The Ottoman economy in World War I

Abstract

Introduction: the economy on the eve of the war On the eve of World War I the population of the Ottoman Empire, comprising present-day Turkey, Syria and Palestine, Iraq, and parts of the Arabian peninsula, was close to 23 million. Of these roughly 17 million lived within the modern borders of Turkey, more than 3 million in Syria and Palestine including Lebanon and Jordan, and about 2.5 million in present-day Iraq. In addition, approximately 5.5 million lived in Yemen and the Hijaz on the Arabian peninsula under nominal Ottoman rule (Eldem, 1970: 49–66; McCarthy, 2002). Despite considerable economic transformation and some economic growth during the nineteenth century and especially after 1880, the Ottoman economy was still mostly agrarian on the eve of World War I. Moreover, the real GDP of the empire in total and per head of the population was substantially below that of the countries of western and central Europe. Perhaps more than anything else, these basic limitations of the Ottoman economy hold the key to understanding the capacity and performance of the Ottoman military during World War I. For the Ottoman Empire the nineteenth century had been a period of political, social, and economic reforms designed and implemented by the centre in order to keep the empire together in response to external and internal challenges. For the Ottoman economy it had also been a period of rapid integration into the world economy. Between 1820 and 1914 the foreign trade of the empire had expanded more than tenfold.