Gentlemanly Capitalism and the Baghdad Railway, 1888 –1914: ‘Cosmopolitanism’ vs. ‘Patriotism’

Abstract

According to the interpretation of Cain and Hopkins, British imperialism was driven by a social stratum they dub ‘gentlemanly capitalists’. This refers to the financial and service sector based in south-eastern England. This article aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion on Cain’s and Hopkins’s approach by exploring how far it can shed light upon the stance of British business and political elites towards the German-dominated Baghdad railway project in the Ottoman Empire. Represented by Deutsche Bank, German interests started to construct railway lines in Anatolia from 1888 onwards. In 1903, they secured a concession to build a railway connecting Ankara with the Persian Gulf (the Baghdad railway). For the British, this raised the question of whether it was better to oppose or participate in that project. The latter option was pursued by a group of London-based financial interests. However, a competing group consisting of British railway and shipping interests vociferously opposed the plan of a German-French-British joint venture as inimical to British interests, thereby forcing the British government to reverse its previous support for the project. This was followed by years of abortive British-German-Ottoman negotiations. In 1913-14, a compromise was found: The British traded their acceptance of a German-controlled Baghdad railway against a number of concessions involving the Persian Gulf, railways, shipping and, crucially, oil. On the British side, the main winners of this agreement were the very same railway and shipping interests that had wrecked the previous plan. All the financial, railway and shipping interests involved in this affair can indeed be characterized as ‘gentlemanly capitalists’ in the vein of Cain and Hopkins. However, the findings of this article also show that the ‘gentlemanly capitalists’ were not as coherent a group as Cain and Hopkins would have it: There was a deep split between the ‘cosmopolitanism’ of some financial circles and the more narrow ‘patriotism’ of the railway and shipping interests.