The period discussed in
the dissertation ends in 1914, with the start of World War I. The start of the war
52 Donald Read, The Power of News: The History of Reuters (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999), 17.
53 Orhan Koloğlu, Havas-Reuter'den Anadolu Ajansı'na (Ankara: Çağdaş Gazeteciler Derneği
Yayınları, 1994), 9.
54 Koloğlu, Havas-Reuter'den, 9.
55 Board Meeting Minutes, 17 November 1869, within the Minute Book (1868-1872). RA, 1/883502.
Orhan Koloğlu stated in Havas-Reuter'den Anadolu Ajansı'na that on 23 November 1868, Reuter’s
agent in Constantinople, Edward Virnard, announced in the Levant Times, a newspaper of
Constantinople published in English, that Reuters was soon to establish an office in the city. He also
announced on 16 December 1868, again in the Levant Times, that l’Agence de Constantinople, an
agency of Reuters, would begin its services at its office located in Pera, Tomtom Street, no. 11,
starting from 1 January 1869 (10-1). On the other hand, Donald Read, in the Power of News (54),
stated that the office in Constantinople was opened in 1870. However, Board Meeting minutes of 17
November 1869 documented that the office was established in the first half of 1869.
20
changed the characteristics of news dissemination by Havas, Wolff’s and Reuters,
as they became part of propaganda efforts on behalf of their empires.
1.2. Primary Sources
The majority of primary sources are documents from the Presidency of the
Republic of Turkey State Archives Directorate, Ottoman Archive, the United
Kingdom National Archives, Reuters Archive, and Grand National Assembly of
Turkey Archives. Through the Ottoman Archive, Grand National Assembly of
Turkey Archives, and the United Kingdom National Archives, the author has
managed to obtain an insight into the official opinions of the Ottoman and British
empires. At the United Kingdom National Archives, the author focused attention on
foreign office papers and secret service reports. The vast number of documents on
the concessions granted to the Reuter family in the National Archives have been
invaluable for informing the author about an aspect of the news agencies and news
agency owners that does not exist in company histories. Another significant archive
of this research has been the Reuters Archives in which the author found
information on Reuters’ Constantinople office that is not available in any other
archive.
News agency bulletins and news published, based on news agency
dispatches, were not examined as the author believes that the Ottoman Empire’s
official opinion on the news agencies and the news they disseminated serves the
purpose of this dissertation well enough. The examination of news agency bulletins
and journal articles is planned for a future research project.
21
1.3. Literature Review
By connecting British imperialism with the Ottoman Empire’s efforts to have a
news agency, this dissertation aims to contribute to the existing literature on both
Ottoman press history and imperialism. It is unique for being the first research
project that has studied the history of the Ottoman Telegraph Agency in a
comprehensive manner.
The general literature on imperialism mostly places the state and politicians
at the center of their narratives. This dissertation aims to contribute to the existing
literature on imperialism by revealing investor influence in policy making in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In some of their communications with
governments, due to their foreign investments, Reuter family members became
players in international politics. D. R. Headrick’s The Tools of Empire: Technology
and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century and The Invisible Weapon:
Telecommunications and International Politics, 1851–1945 are examples of works
on imperialism revolving around states and politicians. In The Tools of Empire,
Headrick discusses the technological advancements that allowed Europeans to
penetrate, conquest and subsume imperial possessions into a European economy in
the nineteenth century. He underlines in his work that the pace of progress in
communications and transportation is more fascinating than any other technological
advancements of the century. In his later work, The Invisible Weapon, he explains
the history of telegraphy technology and the strategic motives of the states in
expanding the world cable network during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
22
Similarly, Eric Hobsbawm, in his remarkable works The Age of Capital 1848–1875
and The Age of Empire 1875–1914, explains the triumph, transformation and
extension of capitalism to the whole globe through the social and economic
variables of states.
On the other hand, John Atkinson Hobson in his work Imperialism,
underlines the involvement of certain classes in shaping the imperialist policy of
Britain, declaring that Great Britain did not actually benefit from imperialism by
going through its various motives: the need for raw materials, markets, investment
and a population outlet. He makes his point by using numbers demonstrating that
the share of income from the imperialist endeavors was less than the share of every
other source of income in the British economy. He claims that such a policy, which
was not good for the population in general, was pursued because certain classes,
“the investing and speculative classes” benefited from the current policy and were
promoting the expansion of the British Empire. He named them as the “economic
parasites of imperialism”.56
An overview of some of the variables that Hobson mentions to prove his
case are that “between one-fifth and one-sixth of the country’s income was coming
from the production and transport of goods for export trade”,57 and that “the
external trade of Great Britain bore a small and diminishing proportion to its
internal industry and trade…of the external trade, that with British possessions bore
a diminishing proportion to that with foreign countries”.58 He claims that if the
British nation as a whole was not benefitting from its state’s imperialist policy, then
it had to be serving the interests of certain classes.
56 Hobson, Imperialism, 56.
57 Ibid., 28.
58 Ibid., 39.
23
Hobson also suggests an alternative economic policy for Great Britain to
pursue, that of domestic consumption. He states, “there is no necessary limit to the
quantity of capital and labour that can be employed in supplying the home markets,
provided the effective demand for the goods that are produced is so distributed that
every increase of production stimulates a corresponding increase of consumption”,
underlying the unnecessity of the imperialist policy, and the possibility of an
increase in domestic consumption.59 He mentions that domestic consumption could
be raised by a proper distribution of income, which then would facilitate the
expansion of the home markets that “are capable of indefinite expansion”.60
Hobson’s “investing and speculative classes”, which benefited from British
imperialist policy and therefore perpetuated it, were referred to as “the gentlemanly
class” in British Imperialism, 1688–2015 by P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins. The
Reuter family, with its rising influence, exhibited “the growing wealth and power of
service capitalism after 1850”.61 Baron Paul Julius de Reuter and his sons were
members of “a new gentlemanly class arising from the service sector”62 in Britain,
taking over the power of the landed aristocracy.
The relations between the states and the three European news agencies in the
second half of the nineteenth century until World War I have been overlooked in
historical scholarship. The only piece of work that studies in detail the relations of
the news agencies with governments is Alexander Nalbach’s dissertation, “The
Ring Combination: Information, Power and the World News Agency Cartel 1856–
1914.” He discusses the same matter in his articles. His work also comprehensively
59 Ibid., 29.
60 Ibid., 88.
61 P. J. Cain and Antony G. Hopkins, British Imperialism 1688-2015 (New York: Routledge, 2016),
55.
62 Ibid., 125.
24
explores cooperation and competition within international news circulation, like J.
Silberstein-Loeb’s The International Distribution of News: The Associated Press,
Press Association, and Reuters, 1848–1947. Nalbach’s dissertation is an elaborate,
and a remarkable, work which uses an extensive range of primary and secondary
sources, demonstrating that he invested long hours in conducting research in the
archives of the news agencies, and presenting primary sources in English, French
and German. Nalbach’s research in the archives of Havas has especially helped the
author of this present dissertation to be informed concerning French sources, and
the perspectives of the French government and representatives of Havas. Another
area of research focuses on technological developments with regards to telegraphy
throughout the world and in the Ottoman Empire.
The literature on Reuters focuses mainly on the news agency’s history rather
than the family’s foreign investments. The publications on the agencies are
“company histories commissioned by the world news agencies themselves to
promote publicity, to commemorate anniversaries”,63 as rightfully described by
Nalbach, and this is also the case for works on the Reuters. These sources merely
relate the chronological history of the agency, mentioning agency contact with the
governments in a very refined manner, and referring to them very briefly, if at all.
Graham Storey’s Reuter’s Century and Donald Read’s The Power of News: The
History of Reuters, 1849–1989 are examples of such works. They are descriptive
company histories. Though somewhat still useful for learning about key events in
the agency’s history, they do not have much to offer the researcher, and they lack
citations. The first one does not have any citations while the latter has citations here
and there.
63 Nalbach, “Ring Combination,” 29.
25
Among all the concessions granted to the Reuter family, only the concession
known as the Reuter Concession, granted by the Shah of Persia to Baron Paul Julius
de Reuter, has been examined thoroughly by Firuz Kazemzadeh as part of Russian-
British conflict in Persia, in a work titled Russia and Britain in Persia, 1864–1914:
A Study in Imperialism. The rest of the concessions are only mentioned very briefly
in book chapters or articles. For example, in “Lord Curzon and British Strategic
Railways in Central Asia Before, During and After the First World War,” in
Railways and International Politics, Paths of Empire, 1848–1945, even the Reuter
Concession is mentioned only briefly as background context in the history of British
railway policy in Central Asia.
The Reuter Concession, the Greek Railway Concession, the Seoul
Waterworks Concession and the concession to create twenty “Burgos Agricolas”
(agricultural villages) in Brazil were secured by a family that owed its influence to
collecting and circulating news, exemplifying the involvement of British investors
who gradually became influential in the state’s policies and decision-making,
notably in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, a period in which
investors sought foreign concessions. It was known that news agencies sometimes
received subsidies from governments before the First World War,64 but the Reuter
family’s investments abroad revealed different and deep connections between the
British government, local governments and the Reuter family.
The rest of the owners of European news agencies were not journalists
either; they were financiers, bankers and investors who had made their fortune
recently, or a generation ago, and were investing in different sectors which they
found profitable. Garson von Bleichröder, the owner of the Continental Company
64 See Nalbach, “Ring Combination.”
26
who bought Wolff’s, was a banker investing in news business. Similarly, after
Auguste Havas, the Havas agency was sold to Frédéric-Émile Erlanger, a financier
and an investor who later became partners with the Reuter family in a Greek
railway construction scheme.
As well as the literature on imperialism, this dissertation also contributes to
the existing literature on the Ottoman press by depicting the history of the first
Ottoman news agency and its successors, an area that has been neglected in the
historical scholarship. This dissertation is an attempt to fill the gap in Ottoman
historical scholarship.
Historiography on communication technologies in the Ottoman Empire and
Turkey can be identified as being descriptive. These works are still important for
contributing to the field and providing historians with material on which to build.
This being said, there is a need for more argumentative works in this field. Asaf
Tanrıkut’s Türkiye Posta ve Telgraf ve Telefon Tarihi ve Teşkilat ve Mevzuatı is the
very first elaborate work on the postage, telegram and telephone services in the
Ottoman Empire. The major works in the field that focus on the historical
development of communication technologies are: Türkiye'de Posta ve Telgrafçılık
by Aziz Akıncan, Türk Posta Tarihi by Eskin Şekip, Telgrafçılıkda Ana Dilimiz ve
Mustafa Efendi, Batı ve Doğuda Telgrafçılık Nasıl Doğdu? by A. Baha Gökoğlu,
Türkiye’de Çağdaş Haberleşmenin Tarihsel Kökenleri by Alemdar Korkmaz, İzmir
Posta Tarihi 1841–2001 by Nedim A. Atilla, Başlangıcından Günümüze Posta by
the Turkish Postage, Telegraph, and Telephone General Directorate, and Çağını
Yakalayan Osmanlı.
Çağını Yakalayan Osmanlı: Osmanlı Devleti’nde Modern Haberleşme ve
Ulaştırma Teknikleri, edited by Ekmelleddin İhsanoğlu and Mustafa Kaçar, is a
27
combination of selected symposium papers and articles on the history of Ottoman
transportation and communication systems. Like the above-mentioned works, these
selected articles on communications are descriptive, yet, also very informative.
Tanju Demir’s Doctor of Philosophy dissertation, Türkiye’de Posta Telgraf
ve Telofon Teşkilatının Tarihsel Gelişimi (1840–1920), is not only useful and
interesting for historians but also for anyone who would like to be informed about
the history of communication technology in the Ottoman Empire. Published by the
Turkish Postage, Telegraph, and Telephone General Directorate, it is an
institutional history of the directorate, covering a period of forty years. Although his
work is descriptive, Demir performs an important duty by studying this subject and
time period. Another Philosophy of Arts dissertation, again, very useful but
descriptive, is “Osmanlı Dönemi’nde Posta Teşkilatı (Tanzimat Devri)” by Nesimi
Yazıcı. His article on “Posta Nezaretinin Kuruluşu,” in Çağını Yakalayan Osmanlı:
Osmanlı Devleti’nde Modern Haberleşme ve Ulaştırma Teknikleri, has been written
along the same lines as his dissertation.
Master of Arts dissertations on communication technologies in the Ottoman
Empire and Turkey include: “The Transfer of Telegraph Technology to the
Ottoman Empire in the XIXth Century” by Bahri Ata, “İttihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti
ve Osmanlı Posta ve Telgraf Teşkilatı” by Seyfi Toptaş, “Türkiye'de Modern Posta
Teşkilatının Kuruluşu ve Gelişimi” by Özdemir Onur, and “The Ottoman Postal and
Telegraph Services in the Last Quarter of the Nineteenth Century” by Ayşegül
Okan. In their descriptive dissertations, Bahri Ata outlines the arrival of telegraphic
communication to the Ottoman Empire and its expansion, Özdemir Onur depicts the
history of postal services, and Ayşegül Okan tells the story of postal services and
telegraphic communication in the empire. Seyfi Toptaş argues in her dissertation
28
that graduates of postage and telegraph schools were influenced by western political
thought during their education. Therefore, most of them either became members of
the Committee of Union or collaborated with its members, and took part in the
declaration of the Second Constitutional Era.
Only Orhan Koloğlu, who has written several works on the history of the
Turkish and Ottoman press, dedicates a chapter to the Ottoman Telegraph Agency
and its successors in Havas-Reuter’den Anadolu Ajansı’na. The information is
rather brief and most of the section about the agency consists of the complete text of
a parliamentary discussion from 1911 on the founding of a semiformal agency. In a
later work, Osmanlı Döneminde Basın Teknikleri ve Araçları, he spares a chapter
for the Ottoman Telegraph Agency; however, it is almost exactly, word for word,
the same piece. Furthermore, while some of the primary sources are not cited at all,
some of the secondary sources lack citation details, such as page numbers in Havas-
Reuter’den Anadolu Ajansı’na, Osmanlı Döneminde Basın Teknikleri ve Araçları,
which does not give any citation details throughout the text, only a bibliography list
at the end of each chapter. In a recent work on the history of the press in the
Ottoman Empire and the Turkish Republic, Osmanlı’dan 21: Yüzyıla Basın Tarihi,
Koloğlu mentions the Ottoman Telegraph Agency in only a single sentence.
Although he was a pioneer with his extensive research on Ottoman and Turkish
press history, his works are more or less descriptive, and lack the basics of a
scholarly work.
Unlike the rest of the works in this field, which focus on the history of the
communication and transportation systems in the Ottoman Empire, a recent
Philosophy of Arts dissertation by Servet Yanatma discusses the activities of the
international news agencies in the empire. Yanatma’s dissertation, entitled “The
29
International News Agencies in the Ottoman Empire (1854–1908)”, is an
argumentative work but it excludes the history of the Ottoman Telegraph Agency.
Some parts of this dissertation might be found rather descriptive, especially
the chapter on the Ottoman Telegraph Agency. Because there is no other
comprehensive work on the Ottoman Empire’s endeavor to establish a telegraph
agency, or on its semiformal news agency, the Ottoman Telegraph Agency, the
author of this dissertation felt the need to integrate all the information available on
the agency and its founders, and attempt to form a coherent whole.
1.4. Structure of the Dissertation
Chapter I explains the historical framework, states the dissertation’s argument,
introduces the archives the author has used for research, and reviews the published
works related to the dissertation.
Chapter II discusses relationships of Havas’, Wolff’s and Reuters’ with their
respective empires, and with others with whom they concluded secret agreements.
The chapter demonstrates that these three news agencies were only interested in
maximizing their profits, overcoming threats from each another, and having access
to news faster than any other agency.
Chapter III describes the foreign investments of the Reuter family. Starting
with the concession known as ‘the Reuter Concession’, granted by the Naser ed-Din
Shah, the Shah of Persia to Paul Julius Reuter in 1872, other members of the Reuter
family, Herbert Reuter and George Reuter, were also granted concessions. These
were the Greek Railway Concession, the Seoul Waterworks Concession and the
30
concession to create twenty “Burgos Agricolas” in Brazil. Also George Reuter was
the chairman of the Rexer Arms Company. Correspondence between the British
Foreign Office and Reuter family members regarding these investments reveal that
the Reuter family was seeking the aid of the British Foreign Office whenever they
experienced any disagreement with the foreign governments that had granted them
concessions. What is more striking is that Reuter family members were in a position
to suggest policies to the British Foreign Office, thus, placing themselves in great
power politics. This chapter shows that the news agency owners or stockholders
were in communication with their respective empires about investments, as well as
matters regarding news collection and distribution.
Chapter IV depicts the Ottoman Empire’s endeavor to establish a news
agency within its lands, connecting the imperial center with its distant territories
and promoting its image abroad, in order to overcome the challenges it was exposed
to by the Great Powers.
Chapter V gives detailed information on the Ottoman Telegraph Agency and
its founders, and a brief description of its successors, l’Agence Milli (the National
Telegraph Agency), La Turquie and l’Agence Orientale d’Informations.
Finally, Chapter VI mentions the different agendas of the foreign news
agencies and the Ottoman Empire.
31
CHAPTER II
HAVAS, WOLFF’S, REUTERS AND THE GOVERNMENTS
Havas, Wolff’s and Reuters had close relations with their respective
governments. But they were also ready to sign confidential contracts with foreign
governments to serve their interests so long as these governments were willing to
pay for their services. Nalbach stated that what the news agencies acquired with this
type of connection with their governments were “first crack at official information,
reduced rates and priority use of state telegraph and cable facilities, and special
subscriptions or outright subsidies”.65 Their gains were the same in their relations
with foreign governments. The relationship between Havas, Wolff’s and Reuters
with their home governments, as well as with foreign governments, will be
discussed and exemplified in this chapter.
To begin with, Havas always managed to maintain good relations with the
French government; this also helped it to avoid competition in France. A letter
written by Henri Houssaye, Director of Havas, to his Constantinople agent in 1909
65Alexander S. Nalbach, “’Poisoned at the Source?’ Telegraphic News Services and Big Business in
the Nineteenth Century,” Business History Review, vol. 77, no.4 (Winter 2003): 597.
32
shows how both the French government and Havas benefited from their close
contact, which was also relevant to Wolff’s and Reuters’ interaction with their
home governments, and reflects Havas’ opinion of its news service:
We are the first to be given certain news, certain notes, it is true,
and this constitutes an advantage for us to exploit; on the other
hand, in acting thus, the government has its ideas distributed, and
this is an advantage for it….We are not, in any way whatsoever, a
dependency of the ministry of Foreign Affairs; even more so, we
are not beholden in any way to this or that diplomat…we would
be the last to deny that one should try to accommodate the wishes
of the Embassy. But do not lose sight of the fact that we are and
must remain towards it and against everything absolutely
independent, because in the end, it is we who are responsible.
That said, do not forget either that we never fail to serve, to the
best of our ability, la politique française.66
In 1862, Auguste Havas suggested to the Ministry of the Interior that they send
them, on a daily basis, the news the French government wished to disseminate:
Above all, in the event of strikes or disorders, it would be well to
give us permission to communicate our version at once, without
waiting for a worse version to be sent to the newspapers.
Communicated by us, this version which, in reality, would be the
government’s, would not have an official link to it.67
Havas also suggested having a telegraph line between the cabinet and the agency
for this very purpose, and to be moderate in tailoring the news in order not to make
the newspapers suspect that the agency was sending them the official opinion of the
French government:
We must only be asked to act within the limits of moderation,
which will always have the effect of having our communications
accepted by newspapers of all shades of opinion; to act otherwise
would be to destroy a precious instrument with which one can
exercise the greatest influence possible at home and abroad.68
66 Ibid.
67 Nalbach, “The Ring Combination: Information, Power and the World News Agency Cartel,” PhD
Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1999, 106.
68 Ibid., 107.
33
The agency managed to stay in touch with the French government on a daily basis.
Furthermore, Auguste Havas succeeded in convincing the government that the
agency’s news service was sufficient to fulfill the purposes of the government. In
September 1862, Napoleon III forbade the founding of any new news agencies. In
1863, the agency was paid 24,000 francs by the government, and additional
subsidies were paid to twenty-one provisional newspapers, on average 2,000 francs
to each to help them pay their Havas subscriptions.69 The Ministry of the Interior’s
notes on Havas, when its journalism was under attack by the French press for
distorting news, reveals the close contact between Havas and the French
government. On 4 April 1869, the following comment was noted, underlying
Havas’ ongoing standing in relation to different French administrations:
It [Havas] receives from all the administrations information which
is of interest for subscribers and, in exchange, it gives the
government the opportunity for diffusing information which the
latter judges appropriate to propagate, without the government
having any responsibility for the publications made by the Agence
Havas.70
In another note, dated 15 April 1869, the Ministry of the Interior emphasized its
private relationship with Havas by stating that:
Havas is at all times in daily correspondence with the Ministry.
Each time that a denial or a correction, or a useful news item
should be placed in circulation without delay, [Havas] condenses
it in telegraphic form and distributes it throughout all of France.
Agreement has been reached so that this service is used more
frequently, and replace all communications which are not judged
convenient to make directly. One may judge the capital
importance of this means of rapid publicity by the fact that M.
Havas serves 307 newspapers.71
In July 1879, Havas was sold to Frédéric-Émile Erlanger, a German-Jewish
financier who had close relations with governments and diplomats:
69 Ibid.
70 Ibid., 240.
71 Ibid., 107.
34
He married the eldest daughter of United States Senator Slidell,
former Minister in Paris of the Confederacy…became the Consul
General for Greece in 1864...he earned the Cross of Isabelle-la-
Catholique, became a Knight of the Iron Crown (first class), and
grand officer and commander of almost all the Orders of Europe.
In 1878, he was named Knight of the Legion of Honour, and
became an officer in 1881. William I of Germany himself elevated
Erlanger to the rank of Baron. Erlanger became a leading member
of a curious French sect, the Saint-Simonians.72
Despite this, the close relationship between Havas and the French government
continued as before. In 1898, Erlanger became partners with Baron George de
Reuter, second son of Baron Paul Julius de Reuter, and Baron Herbert de Reuter,
managing director of Reuters (who had succeeded his father Baron Paul Julius de
Reuter in May 1878) in the construction of a Greek railway project which will be
discussed in detail in Chapter III. As will be shown in the next chapter, both the
Reuter family and Erlanger turned to their own imperial governments when they
had disagreements with the Greek government.
From 1905, which began a difficult time for Russian financial interests due
to the Russo–Japanese War, the Havas agency tried to distort or delay the news
coming from Russia as much as possible, with the French government’s approval
and support. Havas’ duty was to weather negative news from Russia in order to
calm down French investors and protect the Russian economy. On 1 March 1905,
Arthur Raffalovitch, the Russian economic journalist who was behind monitoring
and shaping the news on Russia in France, reviewed what had been done so far to
find a solution to temper the stock market after the loss of Port Arthur to the
Japanese:
We have taken action in the financial part of the newspapers, but
we have not interfered with the political section, regarding the
service of dispatches. …from the moment the censor allowed the
telegrams to pass, we could not stop the news from reaching Paris,
72 Ibid., 235.
35
London and Berlin; and even if it had stopped them, the news
would have come by other routes, and caused even more
damage.73
As a solution, Raffalovitch signed a three-month contract with Havas to soften the
news on Russia in return for a subsidy of 3,000 francs. In his letter to Cohen
Kokovtzev, the Russian Minister of Finance, Raffalovitch underlined the
importance of the service performed by Havas and the French press to legitimize
the payments he made, and convince the Russian government to continue making
these payments:
The internal events in Russia, the disturbances, mutinies and
massacres, created a very uneasy state of mind among the owners
of our securities in France, and it appeared that if the press were
left to its own devices it would not fail to upset the public even
further. …the outlook was so threatening that the Banque de Paris
put 50,000 francs at our disposal, which was used as follows:
10,000 to the Havas Agency, 7,000 francs to Hebrard of the
Temps, 4,000 to the Journal on 30 November, as much again on
30 December, plus Lenoir’s commission. The costly sacrifices to
Havas and the Temps are absolutely necessary….We must
continue the 100,000 francs for three months, and look forward to
paying Havas 10,000 francs for an even longer period.74
In 1907, Havas demanded an annual subscription of 5,000 francs per month from
the Russian Ministry of Finance. Raffalovitch advised a subscription for six months
with the following statements:
The service which Havas can render us is to inset the
communications which we have occasion to make, and if one
could have the certainty that it always inserts the communiques of
the Ministry of Finance, this would be worth a subscription of five
hundred francs per month, because there are times when one is
very much at a loss to get something through. Havas is the great
omnibus.75
73 Ibid., 241.
74 Ibid., 242.
75 Ibid., 244.
36
The minister agreed and Russian subsidies to Havas continued until the Revolution
of 1917. Havas also received subsidies from the Ottoman Empire for years, which
will be discussed in Chapter IV.
In February 1865, Reuters became a joint stock company called Reuter’s
Telegram Company (Limited) and, only a month later, it tried to establish a joint
office with Havas in Berlin, and to buy Wolff’s agency in cooperation with Havas.
Bernhard Wolff asked King Wilhelm I for help against Reuters. The king gave C.D.
von Oppenfeld, Viktor von Magnus and Gerson von Bleichröder, Berlin bankers,
the duty to become stockholders of a new share-holding company. On 20 May
1865, the Continental Telegraphen-Compagnie (Continental Telegraph Company)
was established and shortly afterwards it bought Wolff’s agency. The King,
Chancellor Bismarck and Gerson von Bleichröder were in charge of the new
company.76 Bleichröder, who had a majority of the shares, was described thus:
An ingenious Jewish financier and capitalist par excellence
Bleichröder the personal banker of the Iron Chancellor himself, an
intimate of the Rothschilds, adviser, lobbyist, kingmaker and
secret agent achieved a glittering political and social success in
the Germany of his day, becoming the first German Jew to be
raised to the ranks of hereditary nobility. Bleichröder was one of
the richest men in the world and a pronounced patriot…. 77
Despite his wealth, before taking part in its transformation Bleichröder examined
Wolff’s business records to see if the agency had the potential for future growth.
The fact that the stockholders of Wolff’s agency were Berlin bankers, and,
moreover, Bleichröder’s approach to buying stocks, is an indication that news
agency business was like any other business for the stockholders, who found a
personal interest in their investment.
76 Ibid., 108–12.
77 Ibid., 111.
37
Wolff’s shares were bought out with a separate agreement but he remained
as managing director of the new company until his retirement in 1871. Richard
Wentzel and one of his partners, Theodor Wimmel, were appointed as liable
directors for ten years by the Prussian state. The Continental received subsidies and
had official privileges, such as using the state telegraph system. In October 1874,
Bleichröder turned the Continental from a limited liability company into a public
company, reducing the state’s interference as it would no longer be able to appoint
liable directors, as public companies did not have such a post.78
Last but not the least, let us now discuss the agreements made between
Reuters and the British government, as well as other governments. Jonathan
Silberstein-Loeb accurately described Reuters from 1851 to 1930 as “a trading
company operating in news”.79 Its commodity was the news. In 1894 and 1895,
Reuters signed secret agreements with the British, Japanese and Ottoman
governments, and also received subsidies for decades from several others,
exemplifying the fact that news agencies were taking advantage of every
opportunity to maximize their profits, and not remaining in the service of any single
government. While the agreement between Reuters and the Ottoman Empire will be
discussed in Chapter IV, the rest of its agreements with the British Empire and other
states will be discussed here chronologically.
A Reuters’ office was established in Alexandria in 1866 and, for the next ten
years, Havas and Reuters jointly distributed bulletins in English and French.80 The
office was moved to Cairo in 1882 by Joseph Schnitzler, the chief agent.81 Having
78 Ibid., 224–27.
79 Jonathan Silberstein-Loeb, The International Distribution of News (New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2014), 165.
80 Graham Storey, Reuters’ Century, 1851-1951 (London: Max Parrish, 1951), 95.
81 Ibid.
38
criticized Havas in 1870 for receiving subsidies from the governments of Napoleon
III and the Turks, Reuters had been receiving subsidies from the Egyptian
government since at least as early as 1868 in the guise of a ‘subscription’. Gerald C.
Delany, Reuters’ general manager in Egypt, stated that they “took up the role of a
news agency in this country, on condition that the Government would support us in
various ways, principally as a subscriber to our telegrams, and the existence of our
organisation in this country depends upon the continuance of that support”.82 For
twenty-five years, 1,000 pounds a year was paid by the Egyptian government to
Reuters and Havas.83 Reuters’ cashbook from 1877 to 1893 shows that each month
in 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886 and 1887 the Egyptian government paid 85.9.4 pounds,
which added up to 1,031.28 a year.84. Besides receiving a subsidy from the
Egyptian government up to 1923, the agency also received subsidies regularly for
years from the Indian government, beginning in 1867. British colonial governments
in Africa were its other subsidy providers.85
In 1894, Reuters approached the British government with a similar
proposition made by Auguste Havas to the French Ministry of the Interior in 1862.
From 1894 to 1898, there was a secret agreement between the British government
and Reuters’ news agency in which the agency promised to forward its political
telegrams to a person designated by the Secretary of State as soon as they were
received, verify with the Foreign Office all ‘doubtful’ telegrams prior to publication
to prevent ‘mischief’ arising from the circulation of false news, compile
confidential reports from their agents and communicate them to the Foreign Office
82 Donald Read, The Power of News: The History of Reuters (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999), 66.
83 Nalbach, “Ring Combination,” 178.
84 Cashbook (1877–1893), 1/8911601, LN 462, Reuters Archive (hereafter cited as RA).
85 Read, Power of News, 66.
39
as soon as they were received, and observe the strictest secrecy in regard to the
origin of news communicated by the Foreign Office for publication.
In the first days of July 1894, Dr. Sigmund Engländer, Chief Editor of
Reuters established contact with the British Foreign Office to make an offer on
behalf of Reuters. Engländer’s first interview took place on 2 July 1894 with a
Foreign Office officer with the initials A.W. The agency’s proposal was to provide
“the foreign office with all the intelligence they receive from their agents all over
the world, much of it of a confidential nature and which is never published”, and the
agency also suggested that the Foreign Office should make use of the agency to
publish accurate information in foreign newspapers, or any statements the Foreign
Office might desire to be made known abroad.86 In order to prove the necessity of
this service offered by Reuters, Engländer underlined the importance of
disseminating news serving the interests of the British Empire:
Dr. Engländer, who has been in the service of Reuter’s agency
since I think he said the days of Lord Palmerstone, says that the
feeling against England abroad is a very bitter and hostile one, and
this in his opinion arises to some extent from ignorance of the
truth, and from the [?] news published in Foreign and Native
papers, and he urges the importance to the Foreign Office and this
country of taking measures to have true intelligence of our aims
and policy disseminated all over the world.87
He also claimed that “his agency would be able to get their communications
published in the local press anywhere, both through their own agents and thorough
other foreign news agencies with whom they are linked”.88 As if it were a company
in trade, Reuters tried to close a deal with the government to export its commodity,
the news. Another significant point is that it was Reuters which offered to modify
86 Confidential Report of A.W. regarding his conversation with Dr. Engländer, 3 July 1894, HD
3/97, National Archives (hereafter cited as NA.).
87 Ibid.
88 Ibid.
40
the news for the British government in favor of the British Empire. Apparently, the
Reuters family was taking advantage of contemporary world politics not only while
pursuing their foreign investments but also while selling news services. In the later
part of the conversation, Engländer suggested that the British government interfere
with the press and to use Reuters whilst doing so:
Dr. Engländer says that the day is past for indifference to
newspaper calumnies, which has been the traditional policy of this
country, and believes that much good could be done by
undertaking the services of their agency in some such way as he
proposes.89
Engländer received the response that his proposals would be laid before
Lord Kimberly, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and that if anything came of
the idea he would be informed. He was also told that any such connection with a
news agency was not in accordance with the practice of British government
departments and that it was doubtful whether they would make a new departure
such as he proposed. Not pleased with this response, Engländer stated that he hoped
to have an interview with Lord Kimberly himself.90
Engländer had his next meeting with Sir Thomas Henry Sanderson,
Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, on 12 July 1894:
He repeated his previous offer viz: that Reuter’s agency should
place at our disposal all their telegrams and also their private
correspondence (of which he said there was much containing
valuable information). They would further direct their agents’
attention abroad to any particular subject which we might at any
time indicate.
Finally, which he thought would be of great service, they would
be ready at any time to insert in the foreign Press, at any of the
principal European capitals, corrections on statements which we
might desire, without of course giving the source from which they
came.91
89 Ibid.
90 Ibid.
91 Report by Thomas Henry Sandeson, 13 July 1894, HD 3/97, NA.
41
The second meeting made it clearer that Reuters’ managers were offering to act as a
semi-formal agency of the government in secrecy. Secrecy was not only necessary
because the agency believed this was what the government would desire in order to
disseminate and impose its views unanimously so as to have a higher impact on
societies, but also because Reuters would lose its respectability and credibility.
Engländer did not give an exact price for the service, probably wishing to know first
the extent of the service for which the government would be willing to pay.
Sanderson reported that “he said they would ask nothing for supplying the
information which ordinarily came to them but the rest would require special
organisation and administrative changes which would incur expense, and this they
would ask to be re-paid”.92 Engländer’s response regarding the price of the service
demonstrates once again that Reuters proposed to act as an official organ of the
government and to reorganize its system to fulfil this purpose.
Engländer received the same response as he had before Sanderson told him
that he would speak to Lord Kimberly and that he should call the Foreign Office on
the 17th of July.93 He did so and was informed that Lord Kimberly did not find it
desirable to have any changes made in the organization of the agency in order to
accommodate the suggested special services. This was because he believed that
such a reorganization would make the arrangement between the government and the
agency known, or at least suspected, which would then cause any publications by
the agency to be regarded as semi-official and, thus, not be credited. Therefore,
Lord Kimberly decided “it should be much better that any increased interchange of
information should be tentative and experimental, and should for the present be
confined to the receipt by us of all telegrams or letters which the Agency thought
92 Ibid.
93 Ibid.
42
likely to be of interest, while we would communicate any corrections or information
which we thought useful for our purposes or for the purposes of the Agency”.94
To give an example, Sanderson entrusted to Engländer in confidence a
statement concerning the Harrar Convention which appeared in a Reuters’ telegram
from St. Petersburg. The telegram implied that the British Foreign Office had
communicated formally with Italy and had reached an agreement but the Russian
government had refused to recognize it. Sanderson told him that in fact this
information was inaccurate, and the fact was that the Foreign Office had not had
any communication on the subject, and that the discussions between the Italian and
Russian governments had been of an informal nature and had not been decisive.
Engländer immediately offered to correct it but Sanderson responded that it was not
worthwhile and that he had only given it as an instance of what might have been of
use to the agency. To clarify, with this arrangement, Reuters was putting itself
under governmental control by submitting telegrams it received from its sources
before sending them elsewhere or inserting them in its bulletins. The agency was
willingly exposing itself to government censorship. Engländer priced this service at
1,000 pounds, which was reduced to 500 pounds the next day by Baron Herbert de
Reuter.95
Information which Engländer provided Sanderson with, regarding a certain
person during interviews between the two, gives us an idea of what the content of
confidential reports might have been like. Engländer condemned Selim Faris for
being a secret agent of Abdülhamid II in London.96 Selim Faris was an owner of El-
Djawaib, a newspaper which was published in Constantinople from 1860 to 1885.
94 Lord Kimberley, 18 July 1894, HD 3/97.
95 Baron Herbert de Reuter to Sanderson, 17 July 1894, HD 3/97.
96 Report by Sanderson, 18 July 1894, HD 3/97.
43
Financed by the British government, in 1885, Faris closed down El-Djawaib to
establish a newspaper in Cairo named El-Kahira, which was to publish news in
accordance with British interests. El-Kahira began its publishing life in the British
government’s payroll under the guise of a ‘subscription’.97
Engländer also mentioned that Selim Faris “had recently received £2000
from the Sultan, was in receipt of £100 a month, and was asking for £20,000 in
order to bribe certain public officials”.98 Sanderson noted “all which is possible”.99
Besides offering Reuters the chance to become a semi-formal agency of the British
Empire, another thing Engländer proposed was to use the agency as an intelligence
organ of the British government, and its correspondents as if they were secret
service agents.
Disappointed with the Foreign Office’s response, Engländer stated that his
previous proposal had not been correctly understood and, therefore, he would
present it in a somewhat different form. In Sanderson’s words, Engländer’s
modified proposal was that:
…the Agency would supply to us all telegrams as fast as received
and all their private information. We might at any time inform
him or his assistant privately of any announcement we wished
made at any European capital on the bulletins of the Agency and it
would be done.100
As will be further discussed in Chapter III, for years the Ottoman Empire gave
payments to European news agencies with the expectation that they would
disseminate news to the Empire’s advantage, and there is archival evidence that, at
times, it was the news agencies themselves that approached Ottoman statesmen to
organize this. Reuters was one of these agencies that contacted the Ottoman
97 HD 3/66 1885.
98 Report by Sanderson, 18 July 1894, HD 3/97.
99 Ibid.
100 Ibid.
44
government in order to make an arrangement, while at the same time it was trying
to become a semi-formal agency of the British Empire. The agency was trying to
make secret arrangements with every government that was willing to agree to its
proposals, which would maximize their profits. One may judge the impossibility of
the Japanese, Ottoman and British governments having reciprocal interests that
could be satisfied at the same time, and it is very likely that there were many more
countries to which Reuters brought such proposals.
After these private and confidential communications, which took place
mostly between Dr. Engländer and Sir Thomas Henry Sanderson, Engländer’s
proposal was agreed on provisionally by Lord Kimberley, who had doubted the
usefulness of such an arrangement. Communications within the Foreign Office
demonstrate the hesitancy of Lord Kimberley:
I do not believe that any statements of ‘fact’ will have much
influence on the kind of foreign opinion to which Dr. Engländer
refers. This bitterness against us arises from jealousy, and it will
continue to exist as long as we hold our present position in the
world. Such jealousy always attends success whether private or
national.101
Despite this, he believed that the agency might be useful occasionally and accepted
the proposal. He stated: “we might however make use of the Agency where we
thought it desirable, without committing ourselves to a general scheme of patriotic
propaganda”.102
It was Lord Rosebery, the First Lord of the Treasury, who was in favor of
the proposal but he wanted “to be sure of Reuters’ power to obtain access to foreign
papers”.103 “The enormous injury done by the Havas agency” was one of the
reasons he was in favor of experimenting using the services of Reuters. He also
101 Note of Lord Kimberley, 6 July 1894, HD 3/97.
102 Ibid.
103 Note of Lord Rosebery, 8 July 1894, HD 3/97.
45
stated that “we should not be too much hampered by tradition in endeavouring to
cope with it”.104 He proposed a trial run of Reuters’ services for a year in secrecy:
I should be inclined to try Reuter’s proposal experimentally for
one year. Of course he must be told that the arrangement must
remain absolutely secret. The moment the idea became known
that the F. O. had anything to do with Reuter’s telegrams the
experiment must ipso facto cease.105
However, Lord Kimberly decided to try the arrangement for six months, beginning
from the 1st August 1894.106 The agreement between Reuters and the British
Foreign Office had six articles, as listed by Baron Herbert de Reuter:
1. That the Company shall forward its political telegrams to the
person designated by the Secretary of State as soon as received. 2.
That the Company shall do its best to verify at the Foreign Office all
doubtful telegrams prior to publication so as to prevent the mischief
arising from the circulation of false news. 3. Confidential reports
from our Agents will be compiled under the supervision of
Engländer, who will himself supplement them from time to time, all
of which will be communicated to the Foreign Office as soon as
received. Special care will be taken by Dr. Engländer to introduce
into these reports matters of particular interest to the British
Government. 4. The Company pledges itself to observe the strictest
secrecy in regard to the origin of news communicated by the Foreign
Office for publication. 5. To defray the expenses entailed on the
Company by these arrangements the Foreign Office agrees to pay
Reuter’s Telegram Company ₤500. (Five hundred pounds) per
annum. 6. The provisional arrangement to continue in force for six
months as from the 1st of August next.107
Sanderson was given the duty to receive the political telegrams sent by the
company.108 Baron Herbert de Reuter received a cheque for ₤125 on 30 July 1894
which was sent on the 28th in advance as the payment for the first three months.109
Examination of a confidential agency report reveals that Reuters’ employees
and manager acted like secret service agents for the British Empire. In a
104 Ibid.
105 Lord Rosebery to the Foreign Office, 19 July 1894, HD 3/97.
106 Sanderson to Baron Herbert de Reuter, 26 July 1894, HD 3/97.
107 Reuter to Sanderson, 26 July 1894, HD 3/97.
108 Sanderson to Reuter, 28 July 1894, HD 3/97.
109 Reuter to Sanderson, 30 July 1894, HD 3/97.
46
confidential report, dated 22 October 1897, Baron Herbert de Reuter informed the
British Foreign Office about instructions received by Costaki Paşa, Turkish
Ambassador in London. The letter reported that Costaki Paşa was ordered to win
the sympathy of Lord Salisbury and find means to bring about a reconciliation with
England. The reason was that the Sultan “does not feel quite at ease at present,
situated as he is between France and Russia, and is extremely anxious to secure
once more English official favour and support”.110 To achieve this, the Sultan
ordered the granting of concessions to British subjects:
A privilege that has been studiously withheld of late, and a case
indeed has quite recently arisen in the matter of the Bayrouth
Waterworks, which concession was given to a Turkish subject on
condition that it was not transferred to any French Company but to
an English group, and I understand that the business has been in
principle acquired by some English capitalists for £15,000.111
Baron Herbert de Reuter also noted another piece of information he discovered
concerning the Ottoman Empire’s policy: “the immediate object of the Sultan’s
desire to conciliate England is to secure the withdrawal of Sir Philip Currie, and if
Costaki Pacha’s negotiations turn out favourably that will be one of the first points
for which the Ambassador will plead as the first fruits of an eventual
rapprochement”.112 This type of information was hardly the kind that a news
agency, or any press organization, would provide to their subscribers. Yet this
arrangement was being referred to as a subscription by the parties. The agreement
continued to be renewed annually until 1898.
In January 1898, Lord Salisbury decided to cease the subscription because of
news disseminated by Reuters concerning Port Arthur. Sanderson communicated an
explanation from Reuters to the Foreign Office about the incident. The agency’s
110 Reuter to Sanderson, 22 October 1897, HD 3/105.
111 Ibid.
112 Ibid.
47
statement was that the information had been given by the Russian Foreign Office on
Friday at midnight, and then the agency submitted the message to the English
papers and also telegraphed it to Durban and Bombay, and from Bombay the
telegram was sent to Peking. The agency’s defense was that “the wording of the
message to Bombay differed somewhat from the communication made to the
English press”.113
Reuters’ agent asked Sanderson if it might not be desirable to correct this
announcement with a statement, and Sanderson gave him one which was later
inserted in the London papers on Monday morning. However, the statement that
Sanderson gave to Reuters was telegraphed to Bombay on Monday which meant a
delay in its printing in newspapers. Also, when the message arrived in Bombay on
Monday it had been shortened: “Officially explained visit and departure British
warships Port Arthur, merely ordinary cruising movements.”114 Reuters’ mistake in
circulating undesirable news for the British Foreign Office, and its inability to
correct it timely and properly, caused a cancellation of the secret agreement
between the two. It was decided to forward a check for £83.6.8 in payment up to 31
March 1898, after which date the subscription would cease.115 Displeased with the
news disseminated by the agency, Salisbury noted “we also won’t pay £500 a year
to get this kind of treatment”.116
As stated earlier, the agencies not only had relations with their respective
governments but also with foreign governments; Reuters’ agreement with the
Japanese government is an example. Around the same time Reuters concluded an
agreement with the British government, the company also signed another one on 26
113 Report of Sanderson, 29 January 1898, HD 3/109.
114 Ibid.
115 Draft Letter to Reuter, 31 January 1898, HD 3/109.
116 Salisbury’s Note in Report of Sanderson, 29 January 1898, HD 3/109.
48
July 1894 with the Japanese government, which resembled the secret agreement that
had been made with the British Foreign Office. Hence, Reuters was negotiating
with both the British and Japanese governments at the same time, and both
agreements were designed to come into effect from the 1st of August 1894. The
parties in the agreement were Viscount Aoki, the Minister Plenipotentiary of the
Emperor of Japan representing the government of Japan, and Engländer on behalf
of Reuters. It was agreed that Viscount Aoki would communicate to “Reuter’s
Telegram Company exclusively all telegrams of his Government destined for
publication containing facts, official comments, denials, documents etc. and will
cause his Government to send his special telegrams on political and military events
and measures of reform the publication of which will be useful to a better
understanding of the progress of Japan”.117 In return, Reuters promised to
“communicate their political telegrams before publication and also such extracts of
the private reports received from their different correspondents as may have direct
or indirect interest for Japan”.118 Moreover, Reuters was to “act in their respective
spheres as the intermediaries for the financial and commercial requirements of
Japan”.119 For these services, the Japanese government agreed to pay 600 pounds
annually starting from the 1st of August 1894, in equal monthly instalments of fifty
pounds. The agreement was made for a fixed term of one year from August 1894.120
Reuters managed to secure subsidies from the British government by
convincing it of the indispensability of its news service in areas where the cost was
more than the profit. In this way Reuters was securing its influence in distant
territories and preserving its prestigious position among the other news agencies
117Agreement with the Japanese government, 26 July 1894, 1/8714059, LN 238, RA.
118 Agreement, 1/8714059, LN 238, RA.
119 Ibid.
120 Ibid.
49
with its large news network. The North China service of the agency is an example
of this policy. In July 1909 it was explained to Sir John Jordan, the British Minister
in Peking, by Arthur Cotter, Reuters’ correspondent, that Reuters’ news service in
North China was being run with a significant deficit and that the service would have
to be discontinued, owing to the loss suffered by the company, unless a subsidy was
forthcoming to enable the company to justify its continuance.121 Cotter explained
that the company was experiencing a profit loss because of a change in telegram
rates. Up to 1908, the company enjoyed special privileges from the Imperial
Chinese Telegraph Administration. Reuters was paying a low rate for the
transmission of messages and, in return, certain high Chinese officials were
receiving copies of Reuters’ telegrams for free. Towards the end of 1907, the
company was informed by the Imperial Telegraph Administration, through its
representative in Peking, that the special rates the company enjoyed until now had
to end and a new arrangement would be made.122 The reasons for this new
arrangement were because Chinese newspaper correspondents had complained that
a foreign news agency was receiving greater privileges for the transmission of news
than they were, as Reuters’ rate was four cents a word and their rate ten and a half
cents. Moreover, the German Legation was pressuring the Chinese government on
behalf of the subsidized German agency Ostasiatischer Lloyd, which wanted to
have the same privileges as the British agency and extend the German service
throughout the Empire, supplying German news gratis to high officials in return for
facilities for transmission of their messages over the Chinese lines.123
121 Sir John Jordan to Sir Edward Grey, 7 July 1909, FO 371/640, NA.
122 Arthur Cotter, “Memorandum on Reuter’s Service in North China” (Enclosure in J. Jordan’s letter
of 7 July 1909), 3 Aug 1909, FO 371/640, file no: 29064, 10 November 1909.
123 Ibid.
50
In the end, the Chinese authorities did not grant them the same privileges
enjoyed by Reuters but offered both agencies the same rate, twelve cents a word.
They were only granted “favourable rates” for their service to the city of Hankow.
Reuters accepted the rate of twelve cents and expressed its intention to Mr.
Dressing, Chief Superintendent and Foreign Advisor of the Imperial Chinese
Telegraph Administration, to continue giving copies to certain officials. Because of
this increased rate, the company increased the subscription to their news service by
fifty percent, which cost them the majority of their subscribers in Tientsin and
Peking.124
Cotter’s suggestion was “that perhaps His Majesty’s Government might
come to the rescue by subscribing a small sum which might justify the continuance
of the service”.125 Cotter further proposed that Edward Grey and Baron Herbert de
Reuter meet to decide on the amount, for Reuter “would not mention any definite
sum, but suggested that it would be easy for you to arrange this in London with
Baron de Reuter, the Managing Director of the Company”. 126
Sir John Jordan gave his opinion in favor of a continuance of Reuter’s news
service in North China, stating at the same time that if Reuters’ news service were
discontinued, the British and foreign communities would be dependent for their
news on the German agency:
As newspapers travel round by long sea taking about six weeks, we
are entirely dependent for news of what is happening in Europe on
the Reuter Agency or the subsidized German Agency, which
naturally gives a German colouring to the news it disseminates. The
Reuter service here has been maintained for twenty years, and I
consider that its disappearance would be a real loss to us, and I
should be sorry indeed to see all the native papers of the Capital
124 Ibid.
125 Ibid.
126 Ibid.
51
and of Tientsin dependent on the German Agency for all news of
events in Europe.127
The subsidized German agency referred to in the correspondence was the
Continental. Growing tension between the states and a polarization in world politics
at the time were reflected in these correspondence exchanges which speak of
“subsidized German Agency” and “German colouring” in the news.
The meeting suggested by Cotter took place between Reuter and William
George Tyrrell in London. Baron Herbert de Reuter demanded 200 pounds stating
that although he did not want to insist, it was the actual loss the agency suffered
from their North China service. He added that they did not feel justified in
continuing a service which they were running at a loss.128 In fact, Reuter was
pushing the British government to pay 200 pounds by emphasizing that it was
unjustifiable to keep a service which caused the agency to lose money. He was well
aware that it was highly undesirable for the British government to have a German
agency as the sole source of information in an area. As will be further discussed in
the next chapter concerning the Reuter family enterprises, family members were
taking advantage of the tensions between the Great Powers in order to impose
policies favorable towards their investment interests. Similarly, in this case, the
company emphasized the existence of a German agency in competition with
Reuters, which would take over the news market in North China if Reuters were to
withdraw.
Tyrrell stated in his report that the British state would gain from preventing
Reuters’ service from closing down in North China.129 It was decided on 20 August
127 Jordan to Grey, 7 July 1909, FO 371/640.
128 William George Tyrrell, Minutes on Sir J. Jordan’s Dispatch No. 243 of 7 July 1909, 20 August
1909, HD 3/138, NA.
129 Ibid.
52
1909 by Sir Edward Grey that a subsidy not exceeding 200 pounds a year should be
given by the British Minister in Peking to Reuters to cover its present losses and
facilitate the continuation of its news service in North China. Sir Jordan was
officially notified of this arrangement and his duty on 2 September 1909. On 10
November 1909, Reuters’ London office was informed that Mr. Cotter, Reuters’
Peking agent, was authorized to present a quarterly account to the British
Legation.130 Significantly, now that the British government was covering losses
incurred by Reuters’ North China service, Sir Jordan was instructed by the
government “to co-operate in disseminating accurate news favourable to British
policy in the Far East or calculated to correct false and unfavourable reports”.131
Reuters’ secretary wrote to Tyrrell on 4 November 1909 thanking him for his
effective intervention regarding the North China news service, and informing him
that Mr. Cotter was instructed to render a quarterly account to the Legation. He
referred to the payment as a subscription, which clearly it was not. It was a subsidy
as can be observed from negotiations between the government and the agency,
Foreign Office communications, and British government representatives’
expectations from this arrangement. His statement, “we learn with much pleasure
from our Peking correspondent that the British Minister has been authorised to
subscribe £200 per annum towards our news service to North China”,132 was
carefully penned for official records to declare the 200 pounds subsidy as a
subscription. Moreover, encouraged by the recent arrangement with the
government, he took advantage of the occasion and mentioned another wish of the
agency, that of gaining the ownership of the facilities the agency used in Peking:
130 Memorandum, 10 November 1909, HD 3/138.
131 Tyrrell, Minutes, 20 August 1909, HD 3/138.
132 Secretary of Reuters to Tyrrell, 4 November 1909, HD 3/138.
53
“Mr. Cotter added that from the friendly attitude of Sir John Jordan he was led to
hope that the news facilities upon which we set so great [a] store will be vouchsafed
to him in future”.133
In 1911, Reuters was hired by the British government to promote itself in
the British colonies. Asquith’s liberal government made an agreement with Reuters
for the circulation of the complete speech reports of the Ministers.134 Alexander
Murray, the Chief Whip explained to Winston Churchill, First Lord of the
Admiralty, in his letter dated 30 November 1911, what he hoped to gain from his
arrangement with the agency:
Under my arrangement with Reuters, by which from time to time
important speeches delivered by Ministers are cabled to British
Colonies and Possessions all over the world…I have now in this
manner dealt with certain speeches of Asquith, Grey, Lloyd George
and I am hoping that this system will give the Colonies the true idea
of liberal statesmanship.135
On 4 July 1911, Dickinson, Reuters’ chief editor, explained to Roderick Jones, the
general manager in South Africa, the benefits of the agreement:
It is a great advantage to us to act on these occasions as the handmaid
of the Government. Our doing so strengthens our position in
this country very considerably, and, at the same time, it shows to
those in authority, who have it in their power to be agreeable or
disagreeable to ourselves, that our great organization can be of
infinite value to them.136
The owners of the three European news agencies were businessmen who were
in the news business because it was profitable. Not only did they profit from the
incomes of their news agencies, but they also established or preserved their position
in society by means of their news agency ownership. They sought to maximize the
133 Ibid.
134 Read, Power of News, 93.
135 Murray to Churchill, 30 November 1911, CHAR 13/1/37–39, 29 Nov. 1911–30 Nov.
1911, Churchill Archive.
136 Read, Power of News, 93.
54
profit of their agencies and overcome competition by making agreements with
governments, both domestic and foreign. Despite any governmental changes, these
three European news agencies tried to remain in close contact with their domestic
governments.
It is not possible to know how many business connections of the news agency
owners were known about by the Ottoman Empire. However, from the archival
material this much can be said: the Empire was informed about the Reuter
Concession and the Bank Concession of the Reuter family. As will be further
discussed in Chapter IV, Ottoman statesmen continuously complained for decades
that European news agencies only served their governments. This is not an
inaccurate analysis concerning the nature of the news disseminated by Havas,
Wolff’s and Reuters based on an examination of the correspondence between the
agencies and government representatives, as has been carried out in this chapter.
55
CHAPTER III
THE REUTER FAMILY’S ENTERPRISES AND THE BRITISH
EMPIRE
Baron Paul Julius de Reuter, the founder of Reuters, and his family were
first and foremost news agency owners. However, their business involved more
than the mere conveyance of news, for the family sought to muster and exert
political force. Reuter, a German immigrant, established his life in the British
Empire in 1851 at the age of thirty-five. In 1865, he began to build a telegraph cable
between Lowestoft, in Suffolk, and Norderney, a north German island.137 The
telegraph line was later sold to the British Government in 1868 for a high profit, as
part of the nationalization of the internal telegraph lines of Britain.138 It was bought
for 726,000 pounds, five times more than its original cost of 153,000 pounds.139 In
1871, Reuter bought the title of Baron from the Duke of Coburg Gotha, and on 6
November 1891, he was recognized as Baron von Reuter by a Royal Warrant.140
137 Silberstein-Loeb, International Distribution, 187.
138 Storey, Reuters’ Century, 45.
139 Nalbach, “Ring Combination,” 136.
140 Memorandum by R.C. Dickie, “Railways in Persia: The Reuter Concession of 1872,” 11 February
1911, FO 371/1185, file no: 3606, no: 6824, 23 February 1911, NA.
56
He gained his wealth and influence through news reporting and distribution
and, shortly thereafter, became a capitalist investor who was able to secure
concessions all over the world. His close ties with both domestic and foreign
governments allowed him and his family to influence governments’ policies.
Through these ties, the family was granted two extensive concessions: the Reuter
Concession, granted by the Persian government to Baron Julius de Reuter in 1872,
and another granted by the Greek government to Baron George de Reuter’s
company in 1900 for the construction of the Piraeus–Larissa Railway. The family
also gained another two concessions: one was to build villages in Brazil, and the
other to construct waterways in Seoul. The family also had an arms business called
the Rexer Arms Company of which China was a client. Baron George de Reuter
was in charge of those investments which were not within the scope of news
business. These investments shall be discussed later in this chapter in order to reveal
the family’s connections with the British government, following a discussion on the
Reuter Concession in Persia and the Piraeus–Larissa Concession in Greece.
The chapter is a case study to show that news agency owners and
stockholders were in contact with their imperial centers concerning their foreign
investments. Also, the chapter discloses that the news business was only one of the
sectors they invested in. They were investors, seeking to maximize their profits and
secure their investments by all means, including taking part in international politics.
Having discussed relations of the news agencies with governments in the previous
chapter, in this chapter, the connections of their owners with imperial governments
will be exemplified through investments of the Reuter family.
On 25 July 1872, Baron Julius de Reuter was granted “for a period of
seventy years, the exclusive and definitive concession of a line of railway extending
57
from the Caspian Sea to the Persian Gulf, with the exclusive and definitive right of
constructing branch lines” by the Persian government for a yearly payment of
twenty percent of the net profits of the working of the line.141 He was also granted
the right to build and operate tramways, work all the mines (except those of
precious stones), construct waterways and sell water, and manage and generate
revenue from forests and uncultivated lands. The Persian government also granted
him the right to collect tariffs in the Empire for twenty years starting from the 1st of
March 1874 in return for payment to the government “the sum now paid by the
contractors for the Customs, and in addition a yearly premium of 500,000 fr.
[20,000l. sterling]” for the first five years, and for the remaining fifteen years, the
premium of 500,000 fr. was to be “exchanged for a premium of 60 percent on the
net profits over and above the contract price”.142 Reuter also received preferential
rights with regards to future enterprises and also the right to form a national bank.143
Lord Curzon, Conservative politician and member of the parliament
depicted the concession as one “without parallel”.144 He further stated: “when
published to the world, it was found to contain the most complete and extraordinary
surrender of the entire industrial resources of a kingdom into foreign hands that has
probably ever been dreamed of, much less accomplished, in history”.145 This
concession was later withdrawn by the Persian government owing to unrest among
the ruling class who were displeased with the terms of the agreement.
This unrest came against the backdrop of escalating British–Russian distrust
in Persia, hostilities caused by Russian land conquests in Central Asia. Russia began
141 “Reuter Concession of 25 July 1872 (Text)”, FO 371/1185.
142 “Reuter Concession,” FO 371/1185.
143 Ibid.
144 Mateo Mohammad Farzaneh, The Iranian Constitutional Revolution and the Clerical Leadership
of Khurasani (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2015), 46.
145 George Nathaniel Curzon, Persia and the Persian Question (London: Longmans, Green, and Co.,
1892), 480.
58
embarking upon the steady acquisition of territory in Central Asia in the latter part
of the nineteenth century, after redrawing territory with Persia in Transcaucasia on
the River Arax in the Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1828.146 The Russian Empire,
unable to fulfil its aspiration of having access to the Mediterranean, found land in
which to expand in Central Asia while the great European powers were occupied
with the Eastern Question.147 Britain regarded Russian advances in Central Asia as
dangerous to India’s security. For Persia, however, Russian advances jeopardized
her own territorial integrity. In 1895, Russian expansion in northern Persia and
Afghanistan ended with the signing of the Pamirs Agreement, dissipating the
possibility of an armed confrontation between Britain and Russia.148
In the context of simmering British–Russian hostilities in Persia, Naser ed-
Din, the Shah of Persia, took advantage of the Reuter Concession in order to
sidestep Russia’s railway construction demands. The Shah used it to play one great
power against the other to protect his sovereignty. On the other hand, while the
British Empire was trying to maintain a balance of power with Russia in the region
at that time, the British government used the concession to prevent others from
entering the region and building railways (especially in the southern part of Persia),
something Britain was able to do even without backing the Reuter Concession
officially.
In the midst of these Russian and British power plays, another significant
figure emerged in the diplomatic landscape. The Reuter family had been following
the twists and turns of world politics, considering how to pursue and guarantee their
146 Gerald Morgan, Anglo-Russian Rivalry in Central Asia, 1810-1895 (New York: Frank Cass,
2006), 38–50. Madhavan K. Palat and Anara Tabyshalieva (eds.), History of Civilizations of Central
Asia, Towards the Contemporary Period: From the Mid-nineteenth to the End of the Twentieth
Century, vol. VI (Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 2005), 103.
147 Morgan, Anglo-Russian Rivalry, 38–50.
148 Ibid., 216.
59
interests. The family saw a path of influence over the political powers in policy
making, and sought advantages for itself from political conditions. In western Asia,
Baron Reuter sought the official support of the British government by taking
advantage of Russian and British conflicts of interest over Persia, not long after
reaching an agreement with the Persian government. A memorandum,149 prepared
by Robert Charles Dickie, demonstrates that the concession was at the center of
most conflicts pertaining to railway construction in Persia. According to the
memorandum, the British Foreign Office denied official support to Reuter in 1872
because of “the vastness of the Concession which had rendered its eventual
annulment practically certain, and the possibility of international trouble in view of
the political developments which would follow if such a Concession were supported
by Diplomatic intervention”.150 Indeed, the Russian Empire regarded the concession
as a threat and an attempt to shift the balance of power in Persia in favor of the
British Empire. Although British diplomats tried to convince their Russian
counterparts that the concession was a result of Reuter’s own private initiative, the
Russian government worked to see it annulled and to remove from power Mirza
Hoseyn Khan, the Sadrazam, who had negotiated with Reuter.151
Reuter’s plans were not limited to having unbridled access to the natural
resources and infrastructure construction in Persia. He had the intention to construct
a line from the Ottoman Empire to India, passing through Persia. On 27 April 1873,
his representatives applied for a permit to construct a railway line from Üsküdar to
149 The report was compiled in 1911 after the signing of the Potsdam Agreement between Germany
and Russia to review the history of the conflict between Britain and Russia over constructing railway
lines and forming policy in light of the recent turn of events.
150 Memorandum by R.C. Dickie, FO 371/1185, NA.
151 Firuz Kazemzadeh, Russia and Britain in Persia, 1864-1914: A Study in Imperialism
(Binghamton: Yale University Press, 1968), 116.
60
India.152 The Ottoman Empire did not accept Reuter’s proposal on the grounds that
the route and construction technology had not been declared, and it was
acknowledged by a decree that only the Ottoman Empire could construct railways
in Anatolia and Rumelia.153
Before Reuter, the concession had been offered to Dr. Strousberg and, later,
to Sir E. Watkin by Persian officials who were seeking to make a profit from it. The
first Concessionaire, Dr. Strousberg, who was a financier, experienced difficulties
with the Persian government while trying to build a line from Tehran to the shrine
of Shah Abdul Azim. He gave up his rights at the cost of the payment of caution
money, 4,000 pounds.154
Later, it was offered to Sir E. Watkin in 1871 but, this time, the scope of the
concession was to construct railways and exploit mines in Persia for a period of
twenty-five years. Having informed the Foreign Office that the Persian Minister had
approached him with the offer, Watkin asked for official support from the British
government and received a negative response, as Her Majesty’s Government:
…considered it undesirable to give any official countenance to
this scheme, as it was not believed that Persia seriously desired
any such development as was foreshadowed in the Concessions,
but that the real object of the Shah’s Ministers was the making of
those profits which are incidental to the negotiation of great
contracts, and the acquisition by the Persian Government of a
short railway from Tehran to Shah Abdul Azim (the shrine) at the
cost of the Concessionnaire.155
After the signing of the Reuter Concession, the Shah went to Europe. During
his absence, “elements of opposition, discordant in their nature, but each of
considerable power, had confederated to force the Grand Vizier from office, and for
152 A. MKT.MHM, D: 453, G: 23, 29.S.1290, Başbakanlık Osmanlı Arşivi (hereafter cited as BAO).
153 A. MKT.MHM, D: 454, G: 15, 15.Ra.1290, BAO, A.MKT.MHM, D: 454, G:75, 21.Ra.1325,
BAO.
154 Memorandum by Dickie, FO 371/1185, NA.
155 Memorandum, FO 371/1185.
61
the first time in the present reign the authority of the sovereign was set at
naught”.156 When the Shah returned to Persia, he found “a protest movement,
verging on revolt in some areas, directed against the concession and the prime
minister who had suggested it”,157 placing the Shah’s crown in jeopardy.158
Opposition to the Reuter Concession and the Grand Vizier consisted of:
Firstly, the reigning Sultana….Secondly, the fanatical party
headed by the Ulema and the Finance Minister who repudiated
any attempt to Europeanize Persia, and denounced the Grand
Vizier on this account as a traitor to his country. Thirdly, the
Princes of the Blood, …who had suffered innumerable personal
affronts at the hands of the minister, fourthly, the Russian party in
a body, guided by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, who was,
moreover, a personal rival of the Grand Vizier’s; and fifthly, the
so-called national party, inspired and led by Ferhad Mirza who
had been left by the Shah as Regent at Teheran, and who,
although…loyal to his sovereign, had been nevertheless provoked
almost to frenzy by the threatened Reuter monopoly of Persian
industry and commerce. Before these antagonists the Grand Vizier
fell…159
Shortly after the cancellation of the Reuter Concession in early November 1873, the
fallen Grand Vizier was given a new position at the Shah’s court as the Minister of
Foreign Affairs.160
Reuter’s agent was informed of the concession’s withdrawal by the Persian
government on 5 November 1873.161 The Russian Empire might have fuelled
opposition to the concession among the elites and the public; however, it was the
text itself which ensured its own demise. Nevertheless, when Baron George de
Reuter, as his father’s representative, signed the Bank Concession in 1889 in place
of the original concession, he secured significant rights for the Reuter family. Its
156 Henry Rawlinson, England and Russia in the East (London: John Murray, 1875), 133.
157 Nikki R. Keddie, Religion and Rebellion in Iran: The Tobacco Protest of 1891-1892 (London:
Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1966), 5.
158 Rawlinson, England and Russia, 129.
159 Ibid.
160 Kazemzadeh, Russia and Britain in Persia, 120–25.
161 Memorandum, FO 371/1185.
62
crucial points were as follows: the grant of an ‘Imperial Bank of Persia’ for sixty
years, exclusive rights to issue bank notes and serve as the Treasury, and the right to
monopolize all mines, except gold and silver, not already under concession and
being worked.162 Baron George de Reuter became one of the directors of the
Imperial Bank of Persia;163 with the Bank Concession, the Reuter family was able to
preserve its Persian economic interests.
As a non-political player in this matter, the Reuter family was trying to rally
official support from the British government while pursuing its interests in Persia by
exploiting political tension between Britain and Russia. On 12 September 1872,
Baron Julius de Reuter wrote a letter to Lord Granville, Gladstone’s Foreign
Secretary, asking the government to recognize the validity of his scheme, and
protect his rights if disagreements were to surface between the Persian government
and himself.164 The Baron expressed his desire to serve Great Britain with this
concession, noting that “in undertaking this gigantic task it is not only my earnest
desire both to improve the social condition of the Persians, and to open up the great
natural resources of their country for the benefit of the world at large, but also to
render my concession of the highest value to Great Britain”.165
In addition, he made a point of reminding Granville of the struggle between
the British and Russian Empires with regard to Persia, emphasizing that the
Russians had been ahead of the British in terms of transportation in the region. It
was also his intention to highlight the importance of his concession in contemporary
politics:
162 Memorandum, FO 371/1185.
163 Storey, Reuters’ Century, 85.
164 Baron Julius de Reuter to Lord Granville, 12 September 1872, FO 60/405, 22 December 1873,
NA.
165 Reuter to Granville, FO 60/405.
63
The Select Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to
consider the question of a railway to the East, recommend to
speedy commencement of a line by the Euphrates Valley route.
Your Lordship is, doubtless, aware that the Russians are making
great progress with their railways toward the Caspian Sea, having
already partly completed three lines, each leading in that direction.
One route, viz. that from St. Petersburgh, via Moscow, to the Sea
of Azoff is open for traffic. A second one, from Dunaburg, via
Orel, to Zarazijn, on the Volga, is likewise in working order; the
journey thence to Astrachan, on the Caspian Sea, being performed
in two days only by steamer. There is, moreover, a third line
already complete, from Moscow to Zarazijn direct, which will
hereafter be extended to Astrachan.166
Baron Julius de Reuter received the response that “whilst Her Majesty’s
Government would view with satisfaction the efforts of the Shah’s Government to
increase by means of railways and roads, the resources of Persia, they cannot bind
themselves officially to protect your interests whilst carrying out your engagements
with that Government”.167
When details of the concession became public on 5 July 1873 in an article in
The Times, members of the government began a discussion. Lord Carnarvon,
Secretary of State for the Colonies (1874–1878), re-evaluated what the concession
meant for India’s security. He discussed the matter with Lord Derby, the Foreign
Secretary (1874–1878); Derby was not in favor of Reuter’s scheme, and described
his opposition to it in a conversation with Carnarvon on 7 July 1873:
Walk with Carnarvon on the terrace for an hour: he inclined to
take up the Euphrates valley line, which appears to be in some
way, not clearly explained, connected with Reuter’s schemes for
Persia: I dissuaded him: it is possible (though for my own part I
do not see it) that the thing might succeed, but without the
guarantee of the British parliament, it could not be attempted, and
166 Reuter to Granville, FO 60/405.
167 Viscount Enfield to Baron Julius de Reuter, 15 October 1872, FO 60/405, 22 December 1873,
NA.
64
it is quite certain that under present circumstances no such
guarantee will be given.168
Derby was soon to refuse Reuter’s demand for support against the Persian
government. Lord Carnarvon also discussed the matter with Sir Stafford Northcote,
conservative politician (1851–1885), on 13 July 1872:
Had a long talk with Northcote in the afternoon mainly on the
Persian question of Reuter’s concession. He was on the cautious
side as I expected but able, clear and open to all fair argument.169
A couple of months later, on 5 November 1873, Henry M. Collins, Reuter’s
agent in Tehran, was informed of the withdrawal of the concession by the Persian
government on the grounds of non-observance of Article 8, meaning that Reuter
had not commenced work within fifteen months of the date of the contract.170
William Taylour Thomson, the British Minister in Tehran, observed:
…that it was clear that the intention of the Persian Govt. was not
simply to get rid of what they considered to be a contract bad
commercially and financially, but to extricate themselves from a
disastrous political crisis fomented by foreign influence amongst a
bigoted priesthood and the personal enemies of the Persian Prime
Minister to such an extent as to threaten almost the stability of the
throne.171
When it was cancelled, Reuter once again sought the support of the British
government but was notified that Lord Derby:
…looked upon the undertaking as a private one in which H.M.G.
could not interfere, and although he was prepared to instruct H.
M. Minister at Tehran to obtain for Baron Reuter’s representations
at Tehran the same hearing to which the representations of any
British Subject who had entered into a contract with the Persian
Government would be entitled, H.L. [His Lordship] could not
168 John Vincent (ed.), A Selection from the Diaries of Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby
(1826-93), between September 1869 and March 1878, Camden Fifth Series, vol. 4 (London: Royal
Historical Society, 1994), 141.
169 Peter Gordon (ed.), The Political Diaries of the Fourth Earl of Carnarvon, 1857-1890, Colonial
Secretary and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Camden Fifth Series, vol. 35 (London: Royal Historical
Society, 2009), 203.
170 Memorandum, FO 371/1185, NA.
171 Thomson in Memorandum, 8 November 1873, FO 371/1185, 23 February 1911, NA.
65
authorise or instruct him to use any diplomatic influence or good
offices on Baron Reuter’s behalf except in that respect.172
Despite Carnarvon’s favorable opinion, Derby did not alter his thinking on the
Reuter Concession’s future.
The British government made use of the Reuter Concession after having
denied official support for its implementation in order to prevent the Russian
Empire from gaining a concession from the Persian government and disturbing the
delicate status quo. The Russian government then began urging the Persians to grant
a railway concession to a Russian general, Baron von Falkenhagen, following the
withdrawal of Reuters. In 1874, Falkenhagen submitted a draft of a concession to
the Persian government for a railway line between Julfa and Tabreez, a project that
would be no less burdensome than the previous one. The British minister in Tehran
addressed an official note to the Persian government, reminding it of the Reuter
Concession of 25 July 1872:
Being aware that a Concession for the construction of a line of
railway between Julfa and Tabreez is, with the official
intervention of the Russian Legation, under negotiation between
the Persian Government and General Falkenhagen, I think it right
to observe to your Highness that any such Concession being
prejudicial to the interests of Baron Reuter, whose Concession,
notwithstanding the declaration by Persia of its being null and
void, still remains an open question, I consider it my duty,
pending the receipt of instructions from H.M.G., hereby to reserve
to them the right to take such steps in the matter as under the
above-mentioned circumstances they may deem fit.173
The stance of the British government at the time, “was [to give] Baron Reuter
unofficial support in his claims for compensation, but as against the Falkenhagen
Concession he was receiving full official support: H.M.G. taking the ground that,
apart from the merits of Reuter’s case, the question of the avoidance of the
172 Memorandum, FO 371/1185.
173 Ibid.
66
Concession was, in fact, still open”.174 The British Empire, unwilling to engage in
conflict with the Russian Empire over a controversial concession, did not support
the agreement officially, but used it as a tool against the signing of the Falkenhagen
Concession.
The articles of Falkenhagen’s agreement were drafted with no regard for the
interests of the Persian state. Articles 8, 10, 14, 17 and 21, especially, make clear
how the sovereignty of the Shah was challenged. Article 8 of the Concession made
it an obligation for the Persian government to pay “a yearly net profit of 6 ½ per
cent. upon the capital of the Company that is, 223,600 Russian Ducats a year
representing the profit upon the nominal Capital of the Company and a sinking
fund” to the company from commencement to completion of the working of the
railway until the expiration of the term of the concession forty-four years later.
Furthermore, Article 10 states the following to ensure that this amount would be
received by the company:
…the Persian Government makes over to the Company for the
entire period of the Concession the Customs of Tabreez, which
shall be transferred to an international Board of Customs at the
village of Julfa, or at some other part of the frontier, which will be
fixed in a separate convention between the Govt. of H.M. the
Shah, and that of Russia. The Government of H.M. the Shah
promises to make at once an arrangement with that of Russia for
the conclusion of a convention for the purpose of establishing on
the River Aras a united Russian and Persian Custom House under
an International administration similar to those which exist on the
Great Railways between some of the European States.
Moreover, the company would be entitled “to build a telegraph line along the track
[Article 14], and be allowed to mine coal, if any were found, within a fifty-mile
zone along the entire length of the railway [Article 17]”. The board of directors and
all those in the service of the company were to be under the protection of the
174 Ibid.
67
Russian Legation and consulates (Article 21). These were the main articles of
Falkenhagen’s drafted concession text.175
On the other side of the spectrum, as it lacked means to protect its own
sovereignty, the Persian government used one great power against the other,
attempting to convince the British to stand against Falkenhagen’s proposal in order
to sidestep a confrontation with the Russians. To this end, Mirza Malkan Khan, the
Persian Minister in London, told Lord Tenterden, Permanent Under-Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs, that the Persian government withdrew Reuter’s agreement
at the demand of the Russians. He attempted to convince Lord Tenterden to make
every effort to prevent granting the concession to Falkenhagen: “would the English
tamely look on while such a Concession as that of Baron Reuter was wrested from
her influence at the dictation of Russia and transferred to the Russian
Government?”176 The efforts of the Persian government turned out to be fruitful, for
on 13 November 1874, instructions were sent to Thomson:
H.M.G. feel that Baron Reuter has good cause to complain that, if
the Persian Government desire to consent to have a railway
constructed to Tabreez, the Concession should be granted to any
one else, and I have accordingly to instruct you to urge upon the
Persian Government the propriety of suspending any action in
regard to the Concession to the Russian Company until the
Baron’s claims have been duly considered and a settlement
arrived at with him.177
In late November and early December 1874, a concession was signed
between the Persian government and Falkenhagen based on the original draft
without the guarantee clauses.178 However, without these clauses, it was not a
pleasing concession for the Russian Empire. Therefore, on 5 May 1875,
175 Kazemzadeh, Russia and Britain, 135–39.
176 Tenderden in Memorandum, 30 October 1874, FO 371/1185, 23 February 1911, NA.
177 Tenderden in Memorandum, FO 371/1185.
178 Kazemzadeh, Russia and Britain, 145.
68
Falkenhagen requested the annulment of the Railway Concession on the grounds
that the Shah did not guarantee him the customs receipts from Tabriz.179 In 1877,
Thomson was to defend the policy by stating “it was only expected that, in all
matters favourable to our political and commercial interests in Persia and opposed
to their own, the influence of the Russian Mission at Tehran would be adversely
exerted” and referred to “the Falkenhagen Concession to show that the schemes
proposed for the benefit of Russian trade in the north of Persia had not been
unsuccessfully opposed”.180
In 1888, the Shah continued the policy of playing the British against the
Russians by means of the Reuter Concession to escape from Russian pressure. The
Shah, contrary to the sovereignty of the Persian state, had “under great pressure…in
Aug./Sept. 1887 given an undertaking to Russia not to give orders or permission to
construct railways or waterways to Companies of foreign nations before consulting
with H.M. the Emperor”.181 Unable to confront the Russian Empire, the Shah
instead sought the aid of the British government. For this purpose:
…the Amin-es-Sultan suggested to Sir H.D. Wolff that H.M.G.
should press the Reuter Concession, which, amended, the Shah
could defend, as dated years before, to Russia. The grand vizier
requested Sir H.D. Wolff to telegraph this as his own idea. It later
transpired that the idea emanated from the Shah.182
In October, 1888, Sir Wolff was instructed by the British Government to:
…make what use he could of the Concession in the new state of
matters, as the Persian Government, having prevented Reuter
from carrying out his Concession as a whole, was bound to grant
him some minor Concessions in satisfaction of his just claims;
care was to be taken that any Concessions so granted should be
179 John S. Galbraith, “British Policy on Railways in Persia, 1870-1900,” Middle Eastern Studies,
vol. 25 (1989): 489.
180 Jerome Anthony Saldanha, Persian Gulf Gazetteer Part 1. Historical and Political Materials
Precis Persian Arabistan Affairs, IOR/L/PS/20/C242, 1905, British Library: Asian and African
Studies.
181 Memorandum, FO 371/1185.
182 Ibid.
69
much as would open the way to Tehran from the South and not
from the North.183
By December, an agreement had been reached on Reuter’s case; the family
was to receive a concession to establish a state bank in return for the transfer of his
original concession to the Persian government. Signed in January 1889, with a
duration of sixty years, the main points of the concession were the formation of the
Imperial Bank of Persia, exclusive issue of bank notes, the service of the Treasury,
and the monopoly over all the mines except gold and silver not already conceded
and worked. The bank was to have the exclusive right of issuing notes payable and
the government of the Shah bounded itself “not to issue any kind of paper money
during the terms of this concession, nor to authorize the creation of any other bank
or other institution possessing a like privilege” (Article 3). It was to be exempted
from taxes and be under the protection of the government (Article 5). The
exploitation of Persian mines was granted to Reuter by Article 11:
The Imperial Bank being ready to incur forthwith the sacrifices
necessary for developing the resources of the country by
exploitation of its natural riches, the Persian Government grants to
the said bank for the term of the present concession, the exclusive
right of working through the Empire the iron, copper, lead,
mercury, coal, petroleum, manganese borax, and asbestos mines
which belong to the State and which have not already been
conceded to others. The Persian Government shall, as an appendix
to this concession, deliver to the Baron de Reuter on the day of the
signature of these present an official list of mines already ceded.
The gold and silver mines of precious stones belong exclusively to
the State, …All the mines which the bank has not commenced
working within ten years of its formation shall be deemed to have
been abandoned by it, and the State may dispose of the same
without consulting the Bank.184
Furthermore, “Article 12 promised that the lands necessary for working the mines
shall, if on State domain, be given free, and if belonging to private individuals the
183 Ibid.
184 HR.SFR.3, D: 359, G: 65, 23.09.1889, BOA.
70
Government shall cooperate in getting them for the bank on the most favourable
terms…”185 The government’s share was sixteen percent of the profits of the mines
(Article 13).186 As outlined in Article 14, Reuter formally gave up all his claims
from his former concession.187
On 27 March 1889, Baron Reuter handed over his original concession to the
British Minister in Tehran for its delivery to the Persian government. The offices of
the bank were then established in Tehran and London and Baron George de Reuter
became one of its directors. Only three years later, the bank issued a large loan to
the Persian government.188
The conflict between Russia and Britain over railway construction in Persia
ended in 1890 with an agreement in which the Persian state declared that “the
Persian Government engages for the space of 10 years…neither itself to construct a
railway in Persian territory nor to permit nor grant a concession for the construction
of railways to a company or other persons”.189 In 1900, it was renewed for another
ten years. However, in 1911, the Potsdam Agreement was signed between Russia
and Germany, alarming Britain with Russia’s renewed ambitions concerning
railway construction. With the agreement, Germany assented “not to extend its
railway construction schemes into Persia and abstain from asking for road and
navigation concessions” in return for Russian assurance “not to oppose the building
of the Baghdad railway by the Germans”.190 Instantly, the British government began
reconsidering the construction of a railway line in southern Persia, basing its claim
on the Shah’s rescript of 16 September 1888, “by which British Government was
185 Ibid.
186 Ibid.
187 Ibid.
188 Read, Power of News, 85.
189 Hooshang Amirahmadi, The Political Economy of Iran under the Qajars: Society, Economy,
Politics and Foreign Relations 1796-1926 (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2012), 30.
190 Amirahmadi, Political Economy, 30.
71
given priority over others in the construction of southern railroads”, and an
assurance that the “British Government would be consulted before any southern
railway was granted to a foreign country”; in addition, possible route options would
be considered.191 Eventually, Britain abandoned the idea, and by the end of the First
World War there were only two railway lines on Persian soil: one stretching for six
miles between Tehran and Shah Abd ol-Azim, a line that the Belgians had
constructed in 1888, and the other being the Julfa-Uumiya and Zahidan-Nuskki line
built by Russia and Britain during the war as part of their war effort.192
In 1900, the Greek Railway Concession was secured and, like the Reuter
Concession, the family in the person of Baron George de Reuter had prepared
policies and suggested them to the British government. As before, contemporary
political concerns determined the future of the project, and Baron George de Reuter
tried to mould this future.
The Greek government had signed a contract with a firm in 1889 to
construct a line from Piraeus to the Greek border at Papapouli.193 However,
construction halted in 1893 because of the company’s financial problems.194 In
1898, to complete the Piraeus–Larissa Railway, the Eastern Railway Syndicate
Limited was formed under the initiative of Baron Herbert de Reuter, managing
director of Reuters (who succeeded his father Baron Paul Julius de Reuter in May
1878), with the cooperation of Frédéric-Émile Erlanger and Co. of London and M.
Jules Gouin, President of the Société de Construction des Batignolles de Paris.195 As
discussed in the previous chapter, Erlanger was also the owner of Havas. Though
191 Memorandum, FO 371/1185.
192 Memorandum, FO 371/1185.
193 Irene Anastasiadou, Constructing Iron Europe: Transnationalism and Railways in the Interbellum
(Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011), 216.
194 Anastasiadou, Constructing Iron Europe, 216.
195 Memorandum, “Respecting the Piraeus-Larissa Railway,” FO 371/537, file no: 4533, no: 12974,
21 April 1908, NA.
72
Baron Herbert de Reuter had founded the Syndicate, it was Baron George de Reuter
who carried out the rest of the tasks in the railway construction scheme.
On 22 March 1900, Baron George de Reuter, as the representative of the
Syndicate, signed a concession with the Greek Prime Minister and Minister of
Finance “for the completion of a proposed railway from the Piraeus to Larissa, in
the first instance to Demirly and eventually to the frontier”.196 To finance the
enterprise, the Greek Minister of Finance asked the International Financial
Commission in Athens to undertake the service of new loans to the Greek
government. The Greek government received a positive response from the
Commission after consultations with the states involved. In February 1902, Baron
George de Reuter, Gouin and Erlanger formed the Company of Greek Railways.197
In 1904, the King of Greece conferred the Cross of Commander of the Royal Order
of the Saviour upon Baron George de Reuter for his services.198
The Reuter family sought assistance from the British Foreign Office
whenever they encountered an obstacle in any of their projects. Regardless of
whether it was simply a matter of disagreement on construction or politics, in order
to impose what they wanted on the countries in question members of the family
asked the Foreign Office to intervene. In 1906, the Greek government and the
Company of Greek Railways experienced a disagreement. While the Railway
Company wanted to start constructing the line to Larissa before completing the
Demirly line, the Greek government wished to see the Piraeus–Demirly line
completed first. Baron de Reuter asked “for the intervention of the International
196 Memorandum, “Piraeus-Larissa Railway,” FO 371/537.
197 Anastasiadou, Constructing Iron Europe, 216.
198 HO 45/10304/118695 (Home Office Registered Papers, 1901–1909), 14 May 1904, NA.
73
Financial Commission through the Foreign Office”.199 He claimed that the Greek
Railway Company had the right to start the construction of the Demirly–Larissa line
based on the convention:
By article 2 of this Law...the Greek Government are enjoined to
avail themselves of the option to call upon us to construct the
Demirly-Larissa section, upon the terms of article 34 of the
Convention; and are authorised to do so at any time, not later than
six months before the completion of the line from the Piraeus to
Demirly....Our contention is that while the Government need not
have given us this notification nor have authorised us to issue the
loan until six months before the completion of the line to Demirly,
their having allowed us to do the latter obliged them to permit us
to commence work on the Demirly-Larissa section, directly the
public had through us provided the necessary funds.200
Baron George de Reuter’s defence was that by allowing the Company to issue the
loan, the Greek government happened to allow the construction of the Demirly–
Larissa section.
In accord with Baron George de Reuter’s wishes, a copy of his letter was
sent to Alban Young, the British representative on the International Financial
Commission in Athens and his opinion on the subject was demanded.201 Before
Reuter’s letter reached him, Young had already written to the Foreign Office to
inform it about the matter and explain the source of the dispute. At the end of his
letter he wrote down the following under the title ‘confidential’:
The present state of affairs has arisen, on the one hand from the
desire of the Railway Company in its capacity as the financial
syndicate contracting to take over the loan at a price defined by
the convention, to issue the further instalment of the bonds to the
public at a time when it could do so to the best advantage
irrespective of the immediate needs of the work of construction,
and on the other from the wish of the Hellenic government not to
divest itself completely, when consenting to this premature issue,
of the hold over the Railway Company which they originally
199 Baron George de Reuter to Sir Thomas Sanderson, 4 January 1906, FO 371/81, file no: 622, no:
2666, 5 January 1906, NA.
200 Reuter to Sanderson, 4 January 1906, FO 371/81.
201 Campbell to Reuter, 13 January 1906, FO 371/81, 5 January 1906, NA.
74
possessed in virtue of their freedom to decide whether the line
should be extended to Larissa or not.
In point of fact there is at the present moment a dispute
between the company and the government with regard to a spot
between Brallo and Demirly where unexpected difficulties arising
from the nature of the soil have presented themselves.202
Basically, the Greek government wanted the Company to solve the problem on the
railway line on which it was already working before building the next section.
Instead, the Company took action against the government through Baron George de
Reuter, who complained to the British government and the International Financial
Commission, hoping that they would force Greece to do what the company desired.
With regards to the Baron’s letter dated 4 January 1906, Young explained to
Sir Edward Grey in his next letter that the Baron’s claim was not defendable:
Unfortunately the Commission finds itself disarmed from making
a protest on this ground by the fact that the Greek government
when notifying to the Company on November 19 1904, their
intention to prolong the line to Larissa, and authorizing the issue
of the loan, made an explicit reserve of their liberty to authorize
the commencement of the work at such moment as they might
consider expedient during a certain period, which is one expiring
in May or June 1906.203
In his letter Young also underlined that the current situation was not harmful to the
interests of the Greek Railway bondholders, implying that the Commission was not
responsible for protecting the interests of the Company, but rather the bondholders,
by stating that “the retention by the government of their liberty to postpone
commencement of work on the Demirly-Larissa line, an easy section of about 30
miles in length, …before the completion of the proceeding section could bring and
can bring no possible prejudice to the interests of…bond holders, on whose behalf
alone the Commission is qualified to intervene”.204
202 Young to Grey, 6 February 1906, FO 371/81, file no: 622, no: 5123, 12 February 1906, NA.
203 Ibid.
204 Young to Grey, FO 371/81.
75
Young again referred to the source of tension between the Greek
government and the Company and gave details on the subject:
…the Company declare that owing to the shifting nature of the
soil they cannot construct permanent works according to the brace
agreed upon. The question at issue between the government and
the Company is whether a deviation is really necessary and if so
who is to pay for it. The local representative of the Railway
Company with whom I am in constant intercourse considers that a
settlement either by compromise or by a resort to arbitration will
be shortly arrived at, and that he will not have to wait long for his
authorization to proceed with the Demirly-Larissa section.205
On 16 February 1906, Young was informed by Campbell on behalf of Sir
Edward Grey that “Sir E. Grey concurs in your view that the Commission is
debarred, under present circumstances, from taking any further action on behalf of
the Greek Railway Company”.206
After Reuter’s visit to Athens as the Vice President of the Company, the
matter was resolved in a way favorable to the Company. Young listed the terms of
the agreement between the Greek government and the Railway Company:
1. The Company will construct at their own expense such works
as are necessary to overcome the difficulties inherent in the soil at
Gappadia which gave rise to the dispute with the government
mentioned in my previous despatches. 2. The authorization to
commence work on the Demirly-Larissa section is considered by
Baron de Reuter to be forthcoming in four days. 3. The
government undertakes as soon as the chamber meets in May next
to reintroduce the measure cancelling the restriction imposed by
article 35 of the existing Convention which prohibits the
construction of the Larissa-Frontier section before an
announcement is arrived at with the Turkish Government for the
junction of the Greek line with the Turkish Railway
system....Monsieur Theotaky has promised that he will then
authorize the issue of the loan (5-6 millions of francs) for the
construction of the Larissa-Frontier section, and its immediate
application to that purpose. Baron de Reuter considers that there
will be no question on this occasion of separating the issue of the
loan from the permission to commence operations….207
205 Ibid.
206 Campbell to Young, 16 February 1906, FO 371/81, file no: 622, no: 5123, 12 February 1906, NA.
207 Young to Grey, 11 March 1906, FO 371/81, file no: 622, no: 9545, 19 March 1906, NA.
76
Baron George de Reuter managed to turn the crisis between the government and the
Company into an opportunity. Not only did the Greek government agree to allow
the Company to start constructing the Demirly–Larissa section, but it also agreed to
allow them to construct the Larissa–Frontier line before the junction between the
Greek and Turkish railway systems had been accepted by the Ottoman government.
In the following articles, financial matters were settled with regards to the Larissa–
Frontier section. Moreover, an alternative project was thought out by the Company
in case the junction between the Greek and Ottoman railway systems did not take
place, as it would mean a wasted thirty miles of railroad. The solution the parties
agreed on was depicted in Article 5:
5. In the event of the junction with the Ottoman system not having
been effected within two years after the completion of the Piraeus-
Frontier Railway, the Company undertake to construct a small
branch of about 3 miles in length from the frontier to the sea-coast
south of Platamona Point. Here a wooden tier running to a depth
of six metres is to be constructed and the Company will ensure a
daily service of steamers towards which the Greek Government
will give a postal subsidy of 100,000 francs a year with Salonica,
a distance of 4 or 5 hours….In default of a junction with the
Ottoman Railways it is better that this extra expense should be
incurred than that the thirty miles of the Larissa line should after
penetrating the picturesque but unfruitful recesses of the vale of
Tempè terminate at a Greek Custom House standing in a lonely
marsh.208
However, Young stated that such a contingency plan would not come to pass as
Reuter had revealed a secret agreement between Theotoky, the Greek Minister of
Finance, and himself to ensure that the junction would be constructed, an agreement
which Young found very convincing:
The promoters are however [aware]...that they will not be called
upon to fulfil this engagement as they consider that they have
reassuring prospects in regard to the construction of a Turkish line
90 kilometres in length joining Gida on the Salonica-Monastir line
208 Ibid.
77
to their system on the frontier. The most important advantage
which Baron de Reuter has gained from his visit is an
undertaking, which he wishes to be kept strictly confidential, on
the part of Monsieur Theotoky to accord a subvention which will
greatly facilitate the eventual negotiations in Constantinople, as
you are probably aware the interests of the Greek Railway
Company in regard to the Ottoman section have been transferred
to Messeur Vitalis, the well-known Railway constructor in
Turkey. When the Larissa-Frontier works are well under
construction an advance, which it is supposed, will for strategical
reasons predispose the Turks to make a similar move Messeur
Vitalis will apply to the Porte for a concession to construct the
section Gida-Frontier on the basis of a kilometres guarantee of
6000 francs. The subsidy offered by Messeur Theotoky amounts
in reality to raising this guarantee from 6 to 9 thousand francs.209
The two decided to give a subsidy to a Greek constructor Messeur Vitalis to lower
the project’s cost for the Ottoman Empire. In this way, they believed that the
Ottoman government would choose Vitalis as the constructor. The rest of the
money that would allow Vitalis to gain a profit from the railway project was to be
covered secretly by Greece. It seems that Reuter and Theotoky thought only
financial matters could prevent the junction’s construction, or they believed that
with enough money they could obtain the Ottoman Empire’s consent despite the
state of politics between the two countries. Another reason that made Young
hopeful that the project would take place was that he was told by Reuter that strong
German opposition in the past against the junction had now been withdrawn.
Realizing that Reuter and Theotoky were taking the Ottoman Empire’s
consent for granted, Young underlined that nothing was decisive yet and that all
these construction plans could only be carried out by the Greek government
dependent on the Turkish government’s action. But he still stated that he believed
“the prospects of an overland connection with Europe are better now than ever
209 Young to Grey, 11 March 1906, FO 371/81.
78
before”.210 He also wrote that, in his opinion, this junction would greatly enhance
Greek revenues: “I am convinced that in view of the Greek development throughout
Europe of the Tourist business, and in addition to this country’s own attractions, the
proximity of its ports to Egypt, the linking of Athens by 70 hours of rail with Paris
will bring a very perceptible increment to the slender sources of the Greek revenues.
Any well directed efforts to attain their result should consequently recommend
themselves to the International Commission.”211
In July, Young informed the British Foreign Office that the legislation
change desired by Baron de Reuter had occurred:
I am happy to report that so far the engagements entered into by
Monsieur Theotoky with Baron de Reuter in regard to the Piraeus-
Larissa-Frontier Railway have been faithfully carried out and that
the Chamber has passed…the necessary legislation for permitting
the immediate construction of the extension to the Turkish frontier
where the line is designed to effect a junction with the Ottoman
System, or pending that event, to a point nearby on the coast
whence a daily steamboat service with Salonica will be assured.212
Moreover, Young also discussed the developments on the matter of loan issuing in
his letter:
The formalities connected with the issue of the last portion of the
Greek Railways 4% Loan amounting to £270,000 [nominal].
[6,750,000 francs] have been completed…
I understand that any of this loan ₤40,000 have been
subscribed by Paris Bankers and ₤230,000 by London houses and
that no issue to the general public will take place at present.213
The majority of the loan had been subscribed by London houses, as stated by
Young. Later, in 1908, Baron George de Reuter was to remind the British Foreign
Office that a majority of the bonds belonged to British citizens and that the
Government should act to protect the interests of its citizens. Also, Young declared
210 Ibid.
211 Ibid.
212 Young to Grey, 17 July 1906, FO 371/81, file no: 622, no: 25078, 23 July 1906, NA.
213 Ibid.
79
that the duty of the International Financial Commission was now complete as it had
conceded the amount agreed on for the line’s construction:
This last issue has been as presented by the Convention, taken
over by the Syndicate at the same price as the other portion viz 80
per cent. The entire loan for which the Commission consented to
undertake the service as assured on the surplus of the receipts: the
conceded revenues viz 35 millions of francs effective for the
Piraeus-Demirly section and ten millions effective for the
extension to the frontier has now been completed.214
In return for the Greek government arranging things as desired by the Railway
Company, the company expressed their intention to “overcome the difficulties they
encountered on the Piraeus-Demirly section before May of next year”.215
Young’s statement on granting a loan for the construction of an alternative
branch to the coast if the junction with the Ottoman railway system did not take
place demonstrates an overconfidence of the company regarding Ottoman
cooperation “the Company believe that they will never be called upon to construct
the alternative branch to the coast but in order to facilitate Baron de Reuter’s
negotiations with the Greek Government the Commission have consented, with
proper reservations, to the interest of the small loan [probably half a million
Drachmas] necessary for such construction…”216
Baron George de Reuter’s first attempt to influence international politics
through the railway project occurred in 1908 when the line reached Larissa, a time
when the railway company and the Greek government began seeking approval from
the Ottoman government for a junction between the Greek and Turkish railway
systems. Erlanger and Baron George de Reuter petitioned the British Foreign Office
with letters, as it remained reluctant to support the application to the Ottoman
214 Young to Grey, 17 July 1906, FO 371/81.
215 Ibid.
216 Ibid.
80
government for a concession to build the line, which would connect the Greek
railway system with the Ottoman Empire’s system. The British had no desire to
support the scheme with the Sublime Porte officially because of the former’s policy
of pushing reforms in Macedonia.
The ‘reform’ scheme of the British government, presented in March 1908,
was to have a single Governor-General for Kosovo, Monastir and Salonica, three
provinces constituting Macedonia. His term of office was to be determined before
his appointment, and his dismissal was to be subject to the approval of the European
Powers. The Governor-General would be supported by foreign military officers and
a European gendarmerie, and would receive his salary from the Macedonian budget
which was to be placed under the control of the European Powers in order to
challenge the Governor-General’s loyalty to the Sublime Porte. The scheme was
devised with the aim of undermining the control of the Ottoman Empire in
Macedonia, which would gradually lead to autonomy, and independence, for these
provinces. In May of that year, the Turkish Committee of Union and Progress
(CUP) found out Great Britain’s decision to cooperate with Russia instead of
European Powers to push reforms in Macedonia. Great Britain’s move played a role
in the 1908 Turkish revolution. Believing that this sort of cooperation would lead to
Macedonia’s separation and its immediate domination by a foreign power, ending
its influence in Macedonia, the Committee of the Union and Progress (CUP)
decided to act sooner initiating a revolutionary movement.217
Investors in the Greek Railway Company emphasized in their
correspondence that the enterprise was a British investment and therefore deserved
217 Aykut Kansu, The Revolution of 1908 in Turkey (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 87–89.
81
the protection of the British government. Erlanger stated that the railway project
was a British enterprise:
…the total amount of the loans issued for the above purpose is
₤2,250,000, in addition to which the share capital of the Greek
Railways Company, amounting to ₤400,000, has been subscribed
and entirely paid up in cash. Of these ₤2,650,000, more than
₤1,500,000 have been subscribed and are still held by British
subjects.
The railway can, therefore, well claim to be a British
enterprise, deserving of the special support of His Majesty’s
Government.218
He added that the junction was necessary for the sake of British bondholders:
Now this great enterprise is approaching conclusion; the line is
completed to Larissa and will be opened to the Frontier in a few
months. Active steps have, therefore, been taken by all the
interested parties to obtain the consent of the Porte to the
construction of a line some 50 miles in length to unite the Greek
and Turkish Railways.
Unless that junction be made the security of the bondholders
will be greatly impaired, and the share capital of the Greek
Railways Company, of which one-half was subscribed by Messrs.
Pauling and Co. (Limited) and my firm, will be practically
worthless.219
Furthermore, he tried to take advantage of rivalry between the Great Powers by
stating:
But, in making this appeal, I am also actuated by other motives,
for fear that it would be injurious to British prestige in Greece and
Turkey if the Concession were obtained with the support of all the
Great Powers with the exception of Great Britain, she alone
standing aloof from an enterprise which has been carried out in
the main by British subjects and with the aid of British capital.220
However, the government was reluctant to support the scheme, as it thought
backing the project would jeopardize its impartial stand in Macedonia. It was noted
in the Foreign Office minutes, in view of Erlanger’s letter, that:
218 Erlanger to Grey, 13 April 1908, FO 371/537, file no: 4533, no: 12974, 14 April 1908, NA.
219 Erlanger to Grey, 13 April 1908, FO 371/537.
220 Ibid.
82
It does not follow that if we do not support this project now, it will
never be realized at all and that the share capital of the Greek Co.
will be ‘practically worthless’. The two systems will obviously
have to be linked up someday: the only question is whether the
present moment is a favourable one for pushing the scheme.…
The fact that the Greek Railway is primarily a British
undertaking seems to me the strongest reason why H.M.G. should
not single it out as an object of their official support at a moment
when they have just expressed their views as to the
inopportuneness of the present time for pressing for railway
development in the Balkans. It would be a negation of our attitude
of disinterestedness in Macedonia and would weaken our position
enormously.221
On 21 April 1908, a few days after Erlanger’s correspondence, Baron
George de Reuter wrote a letter to the Foreign Office as Vice-President of the Greek
Railways Company and Chairman of the Eastern Railway Syndicate Limited. He
criticized Britain’s policy for being:
…not in conformity with the attitude of the British Government in
the past. During the negotiations for the obtention of the
Concession from the Greek Government I always enjoyed the
unofficial support of the Foreign Office, and in Greece, in 1900,
Sir Edward Egerton, then the British Minister there, gave me very
great assistance in arriving at a satisfactory arrangement with the
Greek Government. Moreover, the successive British Delegates
on the International Financial Commission at Athens invariably
did what they could to assist me in arranging the financial side of
the question.222
Reuter, confident in his scheme and position, took the liberty of telling the
British Foreign Office that it was pursuing an inconsistent policy and reminded it
that the government had provided support in the past. Then, like Erlanger, Reuter
mentioned the support of other great powers, pointing out that the Eastern Railways
Syndicate Limited was an English company and thus responsible for half of the
railway project:
Inasmuch as all the Powers support our scheme, it seems
anomalous that Great Britain should fail to do so for an enterprise
221 Minutes, FO 371/537, file no: 4533, no: 12974, 14 April 1908, NA.
222 Reuter to Grey, 21 April 1908, FO 371/537, file no; 4533, no: 13816, 22 April 1908, NA.
83
which is half English and which formerly received the support of
His Majesty’s Government.223
Like Baron Julius de Reuter’s attempt to take advantage of tensions between the
Russian and British empires over Persia, Baron George de Reuter tried to take
advantage of the political rivalry between the great powers to force the British
government into advocating for the railway junction scheme at the Sublime Porte.
Moreover, he underlined that the aim of the Concession was to join Greece with the
rest of Europe and it would not be fulfilled unless the junction came into
existence.224
The arguments of Erlanger and Reuter were reviewed in a Foreign Office
minute before a response was forthcoming. In the document the arguments in favor
of complying with their request were listed and the Foreign Office’s opinion was
written down:
1. That it is an old scheme to which we have given our support in
the past and therefore stands on a different footing from the
Serbian and Austro-Hungarian scheme which are new. This
argument is used by Baron de Reuter. 2. That it has the support of
the other Powers. 3. That it is largely a British enterprise.
The first appears to be the best, as it is undoubtedly true that we
have supported the scheme in the past. The second is only good if
there are no stronger (?) against it. The third appears to me to be
radically bad for we should cut a very poor figure if we refuse to
support the other two schemes in the interests of reform in
Macedonia and then supported this one because of British
interests [?], letting the reforms go by the board. What kind of an
impression would this give of our disinterestedness and [?] in the
cause of reform? In fact this argument is really an argument of the
other side. Moreover we have already told the Greek Minister that
we cannot support the scheme and have also told the other Powers
that we cannot support any such schemes at present.225
Not only the Company, but also the Greek government, sought the support
of the British government in this matter. On 28 April 1908, Mr. G. Barclay wrote a
223 Reuter to Grey, 21 April 1908, FO 371/537.
224 Reuter to Grey, 22 April 1908, FO 371/537.
225 Minutes, FO 371/537, file no: 4533, no: 13816, 22 April 1908, NA.
84
letter to Sir Edward Grey, which was received by the Foreign Office on 5 May
1908, informing it that the Greek Minister M. Gryparis had called him on 27 April
1908 and asked for his informal support for the application made to the Porte for the
linking of the Greek and Turkish railway systems. In Barclay’s words, Gryparis said
that:
He was aware of the attitude of His Majesty’s Government
towards the various railway projects in Macedonia, but he trusted
that I would see my way, should an opportunity occur, to say a
word in favour of the Greek scheme. He pointed out that Greece
was now the only country in Europe which had no railway
connection with other countries, and laid stress on the nonpolitical
and non-strategical purpose of the line, the objects of
which were purely commercial, the coast route having been
selected rather than a more western route which would have been
more agreeable to Turkey, only because it was shorter and easier
to construct.226
In response he was promised that this visit would be reported to Sir Edward Grey.
However, Barclay stated that “in view of the attitude of His Majesty’s Government,
with which he was familiar, in regard to railway construction at the present moment
in Macedonia, I could not see my way to saying anything at the Porte in favour of
the Larissa-Salonica line”. 227 In the meeting Barclay learned that the Greek
Minister had asked for the same informal support from the other embassies as had
been requested from him.228
On 6 May 1908, Émile Erlanger and Baron George de Reuter were notified
by the Foreign Office in separate letters that Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary
(1905–1916), was in favor of the junction in principle and would “use his influence
226 Barclay to Grey, 28 April 1908, FO 371/537, file no: 4533, no: 15167, 4 May 1908, NA.
227 Barclay to Grey, 28 April 1908, FO 371/537, 4 May 1908.
228 Barclay to Grey, 28 April 1908, FO 371/537.
85
to secure the Porte’s assent to it when this can be done without prejudice to
proposals for reform, which are at the moment under consideration”.229
Soon, the opportunity Reuter was waiting for came along with the rise of the
CUP in the Ottoman Empire. Hoping that regime change in the Empire would
convince the British government to support his scheme, he submitted copies to
London of confidential correspondence from years before between himself and
Greek officials. He hoped to prove that the junction was not only desired by the
railway company but also by the Greek government. The submitted documents
consisted of correspondence with A. Simopoulos, the Greek Minister of Finance,
and N. Calogéropoulos, the Greek Minister of the Interior, dated 1 March 1906.230
Reuter also added a more recent correspondence with Munir Paşa, Ottoman
Ambassador in Paris at that time, dated 4 May 1908.231 Louis Mallet, the Assistant
Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, summarized the documents submitted by
Baron George de Reuter, arguing that there should be no reason for not supporting
Reuter after a regime change in the Ottoman Empire:
The Greek government are so keen on this junction that they are
ready to give a kilometre guarantee on the line which is in Turkish
territory. Munir Pasha who was negotiating the matter has fallen
and it remains to be seen how the present regime will regard the
junction which the Sultan has hitherto opposed. There is now no
reason for not giving our support at Constantinople.232
On 18 August 1908, Reuter was informed that the documents he had submitted
were read “with interest”233 by Sir Edward Grey, and:
…in view of the establishment of constitutional government in the
Ottoman Empire His Majesty’s Government have decided that
229 W. Langley to Erlanger, 6 May 1908, FO 371/537, file no: 4533, no: 13816, 22 April 1908.
230 “Joint Communication addressed to Greek Administration (Communicated by Baron de Reuter on
11 August 1908),” FO 371/465, file no: 28067, no: 27111, 12 August 1908.
231 “Joint Communication,” FO 371/465, 12 August 1908.
232 Louis Mallet, Minutes, 12 August 1908, FO 371/465, file no: 28067, no: 27111, 12 August 1908.
233 Louis Mallet to Baron George de Reuter, 18 August 1908, FO 371/465, file no: 28067, no: 27111,
12 August 1908, NA.
86
there is no longer any objection to supporting at the Sublime Porte
an application for a concession to permit this junction to be
effected, and that a dispatch in this sense has been addressed to
His Majesty’s Ambassador at Constantinople with instructions to
take the necessary action in accordance with this decision.234
On the same day, Sir Gerard Lowther, the British Ambassador in Constantinople,
was notified regarding the subject and received copies of the confidential
correspondence that Baron George de Reuter had submitted.235
Nevertheless, another obstacle stood in the way of Reuter’s scheme: the
declared union of Crete and Greece. To overcome this, the Baron, who had been
discussing the matter with George I, King of Greece, suggested a policy initiative to
the British Foreign Office: the offering of compensation to Turkey for recognizing
Greece’s unification with Crete. Reuter’s scheme was to capitalize on liberal terms
“the part of the Ottoman Debt which was borne by Crete” and to add “a further sum
as moral damages for the hauling down of the Turkish flag, which would
incidentally enable the Turkish Government to repatriate those Mussulmans who
would wish to leave Crete on the union with Greece”.236 Reuter estimated the
amount would be between 500,000 and 1,000,000 pounds.237 Furthermore, he
considered how the Ottoman government could make use of part of this
compensation after financing its Muslim subjects’ evacuation from Crete:
“500,000l. [pounds] would be applied to making a railway in Turkish territory, to
join the Larissa Railway with the Salonica-Monastir Railway at Ghida”.238
Baron George de Reuter then hinted his intentions by stating that “Greece
herself could not very well propose these terms to Turkey” and asking Sir Edward
234 Mallet to Reuter, 18 August 1908, FO 371/465.
235 Mallet to Lowther, 18 August 1908, FO 371/465.
236 Grey to Lowther, 4 November 1908, FO 371/444, file no: 34783, no: 38369, 4 November 1908,
NA.
237 Grey to Lowther, 4 November 1908, FO 371/444.
238 Ibid.
87
Grey if there would be further objections were Turkey to accept certain terms.239 He
was assured by Grey that “none of the Powers would make objections if Turkey
came forward and said that acceptable terms had been offered to her”.240 With his
visit, Reuter aimed to secure permission from the British government and the other
great powers to execute his plan. In addition, Reuter, acting as a mediator, was
planning to make the above-mentioned offer to the Turkish government himself,
seeking to convince it to recognize the unification of Greece and Crete. Grey
recounts, “I gathered from the way he put the question that he probably meant to
sound the Turkish Government himself”.241
There was more to Reuter’s proposal which was omitted in Grey’s letter to
Lowther. The Baron proposed to Grey that “there should be a secret agreement
between Greece and us by which, after the transfer of Crete to Greece, Suda Bey
should be leased to us. It would be a most valuable harbor for the Navy”.242 This
part of the proposal was unknown to the King of Greece. Based on the draft letter,
Grey’s response, which again was excluded, was:
So far as I knew, Suda Bey was a very valuable harbor; but that
the political disturbance caused by acquiring a new harbor in the
Mediterranean might more than counterbalance the advantage to
us. Other Powers might put forward other [“all sorts of” was
crossed and replaced by “other”] demands, and presently the
situation might be less favourable than if the ‘status quo’ had not
been disturbed at all. But, apart from this consideration, we were
one of four Powers who were occupying Crete: and it would be
absolutely impossible for us, while negotiating with Turkey in
concert with the other three Powers about Crete, to contemplate
acquiring any special advantage for ourselves. Such an idea was
quite out of the question, and could not be entertained.243
239 Ibid.
240 Ibid.
241 Ibid.
242 Memorandum, FO 371/465, file no: 34783, no: 38369, 4 November 1908.
243 Memorandum, FO 371/465, 4 November 1908.
88
To fulfil his own desires, Baron George de Reuter proposed to Grey to confiscate a
bay in Crete, where the British navy could be stationed, hoping that the British
government would then drop its current policy of demanding reform in Macedonia
due to this more profitable one. It is significant that a group of investors who were
in the news business could also regard themselves as being in a position to suggest
foreign policy, thus, demonstrating their elevated perception of their own sphere of
influence.
When the Company claimed to have finished the work and asked for the
caution money and warranty deductions to be returned, the Greek government
refused to take the railway line and return the “retenue de garantie” and caution
money. On 16 February 1909, Reuter communicated with the Foreign Office
regarding his complaint against the Greeks. The source of the dispute was the Greek
government’s refusal “to take ‘réception’ of the Piraeus-Larissa Railway, on the
grounds that the line is not yet working ‘en toute sécurité’”.244 The matter was
referred to Sir Elliot, British Minister in Athens. Meanwhile, the French partners of
the Greek Railway Company, Monsieur Bourée, President, and Monsieur Gaston
Gouin, Chairman of the Société des Constructions de Batignolles, were interviewed
by Monsieur Louis, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, on this matter.245
On 23 February 1909, Sir Elliot was visited by Monsieur Georgiades, Baron
de Reuter’s representative in Athens, who explained why the Greek government had
refused “the ‘réception’ of the Piraeus-Larissa Railway Line”:
It appeared that, with the exception of a few sleepers which are
gradually being renewed, the main line is perfectly ready; it has
throughout stood the effects of a particularly wet winter, and is
244 Louis Mallet to Baron George de Reuter, 23 February 1909, FO 371/677, file no: 5935, no: 5935,
13 February 1909, NA.
245 Baron George de Reuter to Louis Mallet, 22 February 1909, FO 371/677, file no: 5935, no: 7622,
25 February 1909, NA.
89
being continually used without let or hindrance. Two small branch
lines are not finished, one on account of an order from the
Ministry to suspend the works while an alternative route was
being considered, the other owing to the opposition of the
Thessalian Railways to the proposed junction with their system at
Demerli. The real obstacles to the ‘réception’ are twofold: firstly
the difficulties raised by the advisory Committee of Engineers,
whom the Company of Construction have in Mr. Georgiades’s
opinion mistakenly not supplied with the customary inducements
to make a favourable report; secondly a question which has
become a personal one with the Minister of the Interior, who upon
the instigation of some of his constituents demands the dismissal
of a station-master who is regarded as a good servant of the
Company. The latter difficulty however is about to be arranged by
the removal of the station-master to a superior post.246
According to the Company’s account, the denial of the Greek government to accept
the railway line was due to the disagreeableness of individuals rather than a
technical problem with the work. It was stated that the Committee of Engineers was
waiting to be paid a bribe, while the Minister of the Interior was severely displeased
with a servant of the Company. The Company denied the Greek government’s
claim that the line was not completely secure. This was the second time that the
Company sought assistance from the British and French foreign offices instead of
trying to solve the problem themselves through negotiation with the Greek
government. These two incidences give a sense that Greece did not have much of a
say in how the railway project was run; rather, it appeared to be the investors who
were in charge. This time the British and French foreign offices cooperated, and
provided their representatives in Athens with instructions.
Sir Francis Elliot, the British Minister in Greece, and M. de la Boulinière,
the French Minister in Greece, who were accustomed to being in touch on this
matter, started to work together with the arrival of instructions from the French
government in March 1909:
246 Elliot to Grey, 27 February 1909, FO 371/677, file no: 5935 no: 8734, 6 Mar 1909, NA.
90
The French Minister has received from his Government
Memoranda communicated by the Anglo-French group on the
subject of their claims against the Greek Government, together
with instructions which left him the greatest latitude both as to the
substance and as to the form of the representations to be made to
the Greek Government conjointly with me…247
The opinion they formed of the dispute shows that the problem was not as simple as
put forward by Monsieur Georgiades, Baron de Reuter’s representative in Athens:
M. de la Boulinière and I have carefully studied these documents,
as well as the Convention of the 22nd March, 1900, and the
‘Cahier des Charges’ annexed to it, and we have received verbal
explanations from the representatives of the Company. From them
we learnt that the application already made by them for the return
of the caution money and ‘retenues de garantie’ had met with a
very uncompromising reply, a copy of which I have the honour to
enclose herewith. It was therefore too late to prevent the Greek
Government from adopting an attitude to which they had already
committed themselves in black and white.
Our examination of the Convention and of the ‘Cahier des
Charges’ convinced us that the argument of the ‘retenue de
garantie’ and of half of the caution money is not sound….But it
seemed to us impossible to interpret the Convention
independently of the ‘Cahier des Charges’, and Article 30,
paragraph 4, of the latter justifies the contention of the
Government that the repayment of the ‘retenue de garantie’ only
becomes due upon the ‘réception’ of the line, … 248
The Company had demanded the whole “retenue de garantie”. However, the
investigation by Sir Elliot and M. de la Boulinière brought to light the fact that the
Company was not entitled to it until the government had received the railway line.
Nevertheless, they met with the Greek Minister of the Interior on 24 March 1909 to
attempt a conciliation of the parties.
On 4 May 1909, Elliot informed the Foreign Office that the Greek Minister
of the Interior had advised him that the government had decided to return one half
of the bonds representing the caution money and part of the retentions (350,000
247 Elliot to Grey, 24 March 1909, FO 371/677, file no: 5935, no: 12080, 30 March 1909,
NA.
248 Elliot to Grey, 24 March 1909, FO 371/677.
91
drachmas) to the Company, leaving only 150,000 drachmas as a “retenue de
garantie”.249 The Company accepted the arrangement and thanked Sir Elliot “for the
action taken in conjunction with the French Minister”.250 Baron George de Reuter
wrote a separate letter of thanks to the Foreign Office on 19 May 1909.251
With the resolution of the dispute, the Piraeus–Larissa Frontier Railway was
opened to business on 29 June 1909.252 One train a day in each direction began to
operate, covering 394 kilometers in around fifteen hours.253 Despite the efforts of
Baron George de Reuter, the junction between the Greek and Ottoman railway
systems was never completed, leaving close to 1.3 kilometers of Greek railway
leading to “an abrupt ending on the north of the kingdom”.254
While the Greek railway project was still ongoing, Baron George de Reuter
took over a concession in Brazil, and instantly sought official British support. On 16
January 1905, Reuter took control of a disputed concession to create twenty
“Burgos Agricolas” (agricultural villages). Analysis of the British Foreign Office
documents suggests that the disagreement between Reuter and the Brazilian
government occurred because Reuter took over a concession that had already been
the subject of a court case. The concession was that “the Government gave the
concessionaire the freehold of vast tracts of territory, the concessionaire
undertaking to build so many villages and bring so many families to each
village”.255
249 Elliot to Grey, 4 May 1909, FO 371/677, file no: 5935, no: 17652, 10 May 1909, NA.
250 Elliot to Grey, 4 May 1909, FO 371/677.
251 Reuter to Mallet, 19 May 1909, FO 371/677, file no: 5935, no: 18996, 20 May 1909, NA.
252 Elliot to Grey, 27 July 1909, FO 371/677, file no: 5935, no: 28994, 3 August 1909, NA.
253 Elliot to Grey, 27 July 1909, FO 371/677.
254 “Greek Railways,” Evening News, July 5, 1910.
255 “Claim against the Brazilian Government,” 8 June 1906, FO 371/12, file no: 652, no: 19740, 9
June 1906, NA.
92
By the finance law of 1899, Congress authorized the Brazilian government
to negotiate with Monsieur Gomes de Oliveira for the creation of twenty “Burgos
Agricolas”. Ten months later, after the Republic’s proclamation, M. de Oliveira
asked for an extension of the contract for another year, which was agreed upon by
the new government. He then asked for another extension; however, this time not
only was it refused but the request caused the new Minister of Agriculture to
announce that the concession had expired. The document, which was presented to
the British Foreign Office and signed by the Brazilian jurists, points to
governmental change and political unrest in the country as being the reason the
promised work was not completed by M. de Oliveira on time. However, it does not
shed light on whether any of the work was completed, which suggests that it was
not. It is unknown if de Oliveira had been committed to fulfilling the concession at
one time, but it is clear that neither David Saxe de Queirod nor Baron George de
Reuter had any intention of building agricultural estates but simply wished to
receive a high compensation from the Brazilian government. This deed was later
referred to as a “speculation” in the Foreign Office records.
The process from the granting of the concession to its cancelation, with an
emphasis on the political events, was depicted in a document entitled “the Claim
Against the Brazilian Government” which was submitted by Reuter to the British
government:
Ten months later the Republic having been proclaimed on the 25th
June 1890 the new Government upon the request of the
Concessionaire extended the contract for another year, and
Monsieur Gomes de Oliveira formed a limited liability Company
with a capital of 20,000 contos: and to this company were
transferred by decree of the Minister of Agriculture all the rights,
privileges etc. of the original concessionaire.
The revolutionary movement which broke out at this
moment interfered with and greatly obstructed the operations of
93
the Company: in consequence thereof a further extension should
have been granted the Company. But on the contrary, the new
Minister of Agriculture pronounced the concession lapsed, before
the expiry of the contract, and without even giving previous notice
to the Company.256
The liquidation of the company was the result of this “coup d’etat”.257
The original concessionaire, M. de Oliveira, realizing that he would not be
able to get his money back, sold his rights to M. David Saxe de Queirod, who in
turn hoped for a compensation from the Brazilian government much higher than
that which he had paid to de Oliveira. In the document, this incident was explained
in a more politically correct manner: “to Monsieur David Saxe de Queirod, who had
been associated with Monsieur de Oliveira from the first, were transferred all the
rights and liabilities of the latter: and M. de Queirod after having vainly
endeavoured to get the Minister of Agriculture to alter his decision, applied to the
Courts”.258
On 20 May 1897, the judge of the Court of First Instance decided in favor of
M. de Queirod; however, the government then appealed to the Supreme Court
which decided on 25 June 1898 that:
…the rights of the Plaintiff have been violated by the
Government, who in thus acting are bound to indemnify him by
the payment of damages, in consequence of the injury done him.
For these reasons judgement of the Court below confirmed, the
appellants [the Government] to pay the costs.259
The ministers of Finance and Agriculture offered M. de Queirod 5,000 contos but
he found it insufficient to satisfy the damages. As M. de Queirod and the
government could not agree on the amount, the government proposed taking the
case to arbitration, which was agreed upon by de Queirod. The arbitration court
256 Ibid.
257 “Claim against the Brazilian Government,” 8 June 1906, FO 371/12.
258 Ibid.
259 Ibid.
94
decided that 8,000 contos should be paid to de Queirod; however, because of “an
error of procedure, and by mutual consent the parties had recourse to a second
arbitration”.260 This time, the second arbitration court, decided on a payment of
16,677 contos to de Queirod.
The government did not make any payments to M. de Queirod, so he again
applied to the courts, this time to enforce the award of the arbitrators. The judge of
the Court of First Instance found de Queirod to be in the right but he reduced the
damages to 5,000 contos. M. de Queirod then appealed to the Supreme Court;
however, the Court “refused to ratify the award…, decided that nothing was due to
M. De Queirod and ordered him to pay the costs”.261 Based on the document sent by
Reuter, “eminent Brazilian jurists”, namely, Councillor Laffaiete Rodriguez Pereira,
Viscount de Ouro Preto, Dr. José Huggino Duarte Pereira, Dr. Clovis Boviliqua,
Councillor Candido Maria Suéz d’Oliveira, Councillor Ruy Barbosa and Baron de
Peraira Franco, had the opinion that “this last judgement of the Supreme Court is
absolutely invalid and contrary to the laws of the Union”.262
Then, on 16 January 1905, Reuter became the owner of the larger portion of
M. de Queirod’s claim. Only three months after taking over the rights of de
Queirod, on 7 April 1905 Reuter communicated the matter to the British Foreign
Office, which suggests that Reuter assumed he could only achieve a profitable
settlement with its help. On 23 December 1905, Baron George de Reuter wrote to
the British Foreign Office requesting Monsieur Guyon’s representation to the
Brazilian Minister for Foreign Affairs by Sir Gerard Lowther, the British Chargé
d’Affaires in Rio de Janeiro, to express his claim against the Brazilian government
260 Ibid.
261 Ibid.
262 Ibid.
95
with regards to the “Burgos Agricolas”. In his letter, Reuter provided Francis Hyde
Villiers, Assistant Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, with “evidence that
Monsieur Saxe de Queirod, on the 16th of January last, assigned his rights relating
to building twenty Burgos Agricolas to the Baron and Monsieur Guyon”.263
Lowther was authorized to apply to the Brazilian Minister for Foreign Affairs to
grant an interview to Monsieur Guyon; however, he was strictly instructed “to make
it clear that no opinion is expressed by His Majesty’s Government on the merits of
the claim itself, on which His Majesty’s Government have had no sufficient means
of forming an opinion”.264 Baron George de Reuter was informed about the decision
of the Foreign Office on 8 January 1906.265 On the 10th of January, Reuter
responded to the Foreign Office’s letter stating that he would inform the office of
the date of M. Guyon’s journey to Brazil,266 which he did so on 25 February 1906,
addressing himself to Sir Edward Grey.267 On receiving Reuter’s letter, Lowther
was notified about Guyon’s journey from Paris to Rio de Janerio on 9 March 1906,
with the express purpose of coming to an agreement with the Brazilian government
with regards to his claim in the matter of the “Burgos Agricolas”, and, moreover,
Reuter’s request for him to apply to the Brazilian Minister of Foreign Affairs to
grant an interview to Guyon.268 Also, Lowther was reminded to “make it clear that
no opinion is expressed by His Majesty’s Government on the merits of the claim
itself”.269
263 Francis Hyde Villiers to Lowther, 8 January 1906, FO 371/12, file no: 652, no: 19740, 9 June
1906, NA.
264 Villiers to Lowther, 8 March 1906.
265 Villiers to Reuter, 8 January 1906, FO 371/12, file no: 652, no: 19740, 9 June 1906.
266 Reuter to Villiers, 10 January 1906, FO 371/12, file no: 652, no: 19740, 9 June 1906.
267 Reuter to Grey, 25 February 1906, FO 371/12, file no: 652, no: 19740, 9 June 1906.
268 Gorst to Lowther, 8 March 1906, FO 371/12, file no: 652, no: 19740, 9 June 1906.
269 Gorst to Lowther, 8 March 1906, FO 371/12.
96
However, by 25 April 1906, it appears that the British Foreign Office began
to be suspicious of the nature of the matter. Sir Charles Harding, Permanent Under-
Secretary for Foreign Affairs wrote to Arthur Larcom, Senior Clerk on 25 April
1906 outlining that “Reuter and friends have bought the claims of a Brazilian which
he could not obtain…from his government, as a speculation, and I do not consider
that the mere fact of one of these speculators [Reuter] happening to be British,
should be a reason for his speculation being backed by HMG”.270
Based on Reuter’s account, Reuter was informed by Sir Charles Harding and
Mr. Larcom that his Majesty’s Minister would not be instructed until the Foreign
Office was convinced that an injustice had occurred and that Reuter had tried all
other means of redress. Therefore, in his letter dated 8 June 1906, Reuter tried to
prove to the British Foreign Office that he had been exposed to a miscarriage of
justice and that he had exhausted all means to remedy it. In order to do so, he
summarized the judicial process:
…on the 25th June 1898, the Supreme Court of the United States
of Brazil gave judgement to the following effect: It is indisputable
that the rights of the Plaintiff have been violated by the
Government who in thus acting are bound to indemnify him by
the payment of damages in consequence of the injury done him.
For these reasons the Judgment of the court below confirmed the
appellants [the Government] to pay the costs.
The amount of damages was thereupon fixed by arbitration, but
M. de Queirod, not being able to obtain satisfaction applied to the
Courts to enforce the award. In the Court of first Instance he
succeeded, but the Supreme Court reversed its own former
judgement and decided that nothing was due to M. de Queirod.271
To further his claim, Reuter added a note to the letter which he had
previously enclosed to one of his earlier letters in April 1905. The note was entitled,
“the Claim Against the Brazilian Government”, as mentioned earlier. It relayed the
270 Harding to Larcom, 25 April 1906, FO 371/12, file no: 652, no: 19740, 9 June 1906.
271 Reuter to Grey, 8 June 1906, FO 371/12, file no: 652, no: 19740, 9 June 1906.
97
history of the dispute, gave the details of the concession, and the names of the
Brazilian jurists who stood against the second judgement of the Supreme Court, as
discussed above. In the note Reuter mentioned the opinion of Señor Ruy Barbosa,
“one of the greatest Brazilian legists”. Based on Reuter’s account, Barbosa
expressed in a long speech in the Federal Senate that the Supreme Court had
enacted a miscarriage of justice.272
Then, in order to convince the Foreign Office that he had no other redress to
the situation, Reuter stated:
…I have no remedy at my disposal. I cannot go to the Courts with
a case in which the Supreme Court has already given judgement.
Consequently I am powerless, personally, to obtain redress.273
Furthermore, Reuter implied that the involvement of the British Foreign Office in
the matter was also the wish of the Brazilian Foreign Office. He claimed that Baron
de Rio Branco, the Brazilian Minister for Foreign Affairs, desired a request from
the British Foreign Office for a solution:
On the other hand, however, I am given to understand, and have
been categorically so informed by persons of high position in
Brazil, that the Brazilian Government are desirous of settling the
matter once and for all, but they want ‘a golden bridge’ extended
to them. On 27th ultimo, my representative cabled me as follows:
‘Baron de Rio Branco est bienveillant, mais desire pour
solution une demande du Foreign Office’.”274
Finally, Reuter stated his request which was that “His Majesty’s Minister at Rio de
Janeiro be instructed to support my representative and to inform the Brazilian
Minister for Foreign Affairs that the Foreign Office would like to see the injury
redressed and the matter settled”.275
272 Reuter to Grey, 8 June 1906, FO 371/12.
273 Ibid.
274 Ibid.
275 Ibid.
98
Reuter’s letter also shows that he had sought the support of the French
Foreign Office before the British:
In conclusion I would say that I am given to understand, that the
British Minister is not convinced of the necessity for diplomatic
action, and I believe that this is due to the following circumstance.
When M. Guyon went to Brazil for me last year he took with him
a letter of introduction from M. Delcassé [then Minister for
Foreign Affairs] to M. Decrais, the French Minister in Brazil. On
one occasion M. Decrais called in the legal adviser to the French
legation to discuss the question with M. Guyon. Mr. Lowther was
present at this interview at which the lawyer stated that he was of
the opinion that we had a bad case. It was only subsequently
discovered that this gentleman had acted as arbitrator on behalf of
the Government in the second arbitration case.276
In the Foreign Office minutes regarding Reuter’s letter, Lowther’s and Harding’s
opinion about this case and their influence on the decision of the Foreign Office
were noted: “…we have been hitherto reluctant to press a case which both M.
Lowther and Sir Harding have pronounced to be speculative and very dubious”.277
Reuter received a response from Sir Eldon Gorst, Assistant Under-Secretary
for Foreign Affairs on behalf of Sir Edward Grey, who explained to Reuter that the
British Foreign Office could only give official support to a British subject and that
the decision taken on this matter by the Brazilian court concerned M. Saxe de
Queirod, a citizen of Brazil:
With reference to your contention that a miscarriage of justice has,
in this instance taken place, I am to point out that before this can
be made the ground of diplomatic intervention by H.M.
Representative it must be shown that the victim of such a
miscarriage was a British subject. In April 1905, however, when
you forwarded the memorandum setting forth the facts of the case
it was not brought to the knowledge of the Secretary of State that
it was only so recently as January 16th of that year that you had
become the owner of the larger portion of M. de Queirod’s claim.
The victim therefore of the decision of the Brazilian Courts...was
a Brazilian citizen.278
276 Ibid.
277 Minutes, 9 June 1906, FO 371/12, file no: 652, no: 19740, 9 June 1906.
278 Gorst to Reuter, 18 June 1906, FO 371/12, file no: 652, no: 19740, 9 June 1906.
99
As a result, Reuter would only be given unofficial support, “and in these circles
H.M. Minister at Rio cannot be authorized to do more than give you such unofficial
help as would be given to any British subject who had entered into an unfortunate
commercial speculation”.279
In Foreign Office inner correspondences, Reuter’s case was defined as a
speculation until a final decision was made and Reuter was informed by Gorst.
Clearly, Gorst wanted to underline the fact that the British Foreign Office did not
wish to be involved in such a matter and to make Reuter understand that any further
effort to convince the Foreign Office would be useless. Another significant point in
Gorst’s letter was his comments on “the Claim against the Brazilian Government”.
In the document, Reuter very carefully avoided the information regarding the date
when he took over the concession. When Reuter sent this memorandum to the
Foreign Office for the first time, in 1905, more than a year before Gorst’s letter, he
did not indicate when the majority of M. de Queirod’s rights were transferred to
him and it was only after the investigations of the Foreign Office that it was
discovered. By reminding him of the first time the memorandum was sent to the
Foreign Office, Gorst was implying to Reuter that he had hidden the true nature of
the matter from the Foreign Office on purpose. Gorst’s statements on “the Claim
against the Brazilian Government” made Reuter drop his claim to British
government official support.
Reuter responded the next day, acknowledging that he understood “why the
Foreign Office cannot issue instructions to His Majesty’s Minister at Rio to take
official action in the matter, as regards M. de Queirod’s assignment of his claim” to
him. Nevertheless, he demanded the unofficial support mentioned in Gorst’s letter
279 Gorst to Reuter, 18 June 1906, FO 371/12.
100
“trusting that my representative at Rio may still enjoy the advantage of Sir H.
Dering’s unofficial help”.280
However, Sir Henry Dering, Minister to Brazil did not want to have anything
to do with Reuter’s case. Dering first arranged to meet Baron Rio de Branco, the
Brazilian Minister for Foreign Affairs, and later presented M. Guyon to him as part
of the unofficial help promised by the British Foreign Office to Reuter. However,
Dering had been alerted about this concession and warned the British Foreign
Office before the meeting between Guyon and Branco took place. He informed the
Foreign Office about his discussions with the French Minister and expressed his
concerns to Gorst in a private letter:
Baron Reuter and others have evidently taken up this claim as a
speculation; in the original concession, [a] Brazilian citizen of the
name of Queirod having failed in this attempt to extract
compensation for a very doubtful claim from the Brazilian
Government, has asked about this claim to any firm who would
take it up British firms in Rio…and now Baron Reuter seems to
wish to put pressure on foreign governments back up his
speculation. The French Government has absolutely declined to
back M. Guyon in any way…281
In his letter Dering also stated that he had made an appointment with the Minister
for Foreign Affairs but M. Guyon had asked him to postpone it for a week or ten
days, but then he did not hear back from him. Dering suspected the reason for this
postponement was M. Guyon’s desire to find something which would put pressure
on the British government, to force them to be on his side against the Brazilian
government:
I asked and obtained permission from Baron de Rio Branco to
present M. Guyon to him, and informed that gentlemen of the fact.
I warned him at the same time that my part of the business ended
there and that I knew the Minister for Foreign affairs would at
280 Reuter to Gorst, 19 June 1906, FO 371/12, file no: 652, no: 19740, 9 June 1906.
281 Dering to Gorst, 28 May1906, FO 371/12, file no: 652, no: 19740, 9 June 1906.
101
once refer him to the judicial authorities of the country, stating he,
as Minister for Foreign Affairs, was not concerned in the matter,
the Supreme Tribunal having decided against the claim.
I cannot but think that M. Guyon’s silence since he last saw
me means that he is endeavouring to bring further pressure to bear
on H.M. Government to take a more active part in pushing this
very doubtful claim…282
Finally, on 27 May 1906, Monsieur Guyon, who had already addressed
himself in writing to the Brazilian Minister for Foreign Affairs, was presented to
him in person.283 Guyon asked Branco “to bring his influence to bear upon the
judges of the Supreme Court to reconsider the verdict which had already been
delivered against his claim”.284 Dering summarized the meeting of Guyon and
Branco as follows:
Monsieur Guyon recapitulated to the Minister for Foreign Affairs
the arguments in his favour…and Baron do Rio Branco said in
reply, firstly that the matter did not concern his Department, but
those of Finance and Public Works, before whom all the
documents had been laid; that he had neither the power nor the
intention of attempting to influence judicial decisions arrived at by
Judges of this country; and that he finally declined to enter into
the merits or demerits of the case, unless officially applied to by
his own Minister or the Representative of Great Britain.285
Branco further underlined that he had no intention in interfering with a judicial
matter:
That gentleman then remarked to Baron do Rio Branco that both
the German and Italian capitalists had recently been paid
compensation in an exactly similar case. ‘That was perfectly
correct,’ rejoined Baron de Branco, ‘but in neither case through
my intervention. Both these parties proved their claim before the
judicial authorities of this country and received the amount
awarded to them such was the only and proper course to be
pursued.’286
282 Dering to Gorst, 28 May 1906, FO 371/12.
283 Ibid.
284 Ibid.
285 Ibid.
286 Ibid.
102
Following this despatch, Dering sent another one the very next day, on 29 May
1906; this time he laid down his opinion on what should be done next with regards
to the concession. His letter indicates that on this matter there was strong
cooperation between the French and British Legations in Brazil. Dering
summarized the French Legation’s experience of the case:
Monsieur Decrais, after a careful examination of the statements
submitted to him, came to the conclusion that no French interests
were really engaged in the case, which had all the appearance of a
speculative cession of the claims of a Brazilian Concessionaire to
third parties for a consideration.
He further reported to the French Government that it had
come to his knowledge that the original Brazilian
Concessionaries, evidently doubtful of the validity of their claim
for compensation, had hawked it about in the market and amongst
others, offered it to an English firm who, considering it was not of
a character to reflect any credit on them, declined to have
anything to do with it, and it has now been taken up by M. Reuter,
whose agent Monsieur Guyon is.287
Dering then stated that Decrais’ decision “to have nothing to do with so doubtful a
claim, and declining to receive Monsieur Guyon anymore was approved by the
French Government” and added that Monsieur Decrais allowed him to read his
report to the French Government “recording his opinion as to the inadvisability of
their supporting a case of this doubtful nature”. Dering, on stating that he agreed
with this report, was advised to follow the same path as the French Legation:
Under the above circumstances, I venture to ask your authority to
take up the same line as has been laid down by the French
Government for the conduct of their Representative and to inform
Monsieur Guyon that His Majesty’s Government does not
consider that his claim is one which they could authorize His
Majesty’s Legation to support. The effect of this would be to
place the parties interested in the same position, as pointed out to
Monsieur Guyon by Baron de Rio Branco, as ordinary claimants
to whom all judicial resources in this country were open, and who
must act through their legal advisers.288
287 Dering to Gorst, 29 May 1906, FO 371/12, file no: 652, no: 19740, 9 June 1906.
288 Dering to Gorst, 28 May 1906, FO 371/12.
103
After this second despatch of Dering, Hurst wrote in the minutes of the
Foreign Office:
From Sir H. Dering’s despatch no: 30 it appears that he has
presented M. Guyon to the Brazilian Minister for F.A., but that the
latter took his stand on the fact that the claimants had not been
successful in proving their claim before the courts and would do
nothing for them.
From this later desp. [no: 31] it would appear that Baron de
Rio Branco is quite justified in taking up this attitude and that the
claim is bad. It therefore seems necessary to inform Baron de
Reuter that further reports from H.M. Minister have convinced the
Secretary of State that the case is not one which calls for any
further interaction on the part of H.M. Minister Representative.
This will no doubt bring Baron de Reuter to this office with
protests, and demands for explanations, which it will be
impossible to gratify; but it is presumed this must be faced as Sir
H. Dering cannot continue to give even his unofficial assistance in
this matter.
At the same time we might communicate briefly to Baron de
Reuter the fact that M. Guyon was presented and the result of the
interview with the Minister for F.A.289
In July 1906, Dering was informed by Sir Eric Barrington, Assistant Under-
Secretary for Foreign Affairs that his concerns on the matter reported in his
despatch had been evaluated and it had been decided that “the case is one to which
the Government cannot give their support and no further assistance in therefore
called for by our Legation in the matter”.290
The final official response to Reuter does not exist in the archive but we
have a drafted copy from 2 July 1906. From the draft it seems that the British
Foreign Office was preparing a letter which explained in length M. Guyon’s visit to
Branco, based on Dering’s report on their meeting. The draft also has Sir Edward
Grey’s note, suggesting the addition of the following sentence to the letter: “after
full consideration of all the [facts] of the case, Sir E. Grey is of the opinion that the
289 Minutes by Hurst, 23 June 1906, FO 371/12, file no: 652, no: 19740, 9 June 1906.
290 Barrington to Dering, draft letter, 2 July 1906, FO 371/12, file no: 652, no: 19740, 9 June 1906,
NA.
104
case is not one which calls for any further intervention on the part of H.M.
Representative at Rio”.291 Therefore, the existing documents suggest that the British
Foreign Office decided not to provide Reuter with either official or unofficial
support in this case, and any other correspondence between Reuter and the Foreign
Office on this matter does not exist. Baron George de Reuter’s attempt to interfere
with the judicial processes and court decisions of a foreign country, by means of the
British Foreign Office, had failed as Baron de Rio Branco, the Brazilian Minister of
Foreign Affairs, denied his support in influencing judicial authorities, and the
British Foreign Office remained reluctant to push the Brazilian government to pay
any compensation to Reuter. However, in the case of the Rexer Arms Company
Limited dispute, as we shall now see, the British Foreign Office supported the
company without even feeling the need to examine the original agreement text.
The manufacturing and selling of arms was another business area for Baron
George de Reuter; he was the Chairman of the Rexer Arms Company Limited.
According to Reuter, the purpose of the company, which was registered in March
1905, was “to acquire patents for an automatic machine gun, and to manufacture
and sell these guns”.292 The company bought the patents “from Mr. H. de Morgan
Snell who purchased them [subject to the payment of Royalties] from the Dansk
Rekylriffel Syndikat”.293 Reuter maintained that by acquiring the patents, the Rexer
Arms Company was entitled to the following:
(1) the English Company has exclusive rights as against the
Danish throughout the whole of the British Empire, (2) the Danish
Company has such rights as can be acquired by patents in some
European countries and the United States, (3) a large part of the
world is open to both the English and Danish Companies, and
ordinary commercial competition may take place in all such
291 Draft letter to Reuter, 2 July 1906, 2 July 1906, FO 371/12, file no: 652, no: 19740, 9 June 1906.
292 Reuter, “The Rexer Arms Co., Ltd.,” FO 371/35, file no. 18870, no: 18871, 1 June 1906.
293 Reuter, “Rexer Arms,” FO 371/35.
105
places. In China, for instance, there are no patent rights, and the
English Company and the Danes have equal rights in regard to
trading in that country, subject, however, to the proviso that if the
English Company manufacture in England they have to pay
Royalties to the Danish Company on all guns sold.294
Because Reuter did not submit the actual patent agreement, its terms were
unknown, leaving the Foreign Office to rely on Reuter’s interpretation. In 1906, the
Rexer Arms Company experienced a problem with the Dansk Rekylriffel Syndikat
with regards to selling arms in China. Reuter summarized the reason for the conflict
and requested the help of the British Foreign Office:
The Russian Minister in conformity with instructions from the
Danish Foreign Office has informed the Board of Foreign Affairs
[the Wai Wu Pu] that I am not entitled to sell Rexer guns in
China. I have appealed and have received instructions from the
British Minister who advises me to appeal to the Foreign Office to
cable him to inform the Board of Foreign Affairs that I am entitled
to sell the Company’s guns and to appoint agents in China. I
cannot do anything without this…
Guns similar to those made by this Company are also made
in the Danish Arsenal and sold by a Danish Company called the
Dansk Rekylriffel Syndikat, who, however, own no rights under
which they can interfere with this Company carrying on its
business in China.295
In the later part of his letter, Reuter asked the British Foreign Office to
instruct the British Minister in Pekin “to protest against the action of the Russian
Minister in prejudicing this Company’s rights” and to inform the Chinese Board of
Foreign Affairs that his company and its agent, Colonel O’Sullivan, R.E., had the
right to sell the company’s guns and appoint agents in China.296
According to Reuter the core of the problem was that:
…the guns sold by the Danish Company are manufactured in the
Royal Danish Arsenal and the Danish Company have taken
advantage of this fact to obtain diplomatic interference by the
Danish Foreign Office, with the result that the Russian Minister at
294 Ibid.
295 Reuter to Grey, FO 371/35, file no: 18870, no: 18870, 1 June 1906.
296 Reuter to Grey, 1 June 1906, FO 371/35.
106
Pekin has informed the Wai-wu-pu that the Danish Company have
rights in that country which supersede the established rights of
British subjects to carry on their business in the Chinese Empire,
greatly to the prejudice of the Rexer Arms Company.297
Without any further investigations, which it had carried out concerning the rest of
the Reuter family’s complaints regarding their foreign investments, the British
Foreign Office instantly acted in this matter because of a British and Russian
conflict of interest over China. Rivalry between the two empires for power in the
Far East had worked well for the Rexer Arms Company and its chairman, Baron
George de Reuter. The following day Reuter was informed “that a telegram has
been despatched to Mr. Carnegie giving him the substance of the information
contained in your communication; and instructing him to inform the Chinese
Government that they should pay no attention to an attempt to injure the Company
by trade rivals whose proper remedy if they have any cause of action lies in the
appropriate courts of law”.298
As instructed, Lancelot D. Carnegie wrote to His Highness Prince Ch’ing on
2 June 1906 and asked the Chinese Government to “disregard the attempt which has
been made to injure the Company’s business, as the Danish Company, if they have
any ground for complaint, can always seek a remedy in the proper manner by suing
the British Company in the Courts”.299 The response given to Carnegie by the Wai
Wu Pu sheds light on the course of events:
H.E. the Russian Minister represented some time ago to the Board
that this quick-firing gun was a Danish patent, and that the Rexer
Arms Company subsequently became empowered under a formal
agreement to sell these guns in Great Britain and British Colonies,
but this agreement arrived at between the Danish manufacturers
and the Company conferred upon the former no authority to sell in
China. M. Pokotiloff represented that the British Co. was not
297 Reuter, “Rexer Arms,” FO 371/35.
298 Barrington to Reuter, 2 June 1906, FO 371/35, file no: 18870, no:18870, 1 June 1906.
299 Carnegie to the Wai Wu Pu, 2 June 1906, FO 371/35, file no: 18870, no: 25899, 30 July 1906.
107
observing the conditions of the agreement in sending these guns to
China and in offering them for trial and sale to the High
Commissioner for Northern Ports, through their agent Colonel
O’Sullivan. He therefore requested us to notify all the Provincial
Authorities in this sense, in order to stop this improper attempt of
the British C. to sell the guns in China.300
The Board then communicated with Yuan Shih-k’ai, a government official, who
was of the opinion that China had the right to buy goods from any country she
wished and if the Danish company had a complaint, it needed to bring an action
against the British company in the British courts. Carnegie was also informed that a
response along these lines had been addressed to the Russian Minister.301
On 28 August 1906, the British Foreign Office received a letter from the
solicitors of Dansk Rekylriffel Syndikat claiming that the Rexer Arms Company
was not entitled to sell arms except in the territory of the British Empire and that the
British Foreign Office was mistaken in this matter:
…His Majesty’s British Legation in Pekin has been informed by
the Foreign Office in London that an English Company, the Rexer
Arms Company Limited, has the right to sell the Rexer Gun and
its Accessories in China, and that this intimation has been
conveyed to [the] Wai Wu Pu in Pekin. If this is the case we think
such information must have been given under a misapprehension
inasmuch as the Rexer Arms Company Limited is only entitled to
the patents for Great Britain its Colonies and India, the patent
rights for the rest of the World being the property of our clients.
We should, therefore, be obliged if you would ensure that such
steps should be taken as may be necessary to contradict the
statements already made, which we may add are inflicting serious
loss and inconvenience to our clients.302
It was decided by the Foreign Office to repeat the answer given to the Russian
Minister at Peking by the Chinese Government:
…if the contention of your clients the Dansk Rekylriffel Syndikat
and Captain Schouboe of Copenhagen is correct viz: that the
300 Wai Wu Pu to Carnegie, FO 371/35, file no. 18870, no: 25899, 30 July 1906.
301 Wai Wu Pu to Carnegie, FO 371/35.
302 Stephenson, Harwood and Company to Sir Edward Grey, 27 August 1906, FO 371/35
file no: 18870, no: 29311, 28 August 1906.
108
Rexer Arms Company Limited are only entitled to the patents of
the Rexer Gun etc, for Great Britain its colonies and India and that
the patent rights for the rest of the world are the property of your
clients, the proper course for the latter would be to bring an action
against the Rexer Arms Company in the British Courts in China
for the protection of their interests.303
The solicitors responded that they were aware of their client’s rights to “apply to the
proper Courts in China for the protection of their interests if necessary” and
explained that the reason they had addressed a letter to the Foreign Office was that
their client:
…had been informed that His Majesty’s Legation in Pekin had
received an intimation from the Foreign Office in London that the
Rexer Arms Company Limited had the right to sell the Rexer Gun
and it accessories in China, and had conveyed this intimation to
the Wai Wu Pu in Pekin. It is obvious that such an intimation, if
given, would have been in effect to pre-judge the question not yet
brought before the Court in China, much less decided by them, as
to who had, or had not, the right to sell the Rexer Gun and its
accessories in China, and we can, therefore, hardly believe that the
Foreign Office in London has taken this step. We observe,
however, that in your letter of the 3rd September you do not state
that our information is incorrect, and we shall, therefore, be glad if
you will kindly let us know this is the case. Should, however, our
information be correct, we must ask you in fairness to our clients,
to notify the Wai Wu Pu through the same channel that the
question of the Rexer Arms Company’s right to sell the gun in
China has not yet been decided before any competent Court
there.304
In its response, the Foreign Office backed the Rexer Arms Company by denying
Stephenson, Harwood and Company’s demands:
Sir E. Grey gathers from your letter that you are an English firm
of Solicitors representing in this country a private Danish
Company and he regrets that in the circumstances he is unable to
discuss with you the action taken by His Majesty’s Representative
at Peking in the matter. If your clients have any complaint to make
against the action of His Majesty’s Government or their accredited
303 Foreign Office to Stephenson, Harwood and Company, FO 371/35 f. 18870, no: 29311,
August 28, 1906.
304 Stephenson, Harwood and Company, 28 November 1906, FO 371/35, file no: 40028,
file: 18870, 28 November 1906.
109
Representative in China it should be made through the proper
international channel, viz: the Danish Government.305
Around the same time as Baron George de Reuter established the Rexer Arms
Company, he also set up the Korean Waterworks Limited, becoming its Chairmsan,
and took over the Seoul Waterworks Concession. Although in completely different
fields, the Baron’s investments in foreign countries were compatible with British
strategic interests.
Baron George de Reuter established the Korean Waterworks Limited “to
acquire a concession [dated 9 December 1903] granted by the Imperial Korean
Government to Messrs. Collbran & Bostwick, empowering them to establish a
water supply for the City of Seoul”.306 The transfer of the concession from Messrs.
Collbran and Bostwick to the Korean Waterworks Limited took place on 6 August
1906. Construction began during the latter part of 1906 and was completed on 1
August 1908. Reuter’s complaint was that: “since that date the Company has been
in a position to supply water to the inhabitants; but, unfortunately, their operations
have been, up to the present, seriously curtailed by the fact that the old system of
supplying water from the native wells has been allowed to remain in force”.307 He
further claimed that the very reason the concession had been granted in the first
place was to end this impure water supply system and, under the terms of the
concession, the company was entitled to complete control of the water supply of
Seoul. Reuter requested the British Foreign Office to instruct the Acting British
305 Campbell to Stephenson, Harwood and Company, 10 December 1906, FO 371/35, file
no: 40028, file: 18870, 28 November 1906.
306 Baron George de Reuter to Beilby F. Alston, 15 February 1909, FO 371/645, file no: 4557, file:
4557, 1 February 1909.
307 Reuter to Alston, 15 February 1909, FO 371/645.
110
Consul-General to make representations for the forcible suppression of competition
with the Korean Waterworks Company Limited.308
After investigating the matter, the Foreign Office reached the following
conclusion: “it appears to Sir E. Grey open to doubt whether the Korean
Government had in view the closing of the wells already existing in Seoul when
they granted the concession; it is more probable that the intention was merely to
promise not to allow a competing water Company to come into the field”. Reuter
was given a detailed explanation of the office’s decision:
It is not possible always to enforce technical rights granted by a
Government constituted such as that of Korea was in 1903
without consultation with the chief parties whose interests are
likely to be affected by the establishment of a new regime. It is
understood that there are a good many wells in Seoul within the
grounds of private residences, but that the general population buys
its water from carriers who bring it from public wells. This water,
though no doubt not up to European standards of purity, is
probably no worse than the water used in most Oriental cities.
Though there may not be any difficulty in persuading the people
to drink the Company’s water, which comes from the river, there
would certainly be some dissatisfaction if they found that they
have to pay more for it than they had been accustomed to pay for
a quality of water with which they were quite contented.309
The foreign office also told Reuter the possible outcomes of forced
suppression of competition with the Korean Waterworks Company
Limited, and suggested a policy to solve its problems with the water supply
market:
Again, difficulty is likely to arise with the water carriers, who
form a strongly organised guild. They appear to be a turbulent
class, and all come from the same part of the country, a fact which
adds to their power of combination; and it seems not improbable
that a sudden prohibition of their use of the wells would lead to a
riot and to damage being done to the Company’s reservoir and
other property. In any case it seems open to great doubt whether it
308 Ibid.
309 F.A. Campbell to Baron George de Reuter, 11 February 1909, FO 371/645, file no: 4557, file:
4557, 1 February 1909.
111
would be justifiable to put an end to their competition by force, or,
indeed, that a precedent for such a demand could be found in
similar cases in other parts of the world, such as China or India.
The natural course seems to be to bring them to terms by
distributing the Company’s water at less than they charge, and so
gradually induce them to take service with the Company as
carriers of water from the hydrants.310
Despite Reuter presenting the case as if the concession covered all parts of Seoul,
the British government found out that the area agreed on was only the Japanese
municipality. The Foreign Office underlined this fact to demonstrate that Reuter’s
desire to become sole water supplier in Seoul was an impossibility:
…that body is only concerned with the municipal affairs of that
part of the city in which the Japanese chiefly reside, and has
nothing to do with the greater part of the town. The agreement
with them to which you refer only relates to the water supply in
the Japanese quarter and was no doubt intended to prevent friction
arising in connection with the location of hydrants, the repair of
pipes and roads, the assessment of houses for a water rate, the
collection of it, and the like. It is doubtful whether the Japanese
municipal authorities are in a way bound to procure the
discontinuance of the use of wells, even within the Japanese
quarter, but even if they did so the main part of the problem viz:
the supply of water to the reminder of the town, would remain
untouched.311
Certainly, it was not the response Reuter was expecting. As in the case of the
concession to build twenty agricultural villages in Brazil, Reuter had hidden facts
from the British Foreign Office to manipulate it into putting pressure on a foreign
government.
Examining the investment schemes of the Reuter family demonstrates that
they were not restricted to a branch or field of work but, rather, their perceived
profitability was the decisive factor. Both the Reuter Concession in Persia and the
Greek Railway Concession demonstrate how news can become a precious
310 Campbell to Reuter, 11 February 1909, FO 371/645.
311 Campbell to Reuter, 11 Feb 1909, FO 371/645.
112
commodity in the hands of news agency owners, enabling them to stand by the
great powers and take part in forming and implementing policies. Members of the
Reuter family inserted themselves as formidable figures into the great power
politics of the late nineteenth century, and impacted policy making both
domestically and internationally. The rising influence of the family exhibited “the
growing wealth and power of service capitalism after 1850”.312 While the Reuter
Concession caused public unrest in Persia and endangered the Shah’s crown shortly
after it was granted, it had also been a source of tension between the Russian and
British empires for years, until the signing of the Bank Concession in 1889. In the
case of the Greek Railway Concession, which was granted to the Eastern Railway
Syndicate Limited, a company of Baron Herbert de Reuter, Frédéric-Émile
Erlanger, Havas’ owner, and Jules Gouin, Baron George de Reuter attempted to
direct British policy with regards to the Ottoman Empire. He tried to convince the
British government to force the Sublime Porte to accept the Piraeus–Larissa railway
line’s junction with the Ottoman railway system. Then, when Crete’s declaration of
independence became an obstacle, he created a policy, sought approval from the
British government, and pursued the role of mediator. He even conspired against
Greece and the Ottoman Empire at the same time by suggesting to the British
Foreign Office the leasing of Suda Bay, a strategically important harbor in Crete, to
Britain to convince the government to work for the unification of Crete with
Greece. Furthermore, during the times he had disagreements with the Greek
government, he requested the British Empire’s support against it.
The two concessions described herein offer an insight into great-power
politics prior to the First World War, and demonstrate the role powerful investors,
312 P.J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1688-2015 (London: Routledge, 2016), 55.
113
like the Reuter family, played as actors alongside conventional nation-states. This
dissertation contributes to previous studies on British imperialism by exploring the
rising power of investors after 1850, and their influence on policy making before
the First World War. Moreover, the incidents that took place around the Reuter
Concession, the Greek Railway Concession, the agricultural village formation
concession, the Rexer Arms Company dispute, and the Seoul Waterworks
Concession exemplify the strong connections a news agency owner and his family
members in business had with their imperial governments, exposing their
dependency on their home governments while pursuing their business interests in
foreign states.
114
CHAPTER IV
THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE
Contemporary challenges in world politics, technology, economy, and
society made suppliers of news significant for the Ottoman Empire. To preserve the
empire, policies that promoted centralization was pursued for centuries. Improving
transportation and communication systems was part of this centralization policy.
However, because these technologies arrived to the empire several years after its
European counterparts founded, established and extended these systems, the
Ottoman Empire became depended on foreign news agencies in supplying news.
Finding their news biased and in favor of their home governments, the Ottomans
first tried to win them over by means of allowances and privileges without much of
a success.
115
4.1. Decentralization and an Overview of Centralization Policy in
the Ottoman Empire
The three major developments that took place during the sixteenth century
had a great impact on the Ottoman Empire. In the sixteen century the Ottoman
Empire reached its limits of expansion. With the Western overseas discoveries and
expansions, new trade routes began to be used by the Europeans, causing drastic
decline in the empire’s income from foreign trade. Furthermore, flow of excessive
silver to the Ottoman Empire from America caused devaluation and inflation which
distressed large sections of the population. While excessive silver decreased the
value of silver akçe and asper, the empire’s currency, the value of gold raised. This
enabled the European traders to export raw materials in larger quantities which led
to decline of local industries in the Ottoman Empire, incline of European imports,
and loss of state revenues.313
The third decisive development was the collapse of the old Ottoman agrarian
system.314 The provincial governors had undermined central authority from the
sixteenth century onwards by building their own armed forces comprised of sekbansarica
(Anatolian mercenaries) and levend (vagrant reaya) troops, and taxing the
reaya (lower class) illegally.315 Reluctant to drastically change the traditional
governing system, the sultans pursued some policies to undermine the provincial
governments, which eventually caused the rise of the ayan (local notables) in the
provinces. To control the power of governors, the sultans increased the influence of
313 Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968),
21-29.
314 Ibid., 30.
315 Halil İnalcık, “Centralization and Decentralization in Ottoman Administration,” in Studies in
Eighteenth Century Islamic History, ed. Thomas Naff (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University
Press, 1977), 27.
116
kadis and defterdars, the other two administrators in the provinces. However, kadis
often sought help from the ayan against the provincial governors, causing them to
be more influential. Another policy was empowering muhassils (tax collectors) by
assigning khass as mukataas. The duty to collect these new revenues was given to
muhassils, undermining the power of provincial governors. However, the ayan
gradually started to become muhassils, using the post as a stepping stone for
governorship. The length of time a governor could remain in a province was
regulated and reduced to one or two years, whereas the local ayan continued to
remain in the same place, maintaining their influence. Furthermore, in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, many sancaks (districts) in Anatolia were
assigned as arpalık (large estates) to high officials in Istanbul, or to commanders of
frontier fortresses. They appointed mütesellims (authorized agents) from among
local ayan to administer these lands on their behalf. From the seventeenth century
onwards, all these changes caused the rise of local ayan, suppressing the power of
governors.316 In the eighteenth century, the post became hereditary among certain
families in several regions of the empire. The objective of the ayan-mütessellims in
pursuing the post was:
…to hold permanently in their hands the mukataas or the sources
of revenue which the state had farmed out by iltizam and to
consolidate their control and usufruct on these resources located in
their districts. The realization of these objectives was facilitated
by the conversion of mukataas into malikanes, that is, life-time
leases on the revenue sources of the tax farm. The fundamental
issue underlying the political strife among the provincial ayan was
invariably the matter of collecting, in the name of the state, the
revenues of mukataas and such other taxes as cizye (poll tax) and
avariz (emergency tax).317
316 Ibid., 27–32.
317 Ibid., 33.
117
In the eighteenth century, and with a couple of exceptional cases in the previous
century, ayan who were members of the reaya were appointed to the post of paşas
(higher-ranking official.318 While imperial elites of the center lost their power in
provincial governance, individuals and families in provinces throughout the
Ottoman Empire, consolidated power, gained wealth and formed reginal zones of
influence.319
Finally, under the rule of Selim III and with the efforts of the grand vizir
Koca Yusef Paşa, by a firman (royal decree) issued in April 1786, ayanship was
abolished and it was declared that anyone seeking ayanship would be prosecuted.
All the duties of the ayan were assigned to the şehir-kethudası (city administrator).
In this way, the empire tried to restore central authority in the provinces as the
powerful ayan families were replaced by kethudas with humble origins and little
power.320
Mahmud II, who had ascended the throne with the help of an ayan, Alemdar
Mustafa Paşa, was forced to sign an agreement with the ayan in October 1808
through the initiative of Mustafa Paşa, whom the sultan appointed as sadrazam
(prime minister). With this agreement, the ayan declared their loyalty to the
imperial center and their ultimate suppression was postponed. After the sadrazam
was killed in an uprising on 16 November 1808, Mahmud II started to subdue the
ayan. Hastening the process, especially after 1812, the sultan managed to undermine
their power in most of Anatolia and the European territories of the empire.321
318 Ibid., 40.
319 Ali Yaycıoğlu, Partners of the Empire: The Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age of
Revolutions (Stanford: Stanford Universtiy Press, 2016), 67.
320 Halil İnalcık, “Centralization and Decentralization.” 50–51.
321 Nesimi Yazıcı, “Posta Nezaretinin Kuruluşu,” in Çağını Yakalayan Osmanlı!: Osmanlı
Devleti’nde Modern Haberleşme ve Ulaştırma Teknikleri, ed. Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu (İstanbul: İslam
Tarih, Sanat ve Kültür Araştırma Merkezi, 1995), 28.
118
By the mid-nineteenth century, the empire was still trying to regain control
of its lands. During the Tanzimat (Auspicious Reorganization), the Land Law of
1858 (Arazi Kanunnamesi) was issued with the purpose of consolidating state
authority over imperial lands, which had changed hands illegally over the centuries.
While the law changed the categorization of land ownership into private property
(mülk), state property (miri), foundation lands (vakıf), communal or public land
(metruk) and idle or barren land (mevat), all previous taxes on land were replaced
by a ten percent tithe cultivation tax. A new Cadastral Regulation was formed to
enforce the land law, requiring individuals and institutions to prove their ownership
through legal documents before they could obtain a new ownership deed (tapu
senedi). Though the state tried to regain its control over its lands through this new
law and regulation, it paved the way to the expansion of private ownership as, once
ownership was proved, it was easier than it had been to rent lands to others and
leave them to heirs.322
Disrupted briefly in 1807 with Selim III’s removal from the throne, the
reforms to restore central authority were relaunched under the rule of Mahmud II,
especially after the destruction of the janissary corps in 1826 in the ‘Auspicious
Incident’, as part of central authority’s restoration efforts. One such development
was founding an official newspaper. In the nineteenth century the rulers started to
nurture a growing awareness of publicity. In 1831, Takvim-i Vekayi (Calendar of
Events) began to be published with Sultan Mahmud II’s order to back up reforms,
expressing the empire’s desire to reach out to its subjects, as “for the first time a
322 Ali Yaycıoğlu, Partners of the Empire, 243. Stanford Shaw and Ezel Kural Shaw, History of the
Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, vol. II (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 114-5.
119
government newspaper supported the effort with appropriate propaganda”.323 From
then onwards, the press flourished, especially during the Tanzimat period (1839–
1876):
In 1866, there were at least 43 papers published in Istanbul in
various languages, of which four were in French, one in German,
one in Italian and one in English. In the provinces, journals were
published in both Ottoman Turkish and the local languages. During
this period, certain newspapers became privately owned and
featured more criticism of ideological positions and of practiced
governance. By the time Abdülhamit II assumed power in 1876, the
number of newspapers published only in Istanbul had reached 47:
13 were in Turkish, one in Arabic, nine in Greek, three in
Bulgarian, nine in Armenian, two in Hebrew, two in French and
English, and one in German.324
Starting with the declaration of the Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane on 3 November
1839, modifying the reforms of Mahmud II, the Tanzimat created a centralized
government with bureaucrats, memurs. Their ranks, titles and salaries were strictly
defined in “Tanzimat Bureaucracy.”325 Sultan Selim III and Mahmud II, believing
that change within the state was only possible through secular education, tried to
establish a secular school system. For this purpose and to satisfy the needs of the
state, Rüşdiye (adolescence) schools were established by Mahmud II, providing an
education for students who wished to go on to the military technical schools after
graduating from mekteps, elementary schools. He also established some higher
technical academies while resurrecting and expanding others. However, the number
of schools and students was limited. The lack of funding, buildings and teachers
323 M. Şükrü Hanioğlu, A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2008), 63.
324 Stefano Taglia, “The Intellectual’s Dilemma: The Writings of Ahmet Riza and Mehmet
Sabahettin on Reform and the Future of the Ottoman Empire” (PhD diss., London: SOAS University
of London, 2012), 69.
325 Mehmet Seyitdanlıoğlu, “Yenileşme Dönemi Osmanlı Devlet Teşkilâtı.” In Genel Türk Tarihi
Cilt 7. Edited by Hasan Celâl Güzel and Ali Birinci (Ankara: Yeni Türkiye Yayınları, 2002), 493.
120
slowed down the process until after the Crimean War. Only then, was the expansion
of secular military and civilian school systems accelerated.326
Ministry of Public Education (Maarif-i Umûmiye Nezareti) was founded in
1857, and in 1869, the Regulation for Public Education (Maarif-i Umumiye
Nizamnamesi) was issued, systemizing public education.327 With the regulation,
elementary education became compulsory for all children. Also, villages with at
least 500 houses were to have a minimum of one Rüştiye, while towns and cities
were required to have one for every 500 households, and one Idadi school (high
school) for every 1000 households.328 Developments in education and a rise in the
literacy rate contributed to the power of the newspapers.
In terms of communications, a new postal system was introduced in 1823
with a route between Istanbul and Izmir. By 1856, there were routes to other major
cities in the empire as well. Only the roads used for the postage service were in a
reasonable condition.329 On 23 September 1840, the Ministry of Postage was
founded along the lines of European postage services.330 It took years for the
Ottoman Empire to have its first telegraph line, and it was for military purposes.
The first telegraph line, which arrived around the same time as the steam railway
engine, was laid by Great Britain, who joined the Crimean War with France on the
side of the Ottoman Empire. It was a submarine telegraph line between Varna and
Crimea, the longest submarine line of its time, 340 miles in length, and started
operating in 1855. The empire’s first railway line began running in 1856 between
Cairo and Alexandria, followed by the Izmir–Aydin line the same year, when the
326 Shaw and Shaw, History of Ottoman Empire, 47-106.
327 Selçuk Akşin Somel, Osmanlı’da Eğitimin Modernleşmesi (1839-1908): İslâmlaşma, Otokrasi ve
Disiplin (İstanbul: İletişim, 2015), 27.
328 Shaw and Shaw, History of Ottoman Empire, 108.
108.
329 Ibid., 119–20.
330 Yazıcı, “Posta Nezaretinin Kuruluşu,” 42.
121
world’s first railway line, in England, was thirty-one years old.331 The arrival of the
telegraph system in the empire, as well as other contemporary communication
methods, was due to the desire of Ottoman statesmen to empower the imperial
center and ensure the preservation of the empire.
4.2. History of Telegraphy in the Ottoman Empire
The first attempt to introduce the electric telegraph to the empire was in
1839. Mellen Chamberlain, Samuel F.B. Morse’s agent, arrived in Istanbul to give a
demonstration at the Sublime Porte. However, it could not take place because of
Chamberlain’s accidental death. The next attempt was in 1847;332 John Lawrence
Smith accomplished a successful demonstration to Sultan Abdülmecid. The setting
and the sultan’s opinion on the innovation was as follows:
Smith set up a short line between the main entrance and a
reception room of the Beglerbey, the sultan’s favorite summer
palace on the Bosporus, and made a grand show of demonstrating
the telegraphy to the sultan. The sultan was so impressed that he
had the demonstration repeated with full ceremony before the
officials of his government the next day. Delighted by the
invention, he awarded Morse a diamond-studded decoration and a
berȃt, an official acknowledgement and recognition of
excellence.333
It took almost another decade before a telegraph line was constructed in the
empire. The alliance between France, Britain and the Ottoman Empire against
Russia, in the Crimean War, required a fast flow of information from the Crimea to
331 Roderic Davison, “The Advent of the Electric Telegraph in the Ottoman Empire,” in Essays in
Ottoman and Turkish History 1774-1923: The Impact of the West (Austin: University of Texas Press,
1990), 133–35.
332 Yakup Bektas, “The Sultan’s Messenger: Cultural Constructions of Ottoman Telegraphy, 1847-
1880,” Technology and Culture, vol. 41(2000): 669–71.
333 Ibid., 671.
122
the state capitals and between their capitals. At the start of the war, a message from
the Crimea to London took at least five days: “two days from the Crimea to Varna
by steamer, and three further days on horseback from there to Bucharest, the nearest
point that had been connected to the European telegraph network through the
Austrian lines”.334
As mentioned earlier, it was Britain who laid the first telegraph lines in the
Ottoman Empire in 1854, connecting Balaclava in the Crimea with Varna. Shortly
afterwards, the British laid another line connecting Varna with Istanbul. Then, in
the spring of 1855, the French built a line connecting Varna with Bucharest. At the
time of construction, the Ottoman Empire could only contribute by providing poles
and labor, and ensuring the security of the lines. The engineers were French and
British, and the wire, the insulators and the Morse instruments were imports.335 In
1854, the Ottoman government formed a commission to evaluate offers for building
telegraph lines in Ottoman territory.336 The proposals of Monsieur De la Rue and
Monsieur Blaque to build the Istanbul–Edirne–Şumnu line and the Edirne–Filibe–
Sofya and Niş line were chosen. The contract required the French technicians to
train Ottoman subjects regarding telegraph jobs. On 14 September 1855, the first
telegram was sent from Istanbul to Paris and London, addressing the Ottoman
ambassadors. For the first time, Istanbul was connected to European capital cities
through the telegraph.337
Mustafa Efendi and Vuliç Efendi were the first to receive training in
telegraphy by French specialists, followed by several others. Both were civil
servants in the Translation Bureau. Within a few years, Turkish operators and
334 Davison, “Electric Telegraph,” 135.
335 Ibid., 135.
336 Kaçar, “Telgraf İşletmesi,” 49.
337 Davison, “Electric Telegraph,” 136.
123
directors were appointed to the telegraph stations. Because most of the telegraph
staff were required to speak French, the majority of them were recruited from the
Translation Bureau.338 In 1856, Mustafa Efendi and Vuliç Efendi, based at the
Edirne office, formulated an Ottoman-Turkish version of Morse code, and sent the
first Turkish telegram from Edirne to Istanbul on the 3rd of May. Thereafter, the
usage of Turkish spread throughout the Ottoman telegraph system.339
The General Directorate of Telegraphs was established in 1855, and
Billurîzade Mehmed Efendi was appointed on 29 March 1855 as its first director.340
He was followed respectively by Davud Efendi, Franko Efendi, Arif Efendi, Kamil
Bey, Diran Efendi, Aleko Efendi, Agop Efendi, Diran Efendi (second time), Agaton
Efendi and Feyzi Bey.341 After functioning under the beylikçi (head) of the imperial
divan (intelligence agency) for over a decade, in 1871, the directorate was
transformed into a ministry and unified with the postal services, during Feyzi Bey’s
administration.342
Technical education on telegraphy began to be taught formally in 1861, with
the foundation of the Fünun-i Telgrafiye Mektebi (School of Telegraphic Science),
a two-year program for telegraphic technical instruction. However, it had periods of
closure, during one of which the Galatasaray Lycée and the Darüşşafaka introduced
courses in telegraphy. Although the Galatasaray ceased giving these courses shortly
after, the Darüşşafaka continued to give training and its graduates were appointed to
posts in the telegraph system.343 By 1870, the Ottoman Empire possessed the
338 Bektaş, “Sultan’s Messenger,” 687–88.
339 Davison, “Electric Telegraph,” 150.
340 Ibid., 141.
341 Kaçar, “Telgraf İşletmesi,” 50–1.
342 Davison, “ElectricTelegraph,” 141.
343 Ibid., 143.
124
necessary cadre to engineer and operate the system.344 As an indication of
telegraphy’s importance for the empire, between 1883 and 1891, one or two
students a year, graduates of the Darüşşafaka who were employed at the ministry,
were sent to higher-education establishments in Paris.345
In 1865, the Ottoman telegraph network joined the Indo–European
submarine line, forming the first direct telegraphic communication between India
and Europe.346 The Ottoman telegraph network continued to expand throughout the
reigns of Abdülaziz and Abdülhamid II. By 1877, the Ottoman Empire had the
eighth largest telegraph system in the world;347 it consisted of “6,490 kilometers of
lines in 1863, 13,750 kilometers in 1866, 25,137 kilometers in 1869, and 36,640
kilometers in 1904”.348
The policy to introduce and extend the empire’s telegraph system was a
continuation of the sultans’ efforts to empower central control since the end of the
eighteenth century. The telegraph was a useful device for Abdülhamid II who
wanted to have absolute control over his subjects. Abdülhamid’s view on ruling was
that:
…the strict application of law could also provide the foundations
for autocracy, which should not be confused with the Islamic
concept of despotism (Istibdād/İstibdad) or with modern
dictatorships. Superimposing the Islamic principle of justice on
this notion of a legal autocracy, he created an authoritarian regime
that he believed to be the antithesis of absolutism.349
Abdülhamid II had a secret police organization in the palace under his control.
These spies and informants were appointed to every governmental department to
344 Bektaş, “Sultan’s Messenger,” 690.
345 Davison, “Electric Telegraph,” 143.
346 Bektaş, “Sultan’s Messenger,” 686.
347 Ibid., 669.
348 Davison, “Electric Telegraph,” 138.
349 Hanioğlu, Brief History, 123.
125
report on individual bureaucrats in memorandums. Based on these reports they were
promoted, dismissed or imprisoned.350 With a widespread telegraph system,
Abdülhamid could receive information promptly from every corner of his empire
and, for this reason, he actively promoted the telegraph network. The length of the
land lines reached up to 49,716 kilometers and underwater lines to 621 kilometers
in 1904,351 because:
His internal network of spies and secret agents depended mostly
on telegraphic correspondence. Their reports were sent directly to
Yildiz Palace, ….Pashas were dismissed or transferred in response
to public telegraphic petitions.352
Between 1882 and 1904, the number of telegrams sent increased from
around one million to three million. The telegraph, which was viewed as a tool to
consolidate the power of Ottoman central authority, was later used during the
preparations of the Young Turk Revolution, and then contributed to the foundation
of the Turkish Republic by its crucial role in the Turkish War of Independence.
When the Allies occupied Constantinople on 16 March 1920, they
appropriated all government agencies and telegraph offices. The next day, Mustafa
Kemal sent an encrypted message to the head directors of the postal and telegraph
services to stop communication with Constantinople. Immediately, the Postage and
Telegraphs Office was established in Ankara with Edip Bey appointed its director.
After the opening of the Turkish Parliamentary Assembly on 23 April 1920, the
office was placed under the Home Office. Later, it became a directorate, and Sırrı
Bey, an Izmit deputy, was appointed as its general director on 20 May1920.353
350 Shaw and Shaw, History of Ottoman Empire, 214.
351 Ibid., 228.
352 Bektaş, “The Sultan’s Messenger,” 695.
353 Tanju Demir, Türkiye’de Posta Telgraf ve Telofon Teşkilatının Tarihsel Gelişimi (1840-1920)
(Ankara: Ptt Genel Müdürlüğü), 220–21.
126
Furthermore, the Anadolu Agency was established on 6 April 1920 to counter the
propaganda efforts of the Havas-Reuter-Turkish Agency.
4.3. The Empire’s Endeavor to Establish a Telegraph Agency
From the second half of the nineteenth century until the first third of the
twentieth century, Reuters, Havas and Wolff’s made agreements with each other
which defined the structure of the news market: oligopolistic and hierarchical, with
Reuters, Havas and Wolff’s at the top, cooperating with national news agencies.354
The three European news agencies mainly had the right to distribute news in their
ascribed territories, which were determined by agreements, but prohibited from
selling news in another’s. They were also allowed to gather news from the ascribed
territories of another using their own agents if they wished so long as they did not
sell it to local subscribers and news agencies. Not all territories were exclusive;
there were also shared territories which belonged to two or all of the three European
agencies.
In this news market, the local agencies had an exclusive right to the news of
the three major news agencies, but were restricted from selling its local news to any
other agency than the one major European agency with which it had signed an
agreement.355 The association, which eventually had around thirty members,
became known by several names, such as the League of Allied Agencies (les
Agences Alliées), the World League of Press Associations, the National Agencies
354 Oliver Boyd-Barrett, “Global News Agencies,” in The Globalization of News, 26.
355 Terhi Rantanen, “The Struggle for Control of Domestic News Markets,” in The Globalization of
News, 35.
127
Alliances, the Grand Alliance of Agencies or the Ring Combination.356 For some
scholars, such as Oliver Boyd-Barrett and Armand Mattelart, it was a ‘cartel’, and
its influence on world opinion was taken advantage of by governments to serve
their imperial interests.357
The first agreement between Reuters, Havas and Wolff’s was made in 1856
in which they agreed to exchange the latest quotations and market prices between
themselves.358 With the second contract made on 18 July 1859, the agencies agreed
to mutually exchange political news, which meant that each agency was to gather
news in its assigned territory and then share it with the other two. The territories
were distributed based on the territorial proximity and the sphere of political
influence of each agency’s home government. In the 1860s, the three news agencies
realized the insufficiency of the agreement as there were territories left
‘unexploited’.359 They were in control of the information markets in Europe and
were aiming to expand their operations beyond the continent.360
Therefore, on 17 January 1870, the three agencies signed an agreement
which carved out the world between the three of them. The 1870 agreement not
only defined the nature of the international news market in the nineteenth century
and the first third of the twentieth century, but also affected the scope of agency
operations even after the cartel came to an end in 1934.361 With the agreement,
Reuters took the British Empire, China, Japan and the Straits Settlements around
Singapore; Havas took France and its colonies, Spain, Italy, Portugal and Latin
356 Daya Kishan Thussu, International Communication: Continuity and Change (London: Hodder
Arnold, 2006), 20.
357 Ibid.
358 Storey, Reuters’ Century, 8.
359 Silberstein-Loeb, International Distribution, 199.
360 Thussu, International Communication, 20.
361 Jonathan Fenby, The International News Services: A Twentieth Century Fund Report (New York:
Schocken Books, 1986), 35–51.
128
America; and lastly the Continental was granted Germany, Russia and Scandinavia,
and it had to pay Havas and Reuters part of its revenue for receiving their
services.362
To satisfy the demand of the Constantinople stock market, in 1862, the
Levant Herald started to use Reuters’ telegrams. Later, other newspapers followed.
Based on an agreement between Reuters and Havas, in 1866, the latter took over the
subscribers in Constantinople.363 Shortly afterwards, Reuters’ Constantinople office
was established in the first half of 1869.364 The balance sheet of the company from
1869 shows that as of 31st December, the preliminary expenses of the office were
766 pounds, 7 cents and 7 dimes.365
With a treaty between Havas, Reuters and the Continental in 1871, the
Ottoman Empire became part of Havas’ area of operation, whereas in Egypt,
Reuters and Havas shared the right to distribute news, reflecting both British and
French foreign interests. However, soon afterwards, in 1874, with Disraeli’s return
to power, British foreign policy became more aggressive, which influenced the
1876 treaty between Havas and Reuters. The connection between this contract and
the domestic policies of the governments was depicted as follows:
His [Disraeli] dramatic purchase of the Khedive’s shares in the
Suez Canal made closer relations with Egypt essential and
inevitable; while, further east, he centered everything on the
bolstering-up of Turkey. The new political orientation set the pace
for the two news agencies. The British and the French struggle for
influence in both Turkey and Egypt was from now onwards
echoed by competition between Reuters and Havas.366
362 Ibid., 36.
363 Orhan Koloğlu, Havas-Reuter'den Anadolu Ajansı'na (Ankara: Çağdaş Gazeteciler Derneği
Yayınları, 1994), 9.
364 Board Meeting Minutes, 17 November 1869, from the Minute Book (1868–1872), 1/883502, LN
288, RA.
365 Balance Sheet, 31 December 1869, as part of an annual report prepared to be presented at the
Sixth Ordinary General Meeting of the Shareholders, 13 April 1870, from the Annual Reports 1865–
1914, 1/870501, LN 52, RA.
366 Storey, Reuters’ Century, 94.
129
With the 1876 contract, Reuters received the British Empire; Havas took the
Iberian Peninsula, Latin America and the Maghreb (Northwest Africa); and, lastly,
Wolff’s agency received parts of Eastern Europe and Scandinavia. Reuters and
Havas shared Belgium, North America and the Antilles, and received a twenty-five
percent reimbursement from Germany. All three agencies shared the exploitation of
Austria and Switzerland. Havas was to contribute 400 pounds to cover the expenses
of the American service, while Egypt and the other non-reserved territories were to
be neutral.367
Remarkably, the Ottoman Empire had a unique standing in the agreement.
While the empire was assigned as the exclusive territory of Havas, Reuters’
correspondent was allowed to transmit political news to the newspapers of
Constantinople from territories that were not reserved by Havas, if it was done “for
an interest of an important political order”368, and was granted the right to have
relations with the local newspapers for political deeds, as put down in Article 6:
Turkey will be exclusively exploited by the Agence Havas from
the financial and political point of view. However, for an interest
of high political order, Reuter's Telegram Company may, at the
end of one year, establish there a correspondent, of whom the
attributions, in that which concerns the exploitation of Turkey,
will be born[e], in all cases, at the remittance of the newspapers of
Constantinople, of political news originating in territories other
than those reserved to the company Havas, Laffite and Co.369
The new contract reflected British and French interests over the Ottoman Empire.
The weakened empire:
…became the central question of European diplomacy. All the
European powers vied for influence in the snake-pit that was the
Turkish capital.…Because of the growing influence of the press to
the pursuit of political objectives abroad, and because the agencies
367 Nalbach, “Ring Combination,” 190.
368 Ibid., 204.
369 Ibid., 191.
130
were becoming ever-more naked proxies of their respective
foreign ministries, the treaty sanctioned a loophole in the system
of exclusive spheres of influence.370
Sigmund Engländer was the correspondent assigned to Constantinople to
take advantage of this loophole. However, he was to abuse it to such an extent that
it became a source of dispute between Havas and Reuters. Engländer arrived for the
first time to the imperial capital to report on the Russo–Turkish War of 1877–1878,
and remained there until 1888.371 He tried to convince Reuters to service
Constantinople. Engländer not only supplied Reuters with information, but also
Henry Layard, the British Ambassador to Constantinople, foreign missions and the
Turkish press, an act which was against the terms of the treaty. Engländer provided
Layard with copies of his reports and in return, Layard covered some of the costs of
Engländer’s information gathering: one of Engländer’s anonymous informants was
on the payroll of the British embassy at the rate of 50 pounds per month.372
Another violation of the agreement carried out by Engländer was to
distribute news not only from London but also from Paris, Vienna, St. Petersburg,
Alexandria and Turkey. Moreover, Reuters was supplying Engländer with news of
England and India, news which it did not provide to Havas-Constantinople. In a
letter of complaint, Havas wrote to Reuters:
To you, it is as if our treaty did not exist. You have the right to
communicate in Turkey only news originating in territories
belonging to you: you distribute the news of all countries. You
have the right only to transmit them to the newspapers of
Constantinople: you transmit them to ministries, to embassies, to
everyone. There are twenty letters which we have addressed to
you on this subject: nothing is done about it.373
370 Ibid.
371 Read, Power of News, 31.
372 Nalbach, “Ring Combination,”, 203.
373 Ibid., 208.
131
Reuters’ tactic to convince Havas that Engländer was acting on his own initiative
did not work as the agency also tried to persuade Havas to exploit Turkey at the
same time. Havas rejected this offer. Engländer stopped giving news to the Turkish
press in the winter of 1880–1881, which only lasted until the spring. After then
Reuters ceased supplying Havas-Constantinople with news from London once
again. The problem was to be resolved only after Engländer’s departure from
Constantinople.374
In 1883, W.H.G. Werndel was sent to Constantinople from Egypt to become
Engländer’s assistant. Engländer started to train Werndel to take his place. Werndel
explained the efforts of Engländer, and why it was important to provide a news
service in Constantinople:
Besides the news-service for London, Dr. Engländer insisted on
publishing a news-service in Constantinople notwithstanding the
fact that Turkey came within the bounds of activity of the Havas
Agency for the propagation of news locally. There were, I believe,
protests from Havas, but these were overcome finally by our news
being published under the name of Dr. Engländer, the name
‘Reuter’ not appearing. Although this service of telegrams was a
restricted one, and entailed a loss financially, nevertheless, it
proved of value as a means of propaganda besides enhancing our
moral position and prestige in this part of the world. To give an
instance of the value people attached to our news, whenever any
big question was agitating public opinion in Europe, I may recall
the many visits we used to receive in our small office in
Constantinople enquiring whether we had any special information
regarding the question then engaging the attention of the Great
Powers. Dr. Engländer was naturally proud of his achievements in
that respect, especially after his successful struggle with the
headquarters in London, convincing the latter of the utility and
value to the Company of a service of news to Constantinople.375
Werndel’s account also mentions the Ottoman Empire’s displeasure with
Engländer:
374 Ibid.
375 Werndel to Sir Roderick Jones, 21 February 1919, 1/014090, LN 797, RA.
132
He was of a hospitable disposition, kept an open house in
Constantinople, had many friends, but possessed enemies also
chief among whom were no less personages than the late Sultan
Abd-ul-Hamid and the late Baron de Calice, a gentle old
gentleman, who for a quarter of a century, occupied the post of
Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Turkey a record in the
diplomatic annals of the now defunct Monarch. On several
occasions, Abd-ul-Hamid asked for Engländer’s expulsion from
Turkey, on the grounds that he was a dangerous political intriguer,
but without success.376
The Ottoman Empire’s distaste of Reuters’ news, which was constantly mentioned
in official correspondences, will be discussed later in the chapter.
When Engländer departed from Constantinople, Werndel became the chief
correspondent of Reuters in the Ottoman Empire and remained so for the next
twenty-five years. Sir Roderick Jones, general manager of Reuters (1916–1941),
described Werndel’s close relationship with the foreign diplomats and British
ambassadors in Constantinople:
The Turkish capital in those days was a nest of diplomatic,
political, and financial intrigue, and Werndel its best informed,
very sagacious, and most upright observer. He had lived there for
twenty-five years, had travelled much through the Ottoman
Empire and the Balkans, spoke Turkish like a Turk, and also was
completely at his ease in the Bulgarian and other neighboring
tongues and dialects. Rightly looking upon him as a specialist and
an authority, the Heads of diplomatic missions to the Porte
cultivated his acquaintance and drew upon his knowledge and
advice. Newly appointed ambassadors from Britain invariably
summoned him into conference the moment they arrived. The
position he occupied, by reason of his ability and his proven
integrity, was exclusive and enviable.377
Jones described him also as “the friend, confidant and unofficial counselor of
successive representatives of the Crown” along with Sir Edward Buck, Reuters’
376 Ibid.
377 Sir Roderick Jones, A Life in Reuters (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1951), 86.
133
representative in India, and David Rees, Reuters’ manager in Egypt (1884-1914)
and Gerald Delany, the local manager in Cairo.378
At the end of 1888, Werndel was joined by Fergus Ferguson.379 Until World
War I, Ferguson was employed mostly in the Balkans. Both Werndel and Ferguson
worked as war correspondents in Macedonia and Palestine, and as correspondents to
the League of Nations. They served Reuters for nearly fifty years. Werndel and
Ferguson’s influence on the press up to World War I is depicted thus:
…Reuters’ foreign correspondents were first allowed to add
political comments (if clearly shown as such) to their political
news. It was due to the intelligence, initiative and political tact of
such reporters as Werndel and Ferguson that the Press soon
accepted, and often relied upon, Reuters’ development into a
‘vicarious newspaper’.380
Reuters did not manage to take over the territories of the Ottoman Empire
from Havas. However, by an agreement with Havas on 21 May 1889, it did succeed
in reducing Havas’ influence, which alarmed the French Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. Havas and Reuters agreed that Havas and the Correspondenz-Bureau would
share the Ottoman Empire. As a result, Havas gave its subscription list to the newly
established Agence de Constantinople and withdrew from Constantinople.
Montebello, French Ambassador to Constantinople, stated his concerns about the
new agency:
I must insist…upon the interest which attends, from the point of
view of French interests in the country, the fact that the
telegraphic news from abroad continues to be published by the
intermediary of a French agency. The succession of the Agence
Havas in Turkey will be inherited by a company composed of
Germans, Austrians, Italians and Englishmen. Naturally the
embassy will have for the future no power over an agency directed
by political adversaries who seek to spread to the public, news of
an anti-French tendency. The Sultan and the Porte, who are so
378 Ibid., 283.
379 Storey, Reuters’ Century, 100.
380 Ibid., 101.
134
easily roused by the telegrams sent from Europe, will be
constantly under unfavorable impressions from rumors propagated
with the intention of injuring us.381
At the request of Spuller, the French Foreign Minister, Havas decided to keep an
agent of its own in Constantinople to send news from the empire. The agent’s duty
was not restricted to sending news to France but he also had to be in constant
contact with the French ambassador.382
The Agence de Constantinople began operations on 1 October 1889. When
the agreement was renewed in 1898, the empire continued to be the joint territory of
Havas and the Correspondenz-Bureau, and remained so by a two-party treaty,
signed on 28 February 1900, between the Correspondenz-Bureau and Havas-
Reuters-Continental. The new ten-year treaty, the last one before World War I, was
signed between 8 and 22 July 1909. What was significant about it was that under
Article 16, “if a receiving agency refused to incorporate in its service certain
dispatches of political importance to the sending agency, the sender had the right to
insist that a certain quantity of such reports be distributed to the press within an
ally’s reserved territories”, and such dispatches were to carry the word ‘Tractatus’
to distinguish them from the recipient agency’s regular service.383 Although one of
the reasons for the news agencies to sign such cooperation agreements was to
reduce their costs by not keeping a correspondent in every country at all times, the
empire’s importance in contemporary politics, and the desire of the imperial
governments of these agencies to have an impact on the Ottoman administration and
public, caused Havas and Reuters to have correspondents of their own in
Constantinople.
381 Nalbach, “Ring Combination,” 320.
382 Ibid., 321.
383 Ibid., 558.
135
Abdülhamid II used telegraphy to consolidate his power as such technology
allowed him to communicate with his spies and civil servants all over the empire.
He also wished to control the flow of information through telegraphic wires. In
order to present a positive image of the Ottoman state, especially in Europe,
throughout his reign Abdülhamid II tried to influence the news disseminated by
domestic and foreign newspapers, journals and the news agencies. The importance
he gave to the foreign press and the way in which both himself and the empire were
presented abroad can be observed through newspaper cuttings from his reign
preserved in the archives.
There was a strict censorship regime under Abdülhamid II’s rule. Hanioğlu,
describing censorship during his reign as “one of the strictest in modern times”,384
stated that Ottoman journalists wrote about “nonpolitical issues unless instructed to
criticize the foreign governments”.385 Besides strict censorship, he also tried to
influence the news by providing newspapers, journals, news agencies and
journalists with allowances and privileges. For those European journals which
accepted such inducements, articles to be published were prepared by subjects of
the sultan emphasizing “Ottoman progress under the far-sighted leadership of
Abdülhamid II, an Ottoman Peter the Great, who was taking the Tanzimat reforms
to new horizons”.386 As well as promoting the image of the sultan and the empire,
the press was also financed for the purpose of counter propaganda. For example, to
specifically counter British propaganda after the circulation of the pamphlet The
Bulgarian Horrors, written by the British Liberal party’s leader, Gladstone, the
Ottoman Empire financed and printed Paik-i Islam, a publication in Urdu and
384 Hanioğlu, Brief History, 125.
385 Ibid., 126.
386 Ibid., 128.
136
Arabic, printed by the imperial presses in Constantinople to influence and mobilize
Indian Muslims.387
Reuters and Havas were among the news agencies which were provided
with subsidies and privileges. However, the sultan was not able to prevent these
international news agencies from making news “in favor of their own respective
governments”, “false” and “against the Ottoman Empire” as described in Ottoman
official documents. Realizing every European country had a telegraphic news
agency, and unable to reach a satisfying conclusion from its policy to win over
news sources and place them under the empire’s service by a variety of offerings,
from the final decades of the nineteenth century the Porte considered establishing an
Ottoman telegraphic news service in order to present a positive image abroad.
The gains experienced by the international news agencies in having
connections with their domestic and foreign governments have been explained in
Chapter I. However, an additional, much stronger financial interest was disclosed in
Chapter II: the managers, owners and stockholders of the agencies were financiers,
businessmen and bankers who had investments outside the news business. The
investments of the Reuter family were investigated as a case study in order to
expose these interests.
Reuters’ managers and their family members had investments in several
sectors in multiple countries. They sought the support of the British Foreign Office
whenever they were in opposition to local governments. In some cases, members of
the family took the liberty of suggesting policies to the British Foreign Office. The
interaction between the parties regarding an investment could last for years,
387 Derinğil, Well-Protected Domains, 149.
137
involving many correspondence exchanges, sometimes so many as to fill volumes,
as with the Reuter Concession in Persia.
On 26 February 1878, Baron Herbert de Reuter proposed an agreement to
the Sublime Porte.388 Later that year, in December, Baron Herbert de Reuter were to
defend the Reuters’ news against the Ottoman government who condemned
Reuters’ news service in Constantinople for being “inaccurate and
untrustworthy”389 In his statements he underlined the agency’s objectivity: “I need
hardly assure you that our chief desire and preoccupation is to serve the public with
absolutely authentic and impartial information, and each and every representative of
the Company has received the most stringent instructions to conform strictly to this
essential principle”, and “with regard to the suggestion of the Sublime Porte, that in
order to ensure accuracy we should submit our messages to the Imperial Embassy
[London] before publication, permit me to explain that such a measure would be
utterly impracticable and would necessarily immediately compromise the
independence of the agency”.390 In 1882, only four years later, the very same Baron
Herbert de Reuter proposed to the Sublime Porte an agreement which consisted of
publicising statements of the Ottoman government.391 The company made the same
offer to the British and Japanese governments in 1894, as discussed in Chapter I,
and once again to the Ottoman Empire in 1895.
The agreement, which had both public and secret articles, was presented in
1882 by Ferguson, Reuters’ Constantinople representative, and promised to publish
388 HR.SFR.3 260/52 26 February1878, Presidency of Republic of Turkey Department of State
Archives (hereafter cited as BOA).
389 HR.SFR.3 262/41 2 December 1878, BOA.
390 HR.SFR.3 262/41 2 December 1878.
391 Y.EE. 43/152 1300 S 29 (9 January 1883).
138
statements of the Sublime Porte in Europe within a day. The statements of the
empire were to be communicated to Indian newspapers as well.392
Reuters’ proposal is significant in that it shows the desire of Ottoman
statesmen to make agreements or arrangements with news agencies. During his final
and brief period of service as the Minister of Foreign Affairs (30 November until 3
December 1882), Safvet Paşa prepared a memorandum on the Reuters agreement.
In his memorandum, he stated that all German newspapers were affiliated to the
German Ministry of Foreign Affairs and were being paid a couple of million franks
annually. He also declared that British newspapers were independent and were not
bound to the British government by contract, and that they expressed liberal,
conservative and radical views. He mentioned that in Vienna, while most of the
newspapers expressed the views of the government, only a couple of them were
independent, and in Italy some of them were independent and some were not.
According to Safvet Paşa, Russian newspapers were under the influence of the state,
but in terms of news regarding foreign states, they were independent. He stated that
French newspapers used to be under the control of press administration, to some
degree, during the times of the emperor, but now they were completely free and
were expressing the views of the parties they were supporting, both in domestic and
foreign politics.
Safvet Paşa went on to say that even if millions of akçes were spent, it still
would not be possible for the Ottoman Empire to have the foreign press on its side.
He claimed this was the case because the European states were of the opinion that
the empire would never implement reforms, as it had not done so up until this point
in time. Because of this general notion among the European states, the press of even
392 Y.EE. 43/152 1300 S 29 (9 January 1883).
139
those who desired the continuance and prosperity of the empire were forced to
express views in accord with this de facto view. He stated that undoubtedly, when
reforms started to take place, public opinion would change step by step, leading to a
change in the expressions of the foreign press. He claimed an instrument was
needed with which to announce the Sultan’s efforts made on behalf of the happiness
of his subjects.
Safvet Paşa’s solution was to negotiate with Havas and Reuters. He implied
that these agencies should be provided with privileges and subsidies. The Sublime
Porte would telegraph the measures and practices of the government to its London
and Paris embassies, which would then communicate these to the agencies’
administrations. The texts would be prepared by the Sublime Porte and sent to these
embassies on a daily basis. As well as this, different texts, ready for publishing,
would be prepared for every other newspaper with which the government had an
agreement and sent to these newspapers by post. He underlined that the
dissemination of telegrams transmitted to Havas and Reuters would not be limited
to newspapers in Paris and London, for these agencies could certainly promise to
distribute them in Berlin, Vienna and Rome. In this way, the points of view and
practices of the government would reach all the states within a day. He went on to
say that even though this would all cost a couple of thousand liras annually, the
other states were shouldering similar costs for the same purpose.393 In summary,
Safvet Paşa was convinced that the negative opinions of the European states with
regards to the Ottoman Empire were only temporary and would change as the
reforms progressed. He also advised that Havas and Reuters could be outlets to
express Abdülhamid II’s practices. As stated by Hanioğlu, Ottoman statesmen were
393 Y.EE. 44/149 1300 S 29 (9 January 1883).
140
trying to promote the image of Abdülhamid and his empire through news which
emphasized Ottoman progress under the sultan’s leadership.
Some of the payments made to the domestic and foreign press, journalists
and news agencies throughout Abdülhamid II’s reign will be listed here to give an
example of the Ottoman Empire’s policy. To begin with, Havas had been on the
empire’s payroll from as early as 1888.394 The parties had an agreement, possibly
regarding the distribution by Havas of the news given to him by the empire. The
service Havas provided the empire with was referred to, by its general manager, as
“the duty we took over to preserve the empire’s policy”.395
In 1894, the highest monthly payments were made to Levand Herald (8,333
guruş), Le Moniteur Oriental (5,633 guruş), Servet-i Fünun (3,240), Sabah (3,000)
and finally to Havas agency bulletins (21,666). The rest of the payments went to
Servet (1,000), Saʻâdet (3,000), Istanbul (2,000), Emakinüʻs-sıhha (2,000),
Manzûme-i Efkâr (1,500), Osmanische Post (2,000), Punc (500), Ceride-i Şerifiye
(500), Resimli (500), Korrespondant (Correspondenz) (300), Memoryal Diplomatik
(2,166), Orient (866), Revue de l’Orient (1,300) and an agent of some German
newspapers (paid by the Berlin Embassy) (1,650). The list was prepared to cut
payments of some of these. These journals, agencies and journalists continued to
spread news unfavorable to the empire, despite their allowances. By cutting their
payments, it was planned to use the money saved to cover the expense of defending
the empire’s position and reputation in foreign press. It was decided to cut the
allowances of twenty newspapers, agencies and correspondents.396
394 YPRK.TKM. 13/ 8 1305 Z 29 (6 September 1883).
395 YPRK.TKM. 13/8 1305 Z 29 (6 September 1883).
396 Y.A. RES. 71/29 5 August 1894.
141
On 17 September 1894, the activities of Reuters were banned in the Ottoman
Empire. It was realized that the source of information disseminated against the
empire was the agency. The telegram, which resulted in the publication by the
journal Matin, had been sent from Constantinople by Reuters. It was also decided to
condemn the publication and ban any foreign newspapers which published this
news item.397
However, shortly afterwards, in 1895, the Ottoman Empire negotiated and
signed an agreement with Reuters. Based on the empire’s account, in January 1895,
Werndel, Reuters’ Constantinople representative, approached the Sublime Port and
offered the agency’s services. The Sublime Port was in favor of this offer, in
principal, as it believed that it was in need of an institution with the ability to
repudiate news which had been distributed widely for some time against the empire,
and propagate positive news instead. Since the agency expressed its willingness to
take on the role, and its proposal was regarded to be in line with the interests of the
state, the Sublime Porte decided to accept the agency’s terms. The terms in question
were: an amount (800 pounds) to be paid as an annual subscription to
Correspondenz for the publication of bulletins (as stated earlier, because of an
agreement between the international news agencies, Havas and Correspondenz were
conducting a joint operation in the Ottoman Empire under the name Agence de
Constantinople) printed in English and German, and that the agency be able to
telegraph its messages from Istanbul to London free of charge and with priority.398
The fact that the agency concluded agreements with the British, Japanese
and Ottoman governments around the same time, and that it offered its services to
British and Ottoman governments, as indicated in the official documents of both the
397 BEO. 3625/211851 1327 B 30 (17 August 1909).
398 Y.PRK. BŞK. 39/61, 1312 Ş 03 (29 January 1895).
142
empires, strongly suggests that in 1894 and 1895, the company was systematically
in pursuit of concluding agreements with governments. Moreover, Reuters probably
also had the aim of putting the Correspondenz back on the allowance list.
On 11 November 1895, Raf’et, Grand Vizier, Saʻid, Head of the State
Council, and Tevfik, Minister of Foreign Affairs, presented their opinions on
preventing the spread of news against the Ottoman Empire to the sultan. In the
document, the agreement with Reuters was mentioned as well. It was stated that,
although those European newspapers which had criticized the empire were banned
from entering the state, it was impossible to prevent the arrival of papers that came
via the foreign postal services. Furthermore, complaints against these newspapers
had been made either through embassies or telegraph agencies, but with little
success. Those made through embassies were not very effective as they were
regarded as the official statements of the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, providing
some correspondents and agencies, such as Havas and Reuters, with an allowance
was the advised solution of the Grand Vizier, the Head of the State Council and the
Minister of Foreign Affairs. It was claimed that through correspondents and
telegraph agencies, the state could force European newspapers to write what it
wanted. It was stated that with approximately 5,000 lira annually, it would be
possible to win over the most influential correspondents, in other words, Havas and
Reuters. In the document, it was furthermore stated that, in actual fact, Reuters’
agency had already been won over. The sultan approved the allowance worth 5,000
lira.399
As a result, an agreement was concluded with Havas. In 1897 and 1898, the
Sublime Port paid 12,000 francs annually to the agency. However, in June 1898 the
399 I.HR. 349/25 1313 Ca 23 (11 November 1895).
143
contract was renewed for 45,000 francs, which was then cancelled by the Sublime
Porte. Although the empire renegotiated the price and managed to reach an
agreement of between 15,000 and 20,000 francs, the general manager of Havas
refused to accept this deal.400 Having cancelled the allowances of Havas and others
in 1894 in order to save money to conduct a campaign against unfavorable
publications, very soon the Ottoman statesmen realized that keeping Havas and
Reuters on the payroll would have been more efficient.
Despite this, by 1907 the Sublime Porte was back to feeling resentment
against Reuters, as well as other foreign newspapers. In January 1907, it
investigated all the correspondents of foreign newspapers and agencies in
Constantinople. In the list prepared by the domestic press administration, the names
of the companies and of the correspondents, where they lived, their salaries, the
people they were close with, especially the names of the Ottoman Empire’s civil
servants they befriended, their personality and the nature of the news they made
were given. The list began with the telegraphic agencies; for example, for Reuters’
correspondents the following information was given:
Reuters Agency: its director is called Werndel. He resides in
Beyoğlu, Tepebaşı, in apartment number 14. His salary is 90
English liras. He is close friends with Nuri Bey, foreign
correspondence officer. They are in constant contact. This man
has an assistant named Ferguson. His salary is 20 liras. The news
he writes is unacceptable.401
There were reports concerning the correspondents of British, German, Austrian,
French and Italian newspapers, and those who worked for more than one
newspaper. The British newspapers’ correspondents on the list were from The
Times, Standard, Daily News, Daily Telegraph, Manchester Guardian and the
400 BEO. 1145/85844 1316 S 01 (20 June 1898).
401 YPRK. DH. 13/92 1324 Z 16 (30 January 1907).
144
Independent. In his report, Kemal Bey, domestic press director, was critical of their
works.402
In March 1907, the annual payments made to the press by the administrative
offices were declared to the Imperial Council. Based on the document, in 1905, the
total amount of subsidies for the Konstantinople (referring to the Agence de
Constaninople), the Nationale, the Forine agencies and the Levand Herald was
62,000 francs. However, the Konstantinople’s subsidy was ceased earlier in 1907
due to its dissemination of displeasing news. Furthermore, the amount of annual
payments made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to newspapers in Constantinople
and abroad was 443,278 guruş, whereas the annual payment made by the Ministry
of the Interior to the press in Constantinople and elsewhere was 348,990 guruş. The
annual amount paid to telegraph agencies by the empire was 62,000 francs.403 The
names of the newspapers and the amount of subsidies paid by the Ministry of the
Interior were: Servet-i Fünûn (Constantinople) (2,340 guruş), Sabah
(Constantinople) (5,950 guruş), İkdâm (Constantinople) (4,250 guruş), Hanımlara
Mahsus Gazete (Constantinople) (2,550 guruş), Polavedifski Galasi (Plovdiv)
(2,550 guruş), Sergoski and Setik (Sofia) (311 guruş) (the subsidies for these two
newspapers were sent to Major Hilmi Bey, Second Secretary of the Bulgarian
Commissariat by means of the Ottoman Bank; the transaction was made by the
treasury on behalf of the Ministry of the Interior), El-posta (Egypt) (930 guruş)
(ceased), El-mahrûse (Egypt) (2,125 guruş) (ceased) and Gayret (Plovdiv) (1,275
guruş) (from 1903 no payments were made). The British reporter Mr. Norman was
also on the list of the Ministry of the Interior with a payment of 6,800 guruş.
402 YPRK. DH. 13/92 1324 Z 16 (30 January 1907).
403 Y.A. HUS 509/61 1325 M 21 (6 March 1907).
145
The annual payments made by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to
newspapers in Constantinople were: Saʻâdet (6,000 guruş), Levand Herald (72,244
guruş), Le Moniteur Oriental (48,844 guruş), Handesblat (24,000 guruş), Manzûmei
Efkâr (13,005 guruş), Punç (13,005 guruş), Cerîde-i Şarkiye (867 guruş) and
İstanbul (20,400 guruş), making 260,208 guruş in total. The annual payments made
to the foreign press that were ceased by an order on 9 January 1905 were: some
newspapers in Paris (the names were not specified) (127,800 guruş), Memoryal
Diplomatik (Paris) (18,786 guruş), Revu de l’Orient (Budapest) (11,280 guruş) and
Le Figaro (Paris) (96,000 guruş). The total amount was 253,866 guruş.404
Establishing a news agency in the Ottoman Empire similar to the foreign
news agencies was a matter of concern to Abdülhamid II, as well as the CUP. The
existing archival documents demonstrate that the Ottoman Empire had the intention
of establishing an imperial news service of some sort, at least since 1878, and
despite the regime change, investigations for the project continued. The conclusions
reached were mentioned at a parliamentary discussion on 25 April 1911.
On 17 April 1878, Mehmed Esad Safvet Paşa, Minister of Foreign Affairs,
informed Ahmed Aarifi Paşa, the Paris Ambassador, that the government wished to
found an imperial news service and charged him to negotiate the subject with the
Havas agency. Aarifi Paşa was also provided with articles to negotiate under the
title “Project de l’agence télégraphique Ottomane”. On 17 May 1878, Aarifi Paşa
reported that he was engaged in discussions with the Havas agency to negotiate an
agreement for an information service that the imperial government proposed to
found in the empire. Aarifi Paşa’s correspondence was accompanied by the report
of François Noguis, whom he hired to follow the negotiations, and a draft
404 Y.A. HUS 509/61 1325 M 21 (6 March 1907).
146
convention that Monsieur Lebey also forwarded to Monsieur Chatau, the Havas
agent in Constantinople, in response to the Sublime Port’s initial offer. The duration
of the agreement was to be from 1 June 1878 to 31 May 1888.405 In the end, the
parties were unable to agree during the final negotiations of the “Project du
government Impérial de fonder une agence télégraphique Ottomane”, as referred to
in the correspondence.406
In the draft convention, it was stated that the name of the agency that was to
be created would be determined later. Yet, it was referred to as the Agency of
Constantinople (Agence de Constantinople).407. One third of it was to belong to the
Ottoman government and two-thirds to Havas, Laffite and Co.408 The Agence de
Constantinople, however, was not established between Havas and the Ottoman
government, but after a renewed tripartite agreement between Havas, Reuters and
the Correspondenz-Bureau on 21 May 1889.
A document from 1903 sheds light on why the Ottoman Empire wished to
establish an Ottoman telegraph agency the empire was desperately looking for an
outlet with which to express and explain itself. In the document, the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs depicted the inability of the Ottoman Empire to protest against the
news published concerning the Bulgarian issue. Almost none of the empire’s
protestations submitted to the foreign press and news agents in Constantinople were
published in European newspapers. It was stated that the efforts of the empire to
respond to Bulgarian claims about the Ottoman military campaign and expose the
destruction done by the Bulgarian bands were being wasted, for the empire did not
have its own news agency while all the European states, even the Principality of
405 HR. ID. 1699/59 17 April 1878.
406 HR. ID. 1699/61 19 July 1878.
407 HR.ID 1699/59 17 April 1878.
408 Ibid.
147
Bulgaria, had such an agency, thus, forcing the empire to use foreign agencies that
were either ignoring their protests completely or reshaping them. The ministry’s
advice to remedy this situation was to establish a news agency. However, the
Ottoman agency could not be established because of the empire’s financial state of
affairs.409
Despite this, the Ottoman Empire’s attempts, under the rule of Abdülhamid
II, to found a news agency continued. In 1906, the Foreign Press Directorate
advised declarations to be made through embassies or by other means until an
Ottoman agency was established, as both the Agence de Constantinople and the
Agence Nationale did not publish in the government’s favor, leaving no other
channel to disseminate the Sublime Porte’s statements. It was stated that the Agence
de Constantinople distributed news conflicting with the interests of the empire.410
A couple of months later, despite its previous warnings, the Sublime Porte
believed that the Agence de Constantinople was still acting unfavorably towards the
empire. It decided to cut the company’s allowance, which at this point had been
paid for sixteen years, and take away its exemption from telegram costs for one
hundred words daily. Madam Grosser, the manager of the company, claimed that
the displeasing news had been disseminated while she was away in Germany for a
family matter. She ensured the Sublime Porte that such a mistake would never take
place again and asked for a restoration of the company’s privileges. She promised
that she would dedicate all her work towards the interests of the sultan and the
empire, and claimed that she constantly served the empire by transferring the
statements of the Ottoman Empire to other European agencies with which the
Agence de Constantinople had relations. She underlined that she was ready to
409 BEO. 2178/163311 1321 B 04 (26 September 1903).
410 BEO. 2867/214987 1324 M 01 (25 February 1906).
148
perform her duty more perfectly than before. However, her assurances was not
found reliable on the grounds that the company had already previously been warned
to no avail.411
In 1908, Abdülhamid II was forced by an uprising organized by the CUP to
issue a proclamation on July 24, ordering the convocation and election of
parliament in conformity with the constitution, transforming the regime into a
constitutional monarchy. To help organize the revolution, the CUP had smuggled in
propaganda material through Greece and foreign post offices in the empire, and
distributed them throughout its provinces and capital. Moreover, it mobilized the
officers in the Ottoman army, especially in Salonica. One of these officers, Major
Niyazi, commander of the Resna Battalion, and a hundred soldiers joined a group of
armed civilians of around eight hundred on July 3, which started the events leading
to the revolution. The rebellion spread to all the Third Army Corps, then to the
Second Army Corps at Edirne and to forces in Izmir. News of the rebellion became
publicly known in the early morning of July 23 in Salonica. The CUP spread the
word from there throughout Macedonia, instantly, by means of telegraphic
communication over which they enjoyed complete control. The same day, on behalf
of the CUP, Major Enver Bey announced the establishment of a constitutional
regime to the European press by telegram.412
Knowing the power of the press and information dissemination, the CUP
relaunched the project to found a telegraph agency in August 1908. On 27
December 1908, Tevfik Paşa, Minister of Foreign Affairs, sent dispatches to the
Ottoman embassies regarding the project of founding an unofficial telegraphic
411 BEO. 2886/216385 1324 C 15 (16 August 1906).
412 Kansu, Revolution of 1908, 73–101.
149
agency in Constantinople.413 It was stated that the imperial government had the
desire to found an unofficial Ottoman telegraphic agency, like the telegraphic
services of other states. They were asked to inform the ministry about the news
agencies in the countries they resided, and under what conditions the unofficial
agencies were established.414
On 6 January 1909, in response to Tevfik Paşa’s letter, Rifaat Paşa, Ottoman
Ambassador in London, stated that an official telegraphic agency did not exist in
London. He claimed that the Reuters agency served the British government through
its unofficial communications. It was not an official agency, and the government
was not responsible for its telegrams. Furthermore, he stated that, in his opinion, the
Ottoman government needed to have an agency like Reuters, not an official one. He
mentioned that having an official agency would be like subjecting the press to prior
censorship. He advised them that by having an unofficial agency, the Sublime Porte
could launch telegrams frequently without taking any responsibility, and that it
could only do this through unofficial means. He added that asking Reuters, which
was an excellent news agency in Europe, to set up a regular service in
Constantinople would serve this purpose. In return for its service, Rifaat Paşa
suggested the imperial government could grant the agency a subvention for its
expenses. He stated that if the government were to agree, he could ask Reuters what
its conditions would be to set up such a service.415
The Ottoman ambassador in Rome informed the Sublime Porte that the
major telegraph agencies of Europe were part of a league and its members were
required to exchange their dispatches and the information they received.
413 HR. SFR 3. 586/ 60 27 December 1908.
414 Ibid.
415 HR. SFR 3. 586/60 27 December 1908.
150
Furthermore, Hakky Bey stated that the Ottoman government could establish an
unofficial agency but the agency founded needed to join this ‘league’ to be able to
communicate the news to the other agencies and receive information from them.416
Rifaat Paşa’s comments about Reuters possibly motivated the Ottoman
government to consider signing an agreement with the Reuters agency in April
1909. The agreement was prepared originally in French, had seven articles, and an
additional four secret articles. In the first article, the Reuters agency promised to
disseminate all news that the Sublime Porte regarded as necessary to major
European, American and Indian newspapers, and telegraph agencies. Similarly, it
promised to telegraph at its own expense the same information to the Havas agency.
In the next article, the Sublime Porte promised to provide the Reuters’
representative in Constantinople with information and diplomatic papers that would
be distributed. The Ottoman government was to charge an officer with the duty of
communicating this sort of information to the agency. In the third article, the
Sublime Porte permitted the transmission, free of telegraphic fees, of official
documents that it would give to Reuters. Also, in terms of its own telegrams, the
Reuters agency could transmit one hundred words daily for free between
Constantinople and London, and Constantinople and Bombay. Furthermore, if the
agency were to set up a telegraphic service within the Ottoman Empire, it could
transmit one hundred words daily for free. In article four, it was stated that if the
Ottoman government were to give fifteen percent discount on telegraphic
transmissions, then the Reuters agency would transmit the information it received
from British and American businesses to India, China and Austria through the
Ottoman state. In article five, Reuters was to cover the expenses of transmitting the
416 HR.İD. 1700/26 27 December 1908.
151
Sublime Porte’s announcements to its own agents and representatives in Europe and
America. In return for this, the Sublime Porte promised to pay a yearly subvention
of 15,000 francs. Also, Reuters was to pay the Sublime Porte’s officer using this
subvention.417 Under article six, the Sublime Porte reserved the right to suspend the
communications of the agency. Lastly, the convention was to last for three years
and if one of the parties wished to end it before this term, three months’ notice had
to be given. 418
The convention also had four secret articles. Article one stated that the
Reuters agency was to introduce the Sublime Porte’s agent to members of
parliament, ministers, foreign agents and press directors in Britain. The Sublime
Porte’s agent would be known as Reuters’ agent so as not to appear suspicious and
to be able to continue his duty of serving the Sublime Porte in the following ways:
influencing parliamentary discussions, sending corrections to newspapers, inserting
into all of Reuters’ dispatches to German and Austrian newspapers the news that the
Sublime Porte wished to have disseminated all around the world, expressing the
views of the Ottoman government in the British papers as telegrammed by the
government, evaluating the news planned to be sent to the Sublime Porte, and
inserting news into Reuters’ dispatches which would serve the Sublime Porte’s
interests and be distributed around the world by the agency. In article two, because
the Reuters agency was the only one which serviced Indian newspapers, and had
offices in all the cities of India, China, Persia and Austria, it promised to use its
ability to disseminate news for the Ottoman government in these places. It was
stated that its news service in India was of utmost importance for the government.
In the third secret article of the convention, the Ottoman government demanded that
417 Y.EE. 41/161 1327 R 06 (27 April 1909).
418 Ibid.
152
Reuters inform it about all news published in the newspapers of every country. The
Sublime Porte’s agent within Reuters was to report it to the Ottoman Ministry of
Foreign Affairs weekly. It was underlined that knowing the opinions of the agents
and others in Britain would be useful for the ministry. In the fourth article, it was
stated that as Reuters was providing financial services to the major banks, the
agency would be beneficial for the administration and finance of the Sublime Porte.
Furthermore, it was underlined that the Reuters agency would regard it as its duty to
serve the Ottoman government all around the world.419
The way the secret convention was worded gives the impression that Reuters
was trying to convince the Sublime Porte of its usefulness. The clauses on
disseminating news to serve the interests of the Ottoman Empire, and announcing
the official opinion of the empire in disguise, are especially similar to the articles in
the secret agreement made between Reuters and the British government in 1894.
The content of the secret articles suggests that they were prepared by the Ottoman
government, as they were tailored around the foreign policy interests of the empire.
It is not known if this agreement with the Reuters agency was finalized; however,
the fact that only four months later, the government was investigating new
prospects, suggests otherwise. Salih Gürcü possibly informed about the Ottoman
government’s search to establish a formal or semi-formal agency applied for a
permit to found a semi-formal agency in the imperial capital in June 1909.
419 Y.EE. 41/162 1327 R 06 (27 April 1909).
153
CHAPTER VI
THE OTTOMAN TELEGRAPH AGENCY (AGENCE
TELEGRAPHIQUE OTTOMANE) AND ITS SUCCESSORS:
L’AGENCE MILLI (THE NATIONAL OTTOMAN
TELEGRAPH AGENCY), LA TURQUIE AND L’AGENCE
ORIENTALE D’INFORMATIONS
The Ottoman Empire’s endeavour to establish an agency of its own to resist
European imperialism, empower the imperial centre and overcome the empire’s
image problem to preserve the empire, reached to an end in 1911 with the
transformation of the Ottoman Telegraph Agency into a semi-formal agency. It was
Salih Gürcü who managed to convince the Ottoman government to change his
agency to a semi-formal one.
On 25 June 1909, Salih Gürcü, the owner of La Turquie Nouvelle, a Parisian
journal, made an application to establish the Gürcü Agency in Constantinople.420 In
his application, he stated his desire to make the Gürcü Agency the semiformal news
420 BEO. 3625/271851 1327 B 30 (17 August 1909).
154
agency of the Ottoman Empire and asked for a subvention to make this possible. He
underlined the non-existence of any news agency owned or directed by an Ottoman
within the Ottoman state or abroad, and stated that all the agencies which had
representatives in Constantinople were owned by German and French companies.
Gürcü mentioned that he believed an Ottoman news agency would serve the
Ottoman government and state well, and discussed his reasons for saying so. He
argued that the Ottoman government was neither able to receive accurate world
news on a daily basis nor information from its own capital, provinces and abroad by
telegraphy. He described the purpose of the agency as providing the main Ottoman
provinces and towns, such as Salonika, Izmir, Beirut, Yafa, Syria, Adana, Mersin,
Bagdad and Aleppo, with daily news, collecting or disseminating important
information in these places, and making use of it in order to promote the unity and
eternity of the Ottoman state. He underlined the political importance of the agency
he planned to establish. He stated that some agencies distributed news against the
Ottoman state, as it served their own interests, and that the Ottoman government
lacked a semiformal agency with which to express its opinions on any subject or to
refute rumors. Declarations made by the embassies were usually ignored. Gürcü
claimed that while preserving its independence, the Gürcü Agency would be proud
to disseminate semiformal statements of the government. He stated that his agency
would be able to accomplish this by means of contracts signed with Havas, Wolff’s,
Reuters and other agencies, and also through La Turquie Nouvelle, which he owned
and directed. He underlined that his journal would also be at the disposal of the
Ottoman government, and that with 50,000 copies published daily, La Turquie
Nouvelle was an asset that would certainly be appreciated by the government.421
421 Ibid.
155
Gürcü pointed out that, like the semiformal agencies in Europe, his agency
could not exist without the support of the government, and that any agency would
have difficulty in performing its duty without its costs being covered by a
subvention. For this reason, he asked permission to be allowed to send 200 words
daily in dispatches to foreign countries and an infinite number of words within the
Ottoman territory free of charge, in return for his services to the government and
state.422
Rifaat Paşa, Minister of Foreign Affairs, was of the opinion that the Ottoman
Empire could benefit from such an agency. He stated that the ministry was in favor
of a reduction in telegraph prices for words sent abroad, but that the decision
needed to be made by the Ministry of the Interior, in cooperation with the postal and
telegraphy administration.423 Gürcü’s request was not accepted by the Parliamentary
Assembly as presented. The agency would not be allowed to telegraph 200 words to
foreign states, free of charge, daily. Instead, it could telegraph daily, fifty out of
every hundred words free of charge, and fifty to one hundred words in dispatches
only with the governmental fee. The agency would be obliged to pay the full charge
for telegraphy within Ottoman territory. It was decided to try out the Gürcü Agency
for a month, if Gürcü were to find these terms agreeable.424 The Ministry of Finance
was notified on 16 September 1909 that Gürcü had agreed to the terms.425. The
agency’s work during the trial month must have satisfied the government for the
same concession continued to be renewed. It was renewed for the last time on 12
422 Ibid.
423 Ibid.
424 Ibid.
425 BEO 3717/278740 1328 S 29 (3 September 1325).
156
March 1910 for another six months, by order of the Council of Ministers (Meclis-i
Mahsûse-i Vükela).426
After establishing the Gürcü Agency, Salih Gürcü founded the Ottoman
Telegraph Agency in August 1909.427 On 6 September 1909, it was announced in
Yeni Asir that a company called the Ottoman Telegraph Agency (Agence
Télégraphique Ottomane) had been set up with a headquarters in Constantinople,
and offices in other important centers.428 The address of its headquarters was 8, Rue
Kabristan 8 Péra (near Pera Palace).429 The agency signed an agreement with the
Ottoman government on 14 August 1909. The parties of the convention were Salih
Gürcü, director-owner of l’Agence Télégraphique Ottomane, and Azarian Effendi,
Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The convention had five
articles. Article one outlined the agency’s obligations: “Salih Gürcü undertakes to
transmit to all its correspondents the telegrams or communications, elaborated or
inspired by the Imperial Government, and featuring news, falsifications,
rectifications, articles or correspondence, and lastly official or unofficial
communications”.430 Under this article, Gürcü promised to circulate news given to
him by the Ottoman government, as well as publish its protests regarding the
circulation of false news. This article resembled the first article of the agreement the
empire and Reuters negotiated together in April 1909, in which the agency
promised to disseminate all news that the Sublime Porte regarded as necessary to
major European, American and Indian newspapers and telegraph agencies, as well
as the Havas agency.
426 MV. 137/103 1328 S 27 (3 July 1325).
427 HR.ID. 1700/32 14 August 1909.
428 Yeni Asır, “Osmanlı Telgraf Ajansı,” no. 1662, Şu’ûn-I Muhtelife (06.09.1909), 3.
429 HR.SFR.4 841/89 25 November 1909.
430 HR.ID. 1700/32 14 August 1909.
157
In the following clause, Gürcü undertook “to transmit at his own expense,
without being entitled to any reimbursement, those so-called communications which
include telegrams, up to a maximum of 250 words per month, regardless of the city
to which the telegrams are addressed”.431 It was also stated in the first article that
“M. Salih B. Gourdji, further assumed the obligation to write in a manner favorable
to the interests of the Imperial Government, the telegrams that he services, as well
as to verify the authenticity of all the new ones he will publish”. This clause
resembled the second article of the secret agreement Reuters signed with the British
Empire in 1894, stating “that the Company shall do its best to verify at the Foreign
Office all doubtful telegrams prior to publication so as to prevent the mischief
arising from the circulation of false news”. In the agreement’s last article Gürcü
made “a commitment to publish if possible on the day or at the latest the following
day, the communications of the Imperial Government in his daily bulletins”.432
Articles two and three discussed telegraph fees. In article two, it was stated
that:
…to compensate the obligations mentioned, the Imperial
Government grants Salih B. Gourdji on the telegrams he will
exchange with his correspondents abroad, a free 50 words per day
on average, additionally, the full amount of tax that is owed to the
administration of the telegraphs and posts on the telegrams
exchanged between Salih B. Gourdji and abroad up to 50 to 100
words per day on average.
In article three, Gürcü was obliged to pay “the prices of the telegrams that he will
exchange with his correspondents established in the Ottoman Empire or his offices,
and correspondents among each other”. 433
431 Ibid.
432 Ibid.
433 Ibid.
158
Article four stated that “in the event that the Imperial Government finds that
the terms of the present arrangement have not been observed by M. Salih B.Gourdji,
it will have the right to consider it null and void”. Article five declared that the
present arrangement was valid for seven months from 14 August 1909, renewable
every year in the event of continuing agreement between the contracting parties,
and that the agreement text would be prepared in duplicate at Constantinople on 14
August 1909.434
After signing the agreement with the Ottoman Empire, Gürcü started to act
as if the Ottoman Telegraph Agency was the official news agency of the empire,
and tried to receive deductions on telegraphy fees from foreign governments by
means of the Ottoman embassies. In his letter to the Ottoman representative in
Sofia, on 16 October 1909, Gürcü wrote: “I have the honour to inform you that by
virtue of an agreement with the imperial Ottoman Government, we have just created
an ottoman telegraph agency”. In his letter, Gürcü asked the ambassador, as though
the agency were an official institution, to recommend someone trustworthy to work
as the agency’s Sofia correspondent, and also to intercede with the authorities of the
country to grant the agency a fifty percent discount on telegraph rates.435
It was brought to the attention of the Ottoman Ministry of Foreign Affairs
that many of its officials had received a letter from the Ottoman Telegraph Agency
composed as if the agency had official status.436 In its letter dated 25 November
1909 to Assim Bey, Ambassador in Sofia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated
that it had been informed that the newly founded Ottoman Telegraph Agency had
sent a circular to most of the Ottoman representatives abroad, making various
434 Ibid.
435 HR.SFR.4 841/89 19 October 1909.
436 Ibid.
159
proposals. It warned that the agency had no connection with the Ottoman
government, that it had only been given tax reductions because of the government’s
desire to support indigenous businesses, and that the agency was no more official
than any other agency like it:
Il nous revient que l'agence télégraphique ottomane, nouvellement
fondée a adressé une circulaire à la plupart de nos Représentants à
l'étranger, pour leur faire diverses propositions. La façon doute la
circulaire est rédigée, prête à cette agence un caractère officieux.
Je suis à préciser, pour votre gouverne, que l'agence
ottomane n'a aucenne attache avec le gouvernement. Désireux de
favoriser les entreprises indigènes nous nous sommes fornés à lui
accorder des réductions sur la taxe télégraphique. Mais l’agence
Ottomane n’est pas plus officielle un officieuse que les autres
bureaux similaires établis eu Turquie.437
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs instructed Assim Bey to inform the other
representatives of the empire that the agency had neither an official nor unofficial
connection with the government.438
A year after the formation of the Ottoman Telegraph Agency, Salih Gürcü
and Hüseyin Tosun submitted an application to the Ottoman government, sometime
in September or October 1910, to establish a semiformal agency. Gürcü and
Tosun’s argument in their application for a permit was similar to Gürcü’s one
regarding the Gürcü Agency. They argued that all governments now had their own
agencies, due to the necessity of contemporary politics. They claimed that because
the Ottoman Empire lacked such an agency, these foreign agencies were able to
circulate news against the Ottoman government that served the interests of their
governments. They added that without such an agency, the Ottoman state would not
437 Ibid. It comes to us that the ottoman telegraphic agency, newly formed, has sent a circular to the
majority of our representatives abroad, to make them different kinds of offers. The way the circular
is presented gives the agency an official character. I would like to clarify for your government that
the Ottoman agency has no connection with the government wanting to favor domestic enterprises,
we have given them a reduction in the telegraphic tax. But the Ottoman agency is no more official
than any other similar office established in Turkey.
438 Ibid.
160
have the means to defend its interests by denying untruthful news propagated by the
foreign press. As this had a negative impact on foreign policy, they requested
permission to establish a semiformal agency, like the European agencies, which
would disseminate world news daily throughout the Ottoman Empire, facilitate
constant and fast communication between the capital and provinces, distribute
favorable imperial news abroad, repudiate any false information spread by the
European press and, moreover, the agency would not telegraph political dispatches
without the supervision of a civil servant selected by the Ottoman government. To
be able to finance this semiformal news agency, they asked for some sort of
allowance and subvention, underlining that this was a necessity.439
The Directorate of Public Communication (Dahiliye Nezareti Muhaberat-ı
Umumiye Dairesi), Ministry of the Interior, presented the report of Fazli Necip Bey,
head of the Domestic Press Directorate, on foreign press directorates and agencies
on 13 October 1910, and declared its opinion to the Sadrazam regarding Salih
Gürcü and Hüseyin Tosun’s application on 7 November 1910.440
After his visit to the press directorates in Berlin, Vienna, Budapest and
Sofia, Fazli Necip Bey realized that the telegraph agencies, established under
European press directorates, were performing important duties. Therefore, in his
report, he advised establishing a telegraph agency under the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. He recommended setting up a commission with members from the Ministry
of the Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and a civil servant from the Postage
and Telegraphy Directorate in order to decide on such issues as to whether the
439 DH. ID 79/ 3 1328 Za 07 (10 November 1910).
440 Ibid.
161
agency would be under the Ministry of the Interior or the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs.441
On 7 November 1910, the Ministry of the Interior declared itself to be in
favor of the formation of such an agency.442 On the 10th November 1910, Fazli
Necip Bey was given the duty of representing the Domestic Press Directorate,
Ministry of the Interior, in the commission to be formed for negotiations between
the telegraph agency to be established and the domestic and foreign press
directorates.443 Later, the commission’s findings were referred to by Necip Bey
during the parliamentary discussion on 4 April 1911.444 The Council of Ministers’
Proceeding, dated 7 December 1910, gives details of the concessions granted to the
newly established Ottoman Telegraph Agency. The subject matter to be discussed
referred to Salih Gürcü and Hüseyin Tosun’s application thus: “[to] establish a
semiformal agency, like the European agencies, which would disseminate world
news daily throughout the Ottoman Empire, facilitate constant and fast
communication between the capital and provinces, distribute favorable imperial
news abroad, repudiate any false news spread by the European press, and not
telegraph political dispatches without the supervision of a civil servant selected by
the Ottoman government”.445 The proceeding stated that previously the agency had
been given the concession to telegraph abroad one hundred words for free. With the
permit dated 11 November 1910, the number of words it could telegraph without a
fee was raised to 300. Also, at home, the agency would be permitted to telegraph
600 words without a fee. It was decided to renew this permit for six more months
441 Ibid.
442 Ibid.
443 Ibid.
444 Meclis-i Mebusan Zabıt Ceridesi. Devre:1, Cilt: 5, İçtima Senesi:3, İnikad: 72, 22.03. 1327.
445 MV. 147/1 1328 Z 04 (7 December 1910).
162
with the condition that it would cease when the new agency was established.446
Furthermore, it was decided that the permit for the new semiformal agency would
be prepared in such a manner that the agency would not have to pay governmental
tax, except the fees due to foreign governments and companies447
Establishing a semiformal agency was not proposed to parliament; instead,
providing the new agency with fee exemptions was brought before parliament on 4
April 1911.448 It was worded thus: “[the] exemption of the telegraph agency, which
was considered necessary to establish along semiformal lines, from telegraphy fees
for up to 150 words daily to certain centers within Ottoman territory”. 449 On 25
April 1911, the bill was discussed and passed by parliament, and then directed to
the senate four days later.450
Fazlı Necip Bey gave a speech on behalf of the government at the
parliament hearing on the necessity of establishing a news agency. He stated that
the government needed to form a telegraph agency for the welfare of the state. He
mentioned that every foreign country had their own telegraph agency which they
supported. He underlined that these telegraph agencies were performing great
services, in both domestic and international politics, for their states, adding that they
only looked after their own interests. He claimed that an agency in service to the
empire would inform the state about the publications of the foreign press,
concerning the Ottoman Empire, in pursuit of the empire’s best interests. Moreover,
he stated that the empire would be able to inform the world correctly regarding any
controversial incident before it had been written about by the world press.
446 Ibid.
447 Ibid.
448 Meclis-i Mebusan Zabıt Ceridesi. Devre:1, Cilt: 5, İçtima Senesi:3, İnikad: 72, 22.03. 1327.
449 Ibid.
450 BEO. 3858/289293 16 S 1329 (16 February 1911).
163
Otherwise, if the empire had to wait until the arrival of foreign newspapers to
Constantinople to learn about such a news item, it would be too late to repudiate the
false information, as it would already have spread, damaging the empire’s image, as
had happened before. Therefore, the agency would be performing a valuable duty
for the government. Furthermore, he mentioned the necessity of having such an
agency in order to keep informed the distant provinces within the empire. He
underlined that such places were learning about events up to a month later and that
the government wanted to find a means to inform their distant territories instantly,
to “awaken the homeland”. He stated that if there was a telegraph agency in the
provinces, the number of newspapers would increase as this agency would only sell
information to the newspapers and perhaps to government offices. He mentioned
that the government desired this agency to have branch offices in 150 centers and be
exempt from telegraphy fees for dispatches of up to 150 words, which it would send
to these 150 centers. He claimed that the exemption would be beneficial for the
government as the Telegraph Ministry would be circulating telegraph dispatches
from one branch office to another, as it had been advised to do by the commission.
451
Ibrahim Efendi, an İpek deputy in support of the tax exemption, outlined the
shortcomings of the empire and the inability of the state to receive up-to-date
information, even within its own territories, and inform the world about incidents
taking place within its borders. He stated that the empire was only able to receive
news from Shkodra fifteen days after publication, and that the empire only realized
untruthful news had been disseminated in the European press after its newspapers
had arrived in the capital and been translated. He further stated that it must have
451 Meclis-i Mebusan Zabıt Ceridesi. Devre:1, Cilt: 5, İçtima Senesi:3, İnikad: 85, 12.04. 1327, 525–
26.
164
been a European agency that had reported the news in such an untruthful manner,
following its own interests through agents sent to Shkodra specifically for this
purpose. He went on to say that “regrettably such things have not been the custom
in our country. Everything was banned under the rule of the previous government,
and it did not wish to have anyone informed about anything. It is not harmful for
people to know about incidents at home and abroad. And it may be beneficial.
Therefore, we should accept this legislative proposal.”452
İsmail Sıtkı Bey, an Aydin deputy, criticized the fact that the establishment
of a semiformal agency had not been proposed to parliament. He argued that the
government should have brought the subject before parliament, as the legislation on
establishing a semiformal agency had to be investigated by parliament, and the
exemption of telegraphy fees could have been part of this legislative proposal.
Another point in his speech was that it was not indicated in the legislative proposal
which agency would enjoy this exemption, and how many and which centers were
to receive telegraphic news. He underlined that although Fazlı Necip Bey had talked
about 150 provincial centers, this information was not included in the text of the
legislative proposal. Also, he stated that the agency should be founded first and then
the fee exemption issue could be discussed.453
In response to İsmail Sıtki Bey’s criticism and statement that the exemption
should be given after the foundation of the agency, Fazlı Necip Bey claimed that the
foreign agencies were part of a union, and that only an agency with semiformal
status could join this union. He stated that for any agency to be involved it was
necessary to be able to receive news from other parts of the world, as the agencies
452 Ibid.
453 Ibid., 527.
165
did not have agents in every country but exchanged news amongst themselves. He
claimed that if a fee exemption was not given and the agency did not have the
appearance of a semiformal agency, then it would not be able to sign contracts with
the European telegraph agencies.454
The information Fazlı Necip Bey gave about this union was incorrect. There
were agreements between the news agencies and the world was partitioned amongst
the major European agencies, which then undertook agreements with local agencies.
However, being a semiformal agency was not the precondition to being part of this
system; on the contrary, the major European agencies were receiving subsidies from
their home governments in secrecy, trying to appear as independent news agencies.
Fazlı Necip Bey’s speech demonstrates the purpose of the government in
establishing a semiformal telegraph agency: saving the empire’s image, spreading
information in the best interests of the empire, receiving world news promptly, and
sending and receiving information from the empire’s provinces.
By 31 July 1911, the Ottoman Telegraph Agency still did not have
semiformal status. The concession awarded to the agency, in the form of fee
exemptions for a duration of six months for telegrams that would be sent abroad,
with the condition of expiration on the foundation of a new agency, was renewed in
a Council of Ministers’ session on 31 July 1911. The concession had previously
been extended for two months and the council’s decision was announced to the
Ministry of Finance on 22 March 1911. The council agreed to extend it for another
three months.455
The Ottoman Telegraph Agency became the semiformal news agency of the
Ottoman Empire in the second half of 1911. Although the empire now had its own
454 Ibid.
455 MV. 155/1 1329 Ş 04 (11 August 1910).
166
agency, the CUP administration continued to reward news agency representatives
working in its territory in order to win them over, as in the Hamidian era. In early
1914, Ferguson, the Reuters’ Constantinople agent who recently had become the
director of Reuters’ Egypt office, was awarded a third-degree Ottoman order for
being a friend of the state.456 The Ottoman Telegraph Agency finally became a
semiformal agency after Gürcü’s relentless efforts; however, he was only able to
enjoy this achievement for a short period. He was removed from its administration
in October 1914, shortly before the Ottoman Empire joined World War I. It was
claimed that Gürcü lost his position in the agency’s administration because he was
pro-French; however, British intelligence reports suggest that he was removed
because of his dishonesty and lack of work ethics.457
Gürcü became a reporter with the Milli Agency (the National Ottoman
Telegraph Agency), successor of the Ottoman Telegraph Agency, at which time he
started getting in touch with the British government. Despite being relieved of his
duties from the Ottoman Telegraph Agency’s administration, the Ottoman
government continued to have suspicions of Gürcü’s loyalties, and with good cause.
He contacted the British government, first in 1915, while working as the National
Ottoman Telegraph Agency’s reporter in Switzerland and, later, in 1919, offering
his services both times in return for his demands being fulfilled. In 1917, he
traveled to Paris, in secrecy, most probably to meet with a foreign state’s
representative.
456 DH. KMS. 10/12 1332 S 12 (10 January 1914).
457 P.P.G. Intelligence Department Cairo to Arthur Henry McMahon, 14 January 1916, FO 371/2492,
file no: 191093, no: 191093, 14 December 1915, NA.
167
On 8 December 1915, Gürcü approached the British Minister in Berne,
Grant Duff, on the question of a separate peace treaty with Turkey. Duff
summarized the interview between himself and Gürcü as follows:
He was of opinion that Turkey would be disposed to make a
separate peace if the Entente Powers would let the Ottoman
Government have reasonable terms. There was a very strong
feeling at Constantinople and generally in Turkey against the
German domination and he was quite certain that Talaat Bey, who
was by far the most powerful person in the Ottoman Empire,
would not be obdurate if properly approached. He was in constant
touch with him.
There were two weapons, beyond reasonable terms of peace,
which England might use with effect:-
1. A treaty to transfer the position of Caliph to one of the
Mussulman Sovereigns under British or French influence. He
mentioned the Sultan of Morocco, Bey of Tunis, Sultan of Egypt,
etc.
2. An energetic anti-German propaganda in Mohammedan
countries, Egypt, Northern Indis, etc.458
On receipt of Duff’s letter, the Foreign Office consulted Mr. Fitzmaurice
and formed an opinion on the subject. The statements of Mr. Fitzmaurice were
noted in the Foreign Office minutes as follows:
I knew Salih Bey Gourji, who is a Jew from Bagdad, when he was
“Directeur” of the Agence Ottomane which enabled him to send
30,000 words [?] per day within the Ottoman Empire. In this
capacity he used to disseminate an auspicious flow of anti-British
news, principally about England’s alleged designs on
Mesopotamia, Arabia, etc.
His suggestion that England should threaten to transfer the
Caliphate to Egypt sounds insidious.
It is doubtful how far Gourji is now entitled to speak on
behalf of the governing body at Constantinople. Apart from such
difficulties as the latest phase of the Armenian Question and the
likely demand of the Turks for the complete evacuation of the
Basra region, one of the obvious objections to Gourji’s suggestion
of [?] for a separate peace is that the matter may be unacceptable
to Russia and lead to sow distrust as discussion between England
and Russia, the constant aim of Turco-German workings in Sevres
as Turkey entered the war by an attack on Russia, perhaps any
458 Duff to Sir Edward Grey, 8 December 1915, FO 371/2492, file no: 191093, no: 191093, 14
December 1915, NA.
168
overtures for peace would more properly be addressed to that
Power.
The Turks look on life through military spectacles and have
been drawn into the German orbit owning to their belief in the
superiority of the German military machine. When they see the [?]
or [?] defeat of the latter, they will be more anxious than at
present to make peace on terms agreeable to the allies. Further if
the Germans appear in any considerable force at Constantinople,
the Turks will begin to visualize the German ‘King Storer’ and a
[?] will thereby be given to any tendencies to seek peace on
reasonable terms.459
Gürcüi’s suggestions “that H.M.G. should transfer the Caliphate to Egypt” was
found “insidious” by Sir Edward Grey, “whereas his other proposals recall in a
suspicious manner the several attempts of the Committee of Union and Progress to
sow disaccord between Great Britain and Russia”.460
Duff was instructed not to have any more contact with Salih Gürcü on the
following grounds:
For the present it would appear prudent to reply to all such
advances, the bona fides of which is open to doubt, to the effect
that Turkey having begun the war by an attack upon Russia, it
should be to that Power, and not her Allies, that any peace
overtures should be addressed.
Moreover, it is probable that until the glamour of the
military successes of the German armies has to some extent
become clouded, and until the danger of the German domination
in Turkey has more fully been realised, it will be difficult to
obtain from Turkey any conditions such as the actual superiority
of the allies will entitle them to expect.461
Arthur Henry McMahon, British High Commissioner in Egypt, was also informed
about Salih Gürcü’s interview with the British Minister in Berne. McMahon
consulted the Intelligence Department about Gürcü and formed the following
opinion, based on his record in the Intelligence Department:
From his record, he does not appear to be a very desirable
intermediary and his communications should probably be
459 Minutes, 22 December 1915, FO 371/2492, file no: 191093, no: 191093, 14 December 1915.
460 Grey to Duff, 26 December 1915, FO 371/2492, file no: 191093, no: 191093, 14 December 1915.
461 Grey to Duff, 26 December 1915, FO 371/2492.
169
accepted with caution. Any unauthorized intervention in the
question of the Caliphate tends to be dangerous, and a deal on the
lines suggested by Gourdji would probably involve the question of
Constantinople. Thus his proposals may conceivably have been
made with a view to causing friction between England and Russia.
Our enemies would doubtless spare no intrigue to promote discord
between ourselves and Russia regarding Constantinople, as they
would between ourselves and France in connection with Syria and
the Arabs.462
Moreover, McMahon enclosed this report with the letter he wrote to Sir
Edward Grey. The report included striking details about Gürcü and the Ottoman
Telegraph Agency. The British Foreign Office report stated that the Ottoman
government was paying the Ottoman Telegraph Agency large amounts of
subvention: “Salih Gurji first became known at Constantinople in 1910, when he
founded the ‘Agence Ottomane’, a telegraphic Agency subventioned by the
Ottoman Government to the extent of £T 30,000 or £T 40,000 a year.”463
According to the report: “The news published by the Agency reflected the
views of the then Government, which was in the hands of the Committee of Union
and Progress. It was mendacious and ‘tenacious’ lost few chances in attacking
Russia and had an occasional dig at England. France was generally let off with faint
commendation this doubtless in anticipation of financial favours to come, but when
the 1910 Loan fell through, she was subjected to severe criticism.” The report
mentions the objections that took place regarding Gürcü being in charge of the
agency and claims that the objections took place because, “the concession, for such
it was, of a lucrative ‘enterprise de publicité’, to a little known Hebrew provoked
462 McMahon to Grey, 18 January 1916, FO 371/2771, file no: 16374, no: 16374, 26 January 1916.
463 P.P.G., Intelligence Department Cairo to McMahon, 14 January 1916, FO 371/2492, file no:
191093, no: 191093, 14 December 1915.
170
some comment at the time but was easily explained”.464 It was stated that the reason
Gourdji became the director of the Ottoman Telegraph Agency was because:
…the Committee of Union and Progress, or rather its extreme
Judaco-Turkish wing, took care to find posts for its most trusted
supporters which were not particularly brilliant, in the opinion of
the uninformed public, but were in reality of great importance.
Thus the Press Bureau fell to the Salonike Donmé FAZLI
NEJIB, the Secret Service to Azmy Bey, with Samuel Eff., a Jew
of Seres, as his second in command, the Gendarmerie to Ghalib
Bey, etc., etc. Gurji was believed to have been selected on account
of his good knowledge of French from among several Jewish
candidates for the post of proprietor of this ‘Semi-official
Agency’. He survived the Kiamil Régime, and on the return to
power of the Committee became, to judge from the publications of
his Agency, more hostile to Great Britain and Russia than
before.465
In order to underline his untruthfulness and unreliability it was also depicted that:
In the summer of 1914, Salih Gurji was blackballed by the
‘British Club de Constantinople’ on account of the belief that he
would make his membership a cloak for espionage, and the
knowledge that he had (a) repeated confidential conversations
with French journalists to his Government. (b) Assisted Turks and
Germans in an anti-British propaganda among the Moslems and
Jews at Adana, Aleppo, Baghdad, etc.466
The report also explained why Gourji lost his position in the agency:
When the European War broke out Salih got into trouble,
according to his account, through his French sympathies, but
according to others, on account of the discovery that, ever anxious
to turn an honest or dishonest penny, he had sold information
prior to its official publication in a form which would please the
authorities to French or Italian journalists.467
The transformation of the Ottoman Telegraph Agency into the National
Agency was depicted thus:
The ‘Agence Ottomane’ was said to have been deprived of its
subvention and brought to an untimely end: in reality the ‘Agence
Milli’ (National Agency), which took its place, was the same
464 P.P.G, Intelligence Department Cairo to McMahon, 14 January 1916, FO 371/2492.
465 Intelligence Department to McMahon, FO 371/2492.
466 Ibid.
467 Ibid.
171
Agency under another title, Gurji ceased to be ‘director’ but
retained his financial interest in the business, and his friends, to
whom he had given jobs in the Agency, kept their places in the
‘Milli’, which became openly pro-German and anti-Ally.468
The report also stated that “Gurji has been used by Talaat often enough. One doubts
whether he has any great influence over him whatever.”469
A record from 1917 shows that the Ottoman Empire was suspicious of
Gourdji for it documents that the government was investigating his travels. In 1917,
the Ottoman government found out that he had traveled to Paris. Halîl Bey, the
Minister of Foreign Affairs, investigated the matter and presented his findings to
Talʻat Bey, the Minister of the Interior. In the memorandum, it was stated that
although Salih Gürcü’s wife mentioned that her husband traveled to the United
States as a reporter, after an investigation it was realized that he had traveled to
Paris instead. The memorandum mentioned that it did not make sense for an
Ottoman citizen to travel to the United States at that time, and the fact that he did
not apply for the necessary papers for traveling to this country verified the account
that he in fact had traveled to France. It was also stated that even if it was true that
he had traveled to the United States, he would still have needed to take the boat
from France.470
Later, in 1919, Salih Gürcü Bey reappeared in the British Foreign Office
records. He offered one of the members of the Eastern Department of the Foreign
Office the opportunity to cooperate with the British Empire by spreading British
propaganda in Arab lands through establishing a pro-British news agency in
Palestine. Gürcü’s offer and Chaim Weizmann (Zionist politician and future
president of Israel)’s request for information about him led to several
468 Ibid.
469 Ibid.
470 HR.SYS. 2267/47 20 January 1917.
172
communications within the Foreign Office in order to decide what his true political
standing was. By making this offer, not only did Gürcü intend to align with the
victors of the war, and enjoy a new source of income through a news agency that
would be funded by the British government, but he also hoped to take over
L’agence de Turquie, which was partners with Reuters and Havas, with the claim
that the Milli Agency had been illegally confiscated from him. As will be discussed
further in Chapter V, on 9 February 1919, the Milli Agency’s name was changed to
L’agence de Turquie and it became under the control of the French and British
governments through Havas and Reuters.
In his meeting with one of the officials of the Eastern Department, Gürcü
stated that he was originally from Baghdad and that his family had lived there for
centuries. He explained that he had left Constantinople because of the climate,
which was too hot for him, and that he “went to America where he held some 65
pro ally meetings”.471 He emphasized his Arabic origins to convince the Foreign
Office that his scheme to establish a pro-British agency would succeed:
Since the war he had thought of engaging in commerce, but at Dr.
Weizmann’s entreaty he was prepared to give this up to undertake
to run a pro-British news-agency in Palestine which would also
make every endeavor to harmonize Arab and Jewish views in
Palestine and Syria.
He maintained that his Arab origin would be of tremendous
assistance in his work. His agency was to be worked in
conjunction with Reuter’s in London, with whom he would have a
representative.
He also pointed out that his pre-war dealings with the Turks
had given him an insight into their politics and intrigues which
would enable him to combat them successfully. (Minutes of a
Conversation of Salih Gourdji Bey with a member of the Eastern
Department, 9 July 1919)
471 Minutes of a conversation between Salih Gourdji Bey and a member of the Eastern Department,
9 July 1919, FO 371/2771, file no: 98473, no: 98473, 5 July 1919.
173
Moreover, Gürcü communicated a memorandum to Sir Louis Mallet on 17
June 1919, explaining the reason for his misfortune and including his demands from
the British Foreign Office, perhaps in return for establishing a pro-British news
agency. Disagreement between him and the CUP was outlined thus:
Salih Bey Gourdji, founder-owner of the Telegraphic Turkish
Agency of Constantinople, was expelled from his agency and
threatened with imprisonment and death in 1914 because of his
hostility for the participation of Turkey in the war. Salih Bey
published in September 1914 a brochure: ‘Why Turkey should not
ally with Germany’ and a pamphlet against Talat and Enver. For
these reasons, he had to flee Istanbul. 472
He claimed that even after leaving the Ottoman Empire, he continued to pursue the
ideals of the Allies. Thinking that being a Zionist would help him to convince
Britain to entrust him with the establishment of a news agency in Palestine:
For five years, he devoted himself in body and soul to serve the
cause of the Allies and notably for English interests.
He returned from America where he held 65 conferences
with pro-Ally propaganda for two and a half years.
Mr. Gourdji has been a member of the Zionist party for
more than fifteen years.473
Gürcü reminded Mallet that the Turkish government had breached the
convention signed between them, perhaps to imply that it could be used against the
Turkish government when and if necessary:
Following the injustice that he suffered for five years because of
the attitude of the Talat government towards him, and as the
Convention between the Turkish government and Salih Bey
Gourdji that was signed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had
been violated, Salih Bey reserves his right to take a legal action
against the Sublime Porte.474
He demanded the following from the British Foreign Office:
472 Minutes, 9 July 1919, FO 371/2771.
473 Ibid.
474 Ibid.
174
1) A sequestration/trustee to be put on the assets and the fortune of
Hussein Tossoun Bey, a director of ex-agency Milli, agent of Talat,
who in 1914, overtly threatened Salih Bey with assassination.
2) He demands that the Turkish government recognize Salih Bey as
the legitimate owner of the Agency, currently functioning in
Istanbul under the name ‘Agence de Turquie’ [Agency of Turkey].
3) Selim Bey Gourdji, who is currently in Istanbul, and brother of
Salih Gourdji Bey to be appointed by the Sublime Porte as the
general manager of the Agence de Turquie of which the revenues
will be placed under his control and transferred to a bank, until
Salih Bey himself asserts his rights in Istanbul. 475
In his correspondence to Earl Curzon of Kedleston, Mr. Arthur Balfour stated
the opinion of Sir Mallet on Gürcü and his offer:
In Sir L. Mallet’s opinion, Salih Bey Gourdji is a clever man with
a considerable knowledge of the inner workings of Turkish
politics. Sir L. Mallet further considers that he was opposed to the
war and was not persona grata to the C.U.P. for which reason he
was replaced as director of the Agence Ottomane. During the war
he lectured in America, and Sir L. Mallet has seen reports of his
lectures attacking the C.U.P. For these reasons it may be impolitic
entirely to disregard the claim put forward in his memorandum or
to offend him, as he is likely to be useful to His Majesty’s
Government or the reverse whichever course offered him the
greatest advantage. It is therefore suggested for Lord Curzon’s
consideration that a copy of Salih Bey Gourdji’s memorandum
should be sent to Constantinople, and that Admiral Calthorpe
should be informed of the facts as stated above and that there is a
possibility of his employment by the Zionist Organisation at
Damascus.
It might be proposed to Admiral Calthorpe that in the
circumstances no harm could be done by giving him unofficial
assistance or, at any rate, by creating the impression of so doing,
but that it should be left to Admiral Calthorpe’s discretion to
decide what action, if any, should be taken in the matter.476.
On 16 June 1919, Mr. Balfour sent a telegram to Admiral Calthorpe, High
Commissioner in Constantinople, and stated that “in Sir Louis Mallet’s recollection
the agency was strongly pro-Ally and Salih Bey so convinced an opponent of the
pro-German policy that he was forced to fly from Constantinople, in consequence
475 Ibid.
476 Balfour to Curzon, 4 July 1919, FO 371/2771, file no: 98473, no: 98473, 5 July 1919.
175
of his outspoken hostility to Germany and the C.U.P.”477 and he requested Admiral
Calthorpe to ask Mr. Ryan to confirm this information. The High Commissioner
disproved the information on Gürcü:
Mr. Ryan has no personal knowledge of Salih Gourdji. I cannot
discover that he was strongly pro-Ally or that he was openly
identified with opposition to C.U.P.
‘Agence Ottomane’, which he started in 1909, was the
subsidized and semi-official mouth-piece of Government, and he
remained in charge of it until October 1914 when he was got rid
of and the Agency reorganized under the name of Milli or
national. When in Europe later on he acted as a correspondent for
the Milli Agency but the connection was eventually severed.
Salih is a Jew from Baghdad. The impression I get is that he
was mildly displeasing to C.U.P. but ready enough to serve them;
mildly Zionist and ‘opportunist’.478
On receiving Admiral Calthorpe’s telegram, the Foreign Office warned Mr.
Weizmann about Gürcü by rephrasing Calthorpe’s statements and ended the letter
by underlining that:
Salih Guourdji is a Jewish native of Baghdad. He has never been a
persona grata to the Commission of Union of Progress but was
ready enough to serve them, and may be described as mildly
Zionist, but above all an opportunist.479
The High Commissioner’s telegram also informed him that Gürcü lost his position
as director of the Ottoman Telegraph Agency in October 1914, that the name of the
agency was then changed to ‘Milli’, and that Gürcü subsequently became the
correspondent of the Milli Agency.480
Notes in the foreign office minutes reflect the officers’ distrust of Gürcü:
“The idea of H.M.G. pandering to a Turkish adventurer through fear of what might
result from his possible displeasure does not appeal to me, nor, judging by his
477 Balfour to Somerset Arthur Gouch Calthorpe, 16 June 1919, FO 371/2771, file no: 98473, no:
98473, 5 July 1919.
478 Calthorpe to Balfour, 28 June 1919, FO 371/2771, file no: 98473, no: 98473, 5 July 1919.
479 Foreign Office to Weizman, 14 July 1919, FO 371/2771, file no: 98473, no: 98473, 5
July 1919.
480 Calthorpe to Balfour, 28 June 1919, FO 371/2771.
176
telegram to Mr. Balfour does it seem likely to appeal to Admiral Calthorpe. His
requests too seem to me preposterous.”481 “So far as I remember this man, he is of
no influence and a [?] who is much more likely to work against us than for us.”482
Gürcü tried to take advantage of the contemporary political situation to take back
the administration of the Ottoman Telegraph Agency, secure compensation, and
find himself a new source of income by collaborating with the British Empire.
The semi-formal Ottoman Telegraph Agency was a product of a long lasting
scheme that had been pursued since 1878. However, it only lasted for three years.
Because the Ottoman government started to regard its founder and director Salih
Gürcü as untrustworthy. The British documents suggest that the Ottoman Empire
was correct in its decision to expulse him from the agency’s administration. Gürcü
shortly offered his services to the British Empire. The Ottoman Telegraph Agency
was transformed to l’agence Milli and it operated under a new director, Hüseyin
Tosun during World War I. After the Allies’ occupation l’agence Milli was
transformed to La Turquie and then to l’agence Orientale d’informations.
6.1. l’Agence Milli (The National Ottoman Telegraph Agency)
On 15 November 1914, after the removal of Salih Gürcü, the duty of
transforming and administering the agency fell to Hüseyin Tosun, who was
Erzurum Deputy at the time.483 Tosun became the Ottoman Telegraph Agency’s
481 O.A.S, 7 July 1919, FO 371/2771, file no: 98473, no: 98473, 5 July 1919.
482 W.S.S. Ibid.
483 BEO. 4332/324854 1333 S 27 (14 January 1915).
177
director.484 By March 1915, the Ottoman Telegraph Agency was replaced by the
National Ottoman Telegraph Agency (the Milli Agency).485
The previous contract with the Ottoman Telegraph Agency, which was
signed during Gürcü’s administration, was terminated. In the new contract, signed
on 15 November 1914, the agency’s services were outlined as follows: to
disseminate and announce every type of formal and informal, domestic and foreign,
political and economic view of the empire, to be a mediator for all published
statements of the government offices, and to serve the empire’s interests. To be able
to perform these duties it was decided that the agency had to be in regular contact
with the state offices and receive suitable information from them for publishing.
Those statements of the gravest importance were to be given directly to the
agency’s directorate by the Press Directorate.486 All state offices were informed
about this decision and were instructed to initiate relations with the agency with this
in mind. 487
There is more information available regarding Tosun compared to Gürcü.
Hüseyin Tosun Bey, who was one of the founders of the Ottoman Telegraph
Agency and the Founder-Director of the National Ottoman Telegraph Agency, was
from a Circassia family that settled in the Manyas region during the 1864 Circassian
exile. He was a dedicated CUP member, studied at the military academy and
became an officer. He was imprisoned at Taşkışla during the reign of Abdülhamid
484 Ibid.
485 BEO. 4344/325785 1333 Ca 02 (17 April 1915).
486 BEO. 4332/324854 1333 S 27 (14 January 1915).
487 BEO. 2886/216385 1324 C 15 (7 July 1906).
178
II for taking part in the revolutionary movement.488 In 1896, he was appointed as a
French teacher to the Tripoli Military Junior High School as a place of exile.489
According to Abdullah Cevdet, during his three-year stay, Hüseyin Tosun
helped government opponents to escape and supported their financially distressed
families. Abdullah Cevdet was among those whom he helped to escape. Tosun,
along with Pietro Suvalle, arranged Cevdet’s escape to Tunisia by sailing boat.490
Tosun finally managed to escape from his place of exile, traveled to Paris,
and got in touch with the Young Turks.491 In 1902, he took part in the first Young
Turk congress as a Circassian delegate with his friend, the military doctor
Circassian Kemal Bey. He became one of the founders of the League of Private
Initiative and Decentralization (Teşebbüsü Şahsi ve Adem-i Merkeziyet Cemiyeti),
which was established under the leadership of Prince Sabahaddin after the
congress.492
With the deportation of Abdullah Cevdet from Switzerland, Hüseyin Tosun
left Paris and moved to Switzerland to take over the İçtihad Mecmuası.493 He
remained the director throughout 1904.494 He also took part in the publishing of the
Terakki newspaper in Paris. In 1907, at the second Young Turk congress, as well as
at the second congress of the Ottoman Liberals in Paris, Tosun supported the idea of
‘decentralization’, along with Prince Sabahaddin.495
488 Nart Kozok, Osmanlı Tarihinde İz Bırakan Çerkesler (İzmir: Neşa Ofset Ambalaj, 2010), 295.
489 Abdullah Cevdet, “Hüseyin Tosun’u Gaybettik,” İçtihad (15 January 1930): 5322.
490 Cevdet, “Hüseyin Tosun’u Gaybettik,” 5323.
491 Hüsamettin Ertürk, İki Devrin Perde Arkası (İstanbul: İlgi Kültür Sanat Yayıncılık, 2011), 76.
492 Kozok, İz Bırakan Çerkesler, 296.
493 Orhan Türkdoğan, “Hüseyin Tosun: Bir İhtilalcinin Profili,” Türk Dünyası Araştırmaları (Feb.
1987): 72.
494 Türkdoğan, “Hüseyin Tosun,” 72.
495 Kozok, Osmanlı Tarihinde, 296.
179
With the help and directives of the CUP, Tosun arrived in Caucasia
disguised as a Russian subject, crossed the border and entered Erzurum.496 In order
to hide his true identity, he opened a store in the city.497 He became a prominent
member of the CUP’s Erzurum branch.498 He was in charge of the distribution of
illegal publications in the Eastern provinces. Revolutionary publications, such as the
letters, documents and newspapers which crossed the border with the help of the
Kars Post Office manager, Çarpan, were first passed on to the Erzurum Post Office
manager. From there, they were distributed to cities, such as Van, Bitlis, Diyarbakır,
Muş and Erzincan, by Hüseyin Tosun and Hüsamettin Ertürk. Mechveret and Şurayı
Ümmet were among these publications.499 Tosun was receiving instructions from
Ahmet Rıza Bey and Doktor Bahaeddin Şakir Bey.500
On 25 November 1907, Hüseyin Tosun was arrested along with several
others for taking part in revolutionary propaganda. They were accused of being
members of the CUP, an illegal organization. The arrests continued over the
following days and the number of people arrested for taking part in the Erzurum
uprisings of 1906 and 1907 against newly introduced taxation reached one hundred
and seventy.501 While under arrest, Hüseyin Tosun was severely tortured,502 like the
rest of the prisoners.503
The government issued a case against them for attempting to overthrow the
regime. The trials started on 28 January 1908 in Erzurum with Judge Salim Bey
preceding. The defendants were accused of killing police officers, wounding
496 Ertürk, İki Devrin, 76.
497 Cevdet, “Hüseyin Tosun’u Gaybettik,” 5323.
498 Aykut Kansu, 1908 Devrimi (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2002), 67.
499 Kansu, 1908 Devrimi, 66–67.
500 Ertürk, İki Devrin, 76.
501 Ertürk, İki Devrin, 84–85.
502 Kozok, Osmanlı Tarihinde, 297.
503 Kansu, 1908 Devrimi, 84–85.
180
Governor Mehmed Ata Bey, trying to abolish the Şahsi Vergi and Hayvanat-ı
Ehliye Rüsumu, trying to overthrow the regime by agitating in favor of a
parliamentary regime, and distributing illegal publications, revolutionary
newspapers and bulletins, for this purpose. The trials ended on 10 February 1908.
By order of the government, Hüseyin Tosun was sent to Istanbul Jail to serve his
sentence.504 He was released from prison with the help of his relative Hüseyin Kadri
Bey, who was a highly influential member of the CUP.505
After the declaration of the Second Parliamentary Regime, he was elected
Erzurum Deputy. He served in the parliament as an independent deputy from 18
April to 5 August 1912, and from 1914 to 1918.506
Hüseyin Tosun became one of the founding members of the board of the
Köylü Bilgi Cemiyeti, which was established on 21 April 1330 (4 May 1914) in
İstanbul, Cağaloğlu. Information about this society is scarce: it was a subsidiary
organ of the CUP, founded to connect the CUP and the peasants. The society solely
dealt with publications.507
In 1911, after the attack of the Italians, Hüseyin Tosun went to Tripoli and
took part in the mobilization of people.508 He worked for the Special Organization
(Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa) as the director of the Africa and Tripoli Branch.509 He was
504 Ibid., 86–8.
505 Kozok, İz Bırakan Çerkesler, 297.
506 Feroz Ahmad and Dankwart A. Rustow, “İkinci Meşrutiyet Döneminde Meclisler: 1908-1918,”
Güneydoğu Avrupa Araştırmaları Dergisi, nos. 4–5 (1976): 278.
507 Tarık Zafer Tunaya, Türkiye'de Siyasal Partiler Cilt 1: İkinci Meşrutiyet Dönemi (İstanbul:
İletişim Yayınları, 2011), 501.
508 Kozok, İz Bırakan Çerkesler, 297.
509 This information is only available in Tarik Zafer Tunaya, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler Cilt 3:
İttihat ve Terakki, Bir Çağın, Bir Kuşağın, Bir Partinin Tarihi (İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2000),
342. Though, Tosun was in fact residing in Tripoli at the time.
181
imprisoned by the Italians and taken to Rome. After his return to İstanbul, he was
appointed as the manager of the Ottoman Telegraph Agency.510
In February 1919, Hüseyin Tosun Bey was arrested by Tevfik Paşa’s
government and sent to Bekirağa Division prison.511 His brother, Mehmet Reşit
Bey, committed suicide in İstanbul to avoid being put on trial.512 He was one of the
founders of the İttihad-i Osmani Committee, which was established in İstanbul by
students of the Military Medical School (Tıbbiye-i Şahane).513
In May 1919, Admiral Richard Webb, deputy of the British High
Commissioner, made a list of prisoners who would be exiled to Malta with priority.
They were regarded as “the most dangerous criminals” by the British High
Commission. The list consisted of fifty-nine people, including Hüseyin Tosun. On
19 May 1919, while submitting the list to General George Milne, Admiral Webb
made a change and put a star next to the names of nineteen people to underline their
importance. Hüseyin Tosun Bey was among these nineteen, with the crime of
disturbing the peace.514
On 28 May 1919, the SS Princess Ena Malta disembarked from İstanbul
with seventy-eight exiles to travel to Malta. Hüseyin Tosun Bey was among the
sixty-seven captives from Bekirağa Division prison. The other eleven exiles were
the parliamentarians of the South-Western Caucasian Republic (Cenubî Garbi
Kafkas Cumhuriyeti). The exiles were regrouped into three by Admiral Calthorpe:
twelve former ministers or politicians, forty-one former ministers, politicians,
governors or lower-ranking civil servants, and fourteen officers. While traveling to
510 Kozok, Osmanlı Tarihinde, 297.
511 Bilal N. Şimşir, Malta Sürgünleri (Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, 1985), 57–58.
512 Türkdoğan, Bir İhtilalcinin Portresi, 71.
513 Tunaya, Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler Cilt 1, 51.
514 Şimşir, Malta Sürgünleri , 96–97.
182
Malta, on 29 May 1919, the ship visited Limnos Island and dropped off twelve
exiles from the first group at Port Mudros. Hüseyin Tosun Bey was one of them.
The exiles were imprisoned there for almost four months until they were taken to
Malta on 21 September 1919. In Admiral Calthorpe’s report to Lord Curzon on 31
May 1919, Hüseyin Tosun Bey’s number was written down as 2765 and his reason
for exile was stated as disturbing the peace and mistreating the Armenians.
Moreover, he was described as Erzurum Deputy, and the owner and administrator
of the National Telegraph Agency.515
It was agreed by the Treaty of London, signed on 16 March 1921, that sixtyfour
exiles from Malta would be set free in exchange for twenty-two British war
captives. However, the British were reluctant to release the exiles because of the
recent attack of the Greeks on the Turks at the Bursa and Uşak fronts, hoping for a
Greek victory. The defeat of the Greeks at the Second Battle of İnönü undermined
the hopes of the British. In order to secure the freedom of the twenty-two British
captives, on 13 April 1921, the British government ordered Lord Plumer, the
Governor of Malta, to release only forty of the sixty-four exiles, agreed to be freed
in the treaty. They were to be transferred to Italy.516
Hüseyin Kadri Bey was on the list of exiles to be released and transferred to
Italy on 30 April 1921.517 He changed places with Hüseyin Tosun Bey, who was
sick, by taking advantage of the name resemblance.518 Hüseyin Kadri Bey arrived in
İstanbul on 30 October 1921, a month later, with the last group of exiles.519 Hüseyin
515 Ibid., 97–108.
516 Şimşir, Malta Sürgünleri, 355–67.
517 Ibid., 369.
518 Kozok, Osmanlı Tarihinde, 298.
519 Şimşir, Malta Sürgünleri, 398.
183
Tosun Bey died in İstanbul on 7 January 1930 due to prostate cancer, in poverty,
unable to cover his medical expenses.520
6.2. La Turquie
Baron Herbert de Reuter committed suicide on 18 April 1915.521 After his
death, under Roderick Jones’ leadership, the shares of the Reuters were bought by
the British government. In 1916, the company was reconstructed and became
Reuters Limited. This new Reuters, with a manager (Roderick Jones) who was a
chief executive and Director of Propaganda in the Ministry of Information, and a
director (John Buchan) who was the Director of Intelligence at the same ministry,
serving the official propaganda efforts of the British government both within and
outside its territory, signed an agreement with the Milli Agency to ease the Ally
occupation of Anatolia. On 9 February 1919, only three months after the occupation
of Constantinople, Reuters signed an agreement with Havas and the Milli Agency to
distribute news in Turkish territory under the name La Turquie-Havas-Reuter.
The official signing of the contract took place on 15 April 1920, between
Mr. Werndel, the representative of Reuters Limited in Constantinople, M. Mothu,
the representative of l’Agence Havas in Constantinople, and Mehmet Ali Bey,
Minister of the Interior and concessionary of l’Agence La Turquie.522
520 Kozok, Osmanlı Tarihinde, 298.
521 Read, Power of News, 126.
522 Treaty of Cession (English Translation), 23 October 1922, 1/8715629, LN 247, 24 October 1922,
RA.
184
6.3. l’Agence Orientale d’Informations
On 24 October 1922, almost two weeks after the signing of the Armistice of
Mudanya, the Treaty of Cession was signed between the following parties: Havas
was represented by Andre Meynot, one of its delegated administrators, Reuters was
represented by Samuel Carey Clements, manager secretary, Salih Gürcü, Proprietor-
Director of l’Agence Telegraphique Ottomane, and Alemdar Zade Munir Hairi,
Director of the Bureau d’Informations Orientales. Munir Hairi was also the agent of
the National Agency in Constantinople, while he was serving at the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs as mektoubdji (secretary general).523 The treaty foresaw the
establishment of l’Agence Orientale d’Informations before 28 February 1923.
Furthermore, the services of La Turquie-Havas-Reuter were to be carried on under
the name of l’Agence Orientale d’Informations after the cancellation of the contract
with La Turquie.
Salih Gourdji and Munir Hairi, who were named as nominated directors of
the new agency in the main text of the second treaty which listed their rights and
obligations, now with an annexation to the treaty’s second paragraph of Article V,
were to share their title and influence with two others, Ferguson and Mothu.
L’Agence Orientale d’Informations never came to life. Reuters ended up
signing an agreement with the Anatolian Agency, which was founded on 6 April
1920, to counter British and French propaganda in Anatolia during the Turkish War
of Independence. Having disseminated news against Turkish forces and the Ankara
government throughout the war by means of La Turquie, which was operating in
partnership with Havas and Reuters, the British and French governments envisioned
523 “Le Presse Française et les agences d’informations en Turquie,” Les Nouvelles D’Orient:
Organce des Intérêts Français en Turquie, 17 October 1895, 3.
185
this contract on defeat of the Greek forces so as not to lose their propaganda
weapon in Anatolia, especially before the signing of a peace treaty. This is signified
by the contract’s date, 24 October 1922, only two weeks after the Armistice of
Mudanya. Now that Mehmet Ali Bey, the Ottoman Minister of the Interior and
concessionary of La Turquie, no longer had any influence, the British and French
governments thought that they could appoint others to preserve an agency in
Anatolia which served their interests. It has already been discussed above that the
British government did not find Salih Gürcü reliable. However, under pressure to
conclude a contract immediately with the expectation that its validity would be
accepted by, or forced upon, the new Turkish government, the British government
appointed Salih Gürcü as one of the directors of the new agency. Gürcü’s claims to
the Ottoman Telegraph Agency, discussed above, might well have been convenient
to the British government as it could declare that this new agency, l’Agence
Orientale d’Informations, was the Ottoman Telegraph Agency’s successor, which
had been confiscated unlawfully from Gürcü by the CUP. Therefore, Gürcü had
ownership rights to the Ottoman Telegraph Agency and its successors. He was
addressed as Proprietor-Director of the Agence Telegraphique Ottomane in the
contract.
186
CHAPTER VII
CONCLUSION
Initiated by Havas, Wolff’s and Reuters, news agencies flourished
throughout the nineteenth century and their influence accelerated. The news agency
owners and stockholders took advantage of this power by increasing profits and
investments abroad. These three European news agencies established close relations
with the various governments of their day. In this way they were able to reduce
costs and maximize profits, as well as having access to official information prior to
others. Apart from these general benefits resulting from their close contact with the
governments, they were also able to access a vast imperial news market and defy
any competition by using their relationships with their own imperial governments.
It is revealed in this dissertation that owners and stockholders of news
agencies had investments in other sectors as well. They treated the news as a
commodity, and the news business like any other area of investment. They were
merely investors who wanted to increase their incomes and wealth. For this purpose
they tried to influence governmental policies, manipulate empires, and take
advantage of conflicts between empires like in the cases of the Persian Concession
187
and the Greek Railway Concession. The Reuter family’s investments have been
used as a case study to highlight the activities of capitalist investors in the
developing parts of the world during the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. The family’s rising influence also signified the rise of a new class from
the service sector in the British Empire.
The Ottoman Empire, which since the eighteenth century had been in pursuit
of consolidating power within the imperial centre and preserving the empire,
regarded telegraphic communication and agencies as instruments in achieving this
purpose. Therefore, it gave the utmost importance to establishing and extending the
system and forming the necessary cadres. Telegraphic communication facilitated
receiving and sending information throughout its lands, which were being ravaged
by wars, uprisings, banditry, and the disloyalty of its provincial representatives. The
findings of the dissertation suggest that controlling foreign news agencies was
important for the Ottoman Empire in order to influence public opinion at home and
abroad. The information disseminated by foreign news agencies travelling
throughout its lands was challenging the central authority and the empire’s
territorial integrity, which became evident in the frequent uprisings and later in the
regime change of 1908. Moreover, during the nineteenth century the empire had a
problem with the image it was portraying to the rest of the world, especially Europe,
which seriously challenged its existence. To fight the imperial aspirations of the
European powers, which attempted to influence Ottoman and European public
opinion, the Ottoman Empire tried to put Havas, Reuters and Wolff’s under its
control by using financial incentives. However, this plan did not succeed as the
agencies promised to work for any and every country that paid them which was
revealed by the dissertation's research in the Ottoman Archive, Reuters Archive, the
188
United Kingdom National Archives, Grand National Assembly of Turkey Archives,
and Churchill Archive.
By combining primary sources from five archives in two countries, the
dissertation discloses that the Ottoman Empire regarded the news agencies as
instruments to have an impact on domestic and foreign public opinion. First, it had
the policy to gain control of the major European news agencies by financial means.
Shortly, the Ottoman statesmen tailored another policy, establishing an imperial
news agency. They conducted research on European news agencies to understand
how they were operating and the traits the imperial news agency had to possess.
From Abdülhamid II’s reign onwards, Ottoman statesmen attempted to establish an
agency serving only the empire’s interests. The idea was never abandoned and the
plan not even interrupted by the regime change in 1908. The Ottoman Telegraph
Agency, founded in 1909 by Salih Gürcü, became the empire’s semi-formal news
agency in 1911, and served the empire by announcing its official declarations and
denials, and countering foreign propaganda spread both at home and abroad on the
eve of World War I. It was replaced by l’Agence Milli in 1914, shortly after the
start of the war. Demonstrating the importance of the agencies at the time in
disseminating news, the Allies put the successors of the Ottoman Telegraph
Agency, La Turquie, and l’Agence Orientale d’Informations, under their control.
189
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Published Primary Sources
Gladstone, William Ewart. Bulgarian Horrors and the Question of the East.
London: William Clowes and Sons, 1876.
Gordon, Peter, ed. The Political Diaries of the Fourth Earl of Carnarvon, 1875-
1890, Colonial Secretary and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Camden Fifth Series,
vol. 35. London: Royal Historical Society, 2009.
“Greek Railways.” Evening News. 5 July 1910.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/115253232?searchTerm=greek%20rail
way%20concession&searchLimits=.
Jones, Roderick. A Life in Reuters. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1951.
“Le Presse Française et les agences d’informations en Turquie.” Les Nouvelles
D’Orient: Organce des Intérêts Français en Turquie, 17 October 1895.
“Osmanlı Telgraf Ajansı.” Yeni Asır, no. 1662, Şu’ûn-I Muhtelife (6 September
1909).
Vincent, John, ed. A Selection from the Diaries of Edward Henry Stanley, 15th Earl
of Derby (1826-93), between September 1869 and March 1878. Camden Fifth
Series, vol. 4. London: Royal Historical Society, 1994.
190
Unpublished Primary Sources
CHAR 13/1/37-39, 29 Nov 1911-30 Nov 1911, Churchill Archive.
Presidency of Republic of Turkey Directorate of State Archives, Ottoman Archive,
BOA: A.MKT.MHM., BEO., DH.İD., DH.KMS., DH.MKT., HR.İD.,
HR.SFR.3, HR.SFR.4, HR.SYS., İ.HR., İ.MTZ.GR, MV., ŞD.,Y.A. HUS.,
Y.A.RES., Y.EE., Y.PRK.BŞK., Y.PRK.DH.,YPRK.EŞA., Y.PRK.TKM.
Reuters Archive, RA: 1/870501 LN 52, 1/8714059 LN 238, 1/8715629 LN 247,
1/883502 LN 288, 1/8911601 LN 462, 1/014090 LN 797, 1/013507 LN 937.
Saldanha, Jerome Anthony. Persian Gulf Gazetteer Part 1. Historical and Political
Materials Precis Persian Arabistan Affairs, IOR/L/PS/20/C242, 1905, British
Library: Asian and African Studies.
The United Kingdom National Archives, NA: HD 3/97, HD 3/138, HO
45/10304/118695, FO 60/405, FO 371/12, FO 371/35, FO 371/81, FO 371/444,
FO 371/465, FO 371/537, FO 371/640, FO 371/645, FO 371/677, FO 371/1185,
FO 371/2492, FO 395/267.
Grand National Assembly of Turkey Archives, General Assembly Minutes:
Meclis-i Mebusan Zabıt Ceridesi. Devre:1, Cilt: 5, İçtima Senesi:3, İnikad: 72,
22.03.1327, Meclis-i Mebusan Zabıt Ceridesi. Devre:1, Cilt: 5, İçtima Senesi:3,
İnikad: 85, 12.04.1327.
Secondary Sources
Ahmad, Feroz, and Dankwart A. Rustow. “İkinci Meşrutiyet Döneminde Meclisler:
1908-1918.” Güneydoğu Avrupa Araştırmaları Dergisi, nos. 4–5 (1976).
Akıncan, Aziz. Türkiye'de Posta ve Telgrafçılık. Edirne: Ülkü, 1913.
191
Alemdar, Korkmaz. Türkiye’de Çağdaş Haberleşmenin Tarihsel Kökenleri. Ankara:
Ankara İktisadi ve Ticari Bilimler Akademisi, 1981.
Amirahmadi, Hooshang. The Political Economy of Iran under the Qajars: Society,
Economy, Politics and Foreign Relations 1796-1926. New York: I.B. Tauris,
2012.
Anastasiadou, Irene. Constructing Iron Europe: Transnationalism and Railways in
the Interbellum. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2011.
Ata, Bahri. “The Transfer of Telegraph Technology to the Ottoman Empire in the
XIXth Century.” MA Dissertation, Boğaziçi University, 1997.
Atilla, Nedim A.. İzmir Posta Tarihi 1841-2001. İzmir: İzmir Büyükşehir
Belediyesi, 2001.
Baker, Keith Michel. Inventing the French Revolution: Essays on French Political
Culture in the Eighteenth Century. New York: Cambridge University Press,
1990.
Bektaş, Yakup. “The Sultan’s Messenger: Cultural Constructions of the Ottoman
Telegraphy 1847-1880.” Technology and Culture, vol. 41 (2000).
Boyd-Barrett, Oliver. “Global News Agencies.” In The Globalization of News.
Edited by Oliver Boyd-Barrett and Terhi Rantanen. London: Sage Publications,
1998.
Boyd-Barrett, Oliver and Terhi Rantanen. “The Globalization of News.” In the
Globalization of News. Edited by Oliver Boyd-Barrett and Terhi Rantanen.
London: Sage Publications, 1998.
Cain, P.J., and Antony G. Hopkins. British Imperialism 1688-2015. New York:
Routledge, 2016.
Cevdet, Abdullah. “Hüseyin Tosun’u Gaybettik.” İçtihad (15 January 1930).
Curzon, George Nathaniel. Persia and the Persian Question. London: Longmans,
Green, and Co., 1892.
192
Darnton, Robert. “An Early Information Society: News and the Media in
Eighteenth-Century Paris.” American Historical Review 105, no. 1 (February),
1995.
Demir, Tanju. Türkiye’de Posta Telgraf ve Telofon Teşkilatının Tarihsel Gelişimi
(1840-1920). Ankara: Ptt Genel Müdürlüğü, 2005.
Deringil, Selim. The Well-Protected Domains: Ideology and the Legitimation of
Power in the Ottoman Empire 1876-1909. Spain: Bookchase, 2004.
Deringil, Selim. “II. Abdülhamid döneminde Osmanlı Dış İlişkilerinde ‘İmaj’
Saplantısı.” In Sultan II. Abdülhamid ve Devri Semineri: 27-29 Mayıs 1992.
İstanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi Edebiyat Fakültesi Basımevi, 1994.
Deringil, Selim. “The Invention of Tradition as Public Image in the Late Ottoman
Empire, 1808 to 1908”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, vol. 35,
Issue 1 (1993).
Davison, Roderic H. Nineteenth Century Ottoman Diplomacy and Reforms.
İstanbul: The Isis Press, 1999.
Davison, Roderic. “The Advent of the Electric Telegraph in the Ottoman Empire.”
In Essays in Ottoman and Turkish History 174-1923: The Impact of the West.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990.
Ertürk, Hüsamettin. İki Devrin Perde Arkası. İstanbul: İlgi Kültür Sanat Yayıncılık,
2011.
Eskin, Şekip. Türk Posta Tarihi. Ankara: Ulusal Matbaa, 1942.
Farzaneh, Mateo Mohammad. The Iranian Constitutional Revolution and the
Clerical Leadership of Khurasani. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2015.
Fenby, Jonathan. The International News Services: A Twentieth Century Fund
Report. New York: Schocken Books, 1986.
Frey, Frederick W. “Political Development, Power, and Communications in
Turkey.” In Communications and Political Development. Edited by Lucian Pye.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963.
193
Galbraith, John S. “British Policy on Railways in Persia, 1870-1900.” Middle
Eastern Studies, vol. 25 (1989).
Gökoğlu, A. Baha. Batı ve Doğuda Telgrafçılık Nasıl Doğdu?. İstanbul: Bozkurt
Matbaası, 1935.
Gökoğlu, A. Baha. Telgrafçılıkda Ana Dilimiz ve Mustafa Efendi. Istanbul: Güneş
Matbaası, 1933.
Habermas, Jürgen. The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry
into a Category of Bourgeois Society. Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1991.
Hanioğlu, Şükrü M. A Brief History of the Late Ottoman Empire. Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 2008.
Hannah, Leslie. The Rise of the Corporate Economy. London: Methuen, 1983.
Headrick, Daniel R. The Invisible Weapon: Telecommunications and International
Politics 1851-1924. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1911.
Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848. New York: Vintage Books,
1996.
Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Empire 1875-1914. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.
Hobson, John Atkinson. Imperialism: A Study. Michigan: University of Michigan
Press, 2006.
İnalcık, Halil. “Centralization and Decentralization in Ottoman Administration.” In
Studies in Eighteenth Century Islamic History. Edited by Thomas Naff.
Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1977.
Kaçar, Mustafa. “Osmanlı Telgraf İşletmesi.” In Çağını Yakalayan Osmanlı:
Osmanlı Devleti’nde Modern Haberleşme ve Ulaştırma Teknikleri. Edited by
Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu and Mustafa Kaçar. İstanbul: İslam Tarih, Sanat ve Kültür
ve Araştırma Merkezi, 1995.
Kansu, Aykut. The Revolution of 1908 in Turkey. Leiden: Brill, 1997.
194
Karpat, Kemal and Robert W. Zens, “I. Meşrutiyet Dönemi ve II. Abdülhamid’in
Saltanatı (1876-1909).” In Genel Türk Tarihi Cilt 7. Edited by Hasan Celâl
Güzel and Ali Birinci. (Ankara: Yeni Türkiye Yayınları, 2002), 286-87.
Karal, Enver Ziya. “Gülhane Hatt-ı Hümayunu’nda Batı’nın Etkisi.” In Tanzimat:
Değişim Sürecinde Osmanlı İmparatorluğu. Edited by Halil İnalcık and Mehmet
Seyitdanlıoğlu, 2008.
Kazemzadeh, Firuz. Russia and Britain in Persia, 1864-1914: A Study in
Imperialism. Binghamton: Yale University Press, 1968.
Keddie, Nikki R. Religion and Rebellion in Iran: The Tobacco Protest of 1891-
1892. London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd., 1966.
Kırlı, Cengiz. “Coffeehouses: Public Opinion in the Nineteenth Century Ottoman
Empire.” In Public Islam and the Common Good. Edited by Eickelman, Dale F.
and Armando Salvatore. Brill: Leiden, 2004.
Kırlı, Cengiz. Sultan ve Kamuoyu: Osmanlı Modernleşme Sürecinde “Havadis
Jurnalleri” (1840-1844). İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür Yayınları, 2009.
Koloğlu, Orhan. Havas-Reuter’den Anadolu Ajansı’na, Osmanlı’da Basın
Teknikleri ve Araçları. Ankara: Çağdaş Gazeteciler Derneği Yayınları, 1994.
Koloğlu, Orhan. Osmanlı Döneminde Basın Teknikleri ve Araçları. İstanbul:
İstanbul Üniversitesi İletişim Fakültesi Yayınları, 2010.
Koloğlu, Orhan. Osmanlı’dan 21. Yüzyıla Basın Tarihi. İstanbul: Pozitif Yayınlar,
2013.
Kruse, Juanita. John Buchan (1875-1940) and the Idea of Empire: Popular
Literature and Political Ideology. Lewiston: E. Mellen Press, 1989.
Kozok, Nart. Osmanlı Tarihinde İz Bırakan Çerkesler. İzmir: Neşa Ofset Ambalaj,
2010.
Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. New York: Oxford University
Press, 1968.
Morgan, Gerald. Anglo-Russian Rivalry in Central Asia, 1810-1895. New York:
Frank Cass, 2006.
195
Nalbach, Alexander Scott. “‘Poisoned at the Source?’ Telegraphic News Services
and Big Business in the Nineteenth Century.” Business History Review, vol. 77,
no.4 (Winter 2003).
Nalbach, Alexander Scott. “The Ring Combination: Information, Power and the
World News Agency Cartel.” PhD Dissertation, University of Chicago, 1999.
Okan, Ayşegül. “The Ottoman Postal and Telegraph Services in the Last Quarter of
the Nineteenth Century.” MA Dissertation, Boğaziçi University, 2003.
Özdemir, Onur. “Türkiye'de Modern Posta Teşkilatının Kuruluşu ve Gelişimi.” MA
Dissertation, Anadolu Üniversitesi, 1998.
Palat, Madhavan K., and Anara Tabyshalieva, eds. History of Civilizations of
Central Asia, Towards the Contemporary Period: From the Mid-nineteenth to
the End of the Twentieth Century, vol VI. Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 2005.
PTT. Başlangıcından Günümüze Posta. Ankara: PTT Genel Müdürlüğü, 2007.
Rabinow, Paul, ed. The Foucault Reader: An Introduction to Foucault’s Thought.
New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.
Rantanen, Terhi. “The Struggle for Control of Domestic News Markets.” In The
Globalization of News. Edited by Oliver Boyd-Barrett and Terhi Rantanen.
London: Sage Publications, 1998.
Rawlinson, Henry. England and Russia in the East. London: John Murray, 1875.
Read, Donald. The Power of News: The History of Reuters. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1999.
Seyitdanlıoğlu, Mehmet. “Yenileşme Dönemi Osmanlı Devlet Teşkilâtı.” In Genel
Türk Tarihi Cilt 7. Edited by Hasan Celâl Güzel and Ali Birinci. Ankara: Yeni
Türkiye Yayınları, 2002.
Shaw, Stanford, and Ezel Kural Shaw. History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern
Turkey vol. II. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Silberstein-Loeb, Jonathan. The International Distribution of News. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2014.
196
Somel, Selçuk Akşin. Osmanlı’da Eğitimin Modernleşmesi (1839-1908):
İslamlaşma, Otokrasi ve Disiplin. İstanbul: İletişim, 2015.
Storey, Graham. Reuter’s Century 1851-1951. London: Max Parrish, 1951.
Şimşir, Bilal N. Malta Sürgünleri. Ankara: Bilgi Yayınevi, 1985.
Taglia, Stefano. “The Intellectuals Dilemma: The Writings of Ahmet Riza and
Mehmet Sabahettin on Reform and the Future of the Ottoman Empire.” PhD
Dissertation, SOAS University of London, 2012.
Tanrıkut, Asaf. Türkiye Posta ve Telgraf ve Telefon Tarihi ve Teşkilat ve Mevzuâtı.
Cilt 1-2. Ankara: Efem, 1984.
Tarde, Gabriel. Gabriel Tarde on Communication and Social Influence Selected
Papers. Edited by Terry N. Clark. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969.
Thussu, Daya Kishan. International Communication: Continuity and Change.
London: Hodder Arnold, 2006.
Tunaya, Tarık Zafer. Türkiye’de Siyasal Partiler Cilt I: İkinci Meşrutiyet Dönemi.
İstanbul: İletişim Yayınları, 2011.
Türkdoğan, Orhan. “Hüseyin Tosun: Bir İhtilalcinin Profili.” Türk Dünyası
Araştırmaları, (February 1987).
Wesseling, Henk. The European Colonial Empires 1815-1919. Harlow: Pearson
Longman, 2004.
Yanatma, Servet. “The International News Agencies in the Ottoman Empire (1854-
1908).” PhD Dissertation, Middle East Technical University, 2015.
Yaşar, Ahmet, ed. Osmanlı Kahvehaneleri: Mekan, Sosyalleşme, İktidar. İstanbul:
Kitap Yayınevi, 2017.
Yaycıoğlu, Ali. Partners of the Empire: The Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age
of Revolutions. Stanford: Stanford Universtiy Press, 2016.
Yazıcı, Nesimi. “Posta Nezaretinin Kuruluşu.” In Çağını Yakalayan Osmanlı:
Osmanlı Devleti’nde Modern Haberleşme ve Ulaştırma Teknikleri. Edited by
197
Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu. İstanbul: İslam Tarih, Sanat ve Kültür ve Araştırma
Merkezi, 1995.
Yazıcı, Nesimi. “Posta Nezaretinin Kuruluşu.” In Çağını Yakalayan Osmanlı:
Osmanlı Devleti’nde Modern Haberleşme ve Ulaştırma Teknikleri. Edited by
Ekmeleddin İhsanoğlu. İstanbul: İslam Tarih, Sanat ve Kültür ve Araştırma
Merkezi, 1995.
Zürcher, Erik J. Turkey: A Modern History. London: I.B. Tauris, 2004.
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder