Architecture, Expertise, and the German Construction of the Ottoman Railway Network, 1868–1919

The Ottoman railway network, considered the pride of that empire’s modernizing impulses, was largely engineered by Germans. While it employed local builders and craftsmen, and advanced Ottoman goals of imperial consolidation and modernization, it also accelerated German influence in the region, and set the stage for an ambiguous form of colonialism. Historians of the Ottoman and German empires have examined the railway for its clear political and economic importance, while architectural histo...