Power and light, profit and loss: the establishment and operation of the Damascus Electricity and Tramway Company, 1903-1914

Abstract

This article addresses the shift of power that occurred in Ottoman Damascus as a result of the establishment of its electricity and tramway network that started operating in 1907. The company, which ought to have been public, in the ownership of Ottoman-Syrian investors, ended up being owned by a Belgian consortium. The central argument in the article is that the Damascene elite families rationally refrained from the risk of establishing the Electricity Company but paid the price of losing control over power and light in the city. An informal network of Ottoman officials and Belgian businessmen, led by the second secretary of Sultan Abdülhamid II, the Damascene İzzet Pasha, orchestrated the buyout. Therefore, Damascus’s encounter with its first electric grid, which was naturally complex in the first place, was also subjected to the tensions of outsourcing a local-municipal power to an external network that the Central Ottoman Government imposed. This article is an outcome of research on the electrification of Damascus, based on the papers of the Ottoman Ministry of Public Works from the Ottoman Archive and the company’s records from Belgium’s National Archive, the Ottoman-Syrian press, and the British and American consulates’ archives.

Keywords:

• Ottoman Empire
• Economic History
• Damascus, Electricity
• Concessions

Damascus was one of the first cities in the Ottoman Empire to install an electric grid. The grid powered a public lighting network and a tramway line and supplied domestic light, heat, traction for the tram lines, electrification of industrial motors and ventilation.¹ Damascus inaugurated the grid on 7 February 1907 with much enthusiasm after two 500-watt spots illuminated the Umayyad Mosque during a test run in January.² Newspapers in Syria and Istanbul celebrated the event as a significant sign of progress in the Ottoman Empire. The city’s elites all attended the inauguration ceremony, followed by a public feast. Servings of meat were distributed to the poor by the organizing committee, and an orchestra in a tram car played marching tunes as the tram traveled through the city.³

It was a dramatic turning point for metropolitan daily (and nocturnal) life, business, security, urban topography, as well as provincial-central and local-foreign relations.⁴ As in other cities in the Middle East, the emergence of the electric grid in Damascus caused tensions.⁵ This change caused a shift of power that prompted new tensions and actual turbulence in the city. The fact that a private company was in charge of running this significant component of Damascus’s infrastructure upset the entire power balance in the city and deserves close analysis. The loss of power was caused by the shattered monopoly of the Damascus Municipality, the most prominent organization of the urban elite over public illumination.

This article explores how the Central Ottoman Government and foreign companies collaborated to establish infrastructure enterprises, leaving Ottoman-local elites out of new circles of power. The Ottoman-Syrian elite lost significant reins of control in Damascus, including control over power and light to a private firm. I argue that the Damascene elite families rationally refrained from the economic risk of establishing the Electricity Company due to cautious, rational profit and loss calculations but paid a political price. To support this argument, I shall analyze the process of establishing the company by the Central Ottoman Government, its acceptance by the Ottoman-Syrian elite, and then evaluate the repercussions of the latter’s decision-making.

In our case, the practical meaning of the power shift is that the Municipality lost control over public lighting and transportation management. Urban elites, both in Tanzimat and pre-Tanzimat periods, were the regulators of illumination and transportation in the city. On the eve of the arrival of electricity to Damascus, municipalities operated public lighting systems based on kerosene lanterns which hung on poles on street corners. They generated only small pools of light in the first place, which dimmed quickly as the lanterns filled and blackened with soot and air or were damaged.⁶ The robust and centralized control of high-demand services, such as lighting, together with a private billing framework, made the Electricity Company the central agent in this field and the city’s most effective tax collector.

The recent decade has introduced us to an influx of studies on Syria from Ottomanist-Arabist perspectives. It is a turn from earlier decades in which most works relied upon Albert Hourani’s first thesis of urban notables, usually without consulting the central Ottoman archive. Hasan Kayalı was the first to address the Ottomanist-Arabist complexities of Syria during the Young Turks period, and Eugene Rogan and Martha Mundy did so in the rural zones of the province.⁷ Still, when it comes to the urban history of Damascus, from the perspective of Ottoman-local elites, Ottoman Damascus as a field was behind Egypt, Mosul, Yemen, Beirut, Aleppo, and to some extent North Africa.⁸ For a long time, most works relied on Syrian and foreign archives, court records, journals, maps, local chronicles, and morphological surveys without consulting the central Ottoman Archive.⁹ The recent decade or so, beginning with the booming interest in the history of the First World War in Syria, has changed this. Current works draw strongly upon Ottomanist-Arabist perspectives in the historiography of Greater Syria, including Damascus.¹⁰

In their works on Ottoman Damascus, scholars such as Stefan Weber, Leila Hudson, and Till Grallert have referred to the Electric Lighting and Traction Company of Damascus (Şam-ı Şerif Cer ve Tenvir Elektriği Şirketi/Compagnie des Tramway et Éclairage Électriques de Damas, hereafter the Electricity Company), addressing the impact of the company on the city as a foreign agent, but leaving out Ottoman business history. Other studies have examined the Damascene Electricity Company in the context of public lighting in the Empire or the role foreign investments played in the city’s economy.¹¹ Additionally, the globalist turns in Middle East Studies, and specifically the globalization of the Arab hinterland under the Hamidian regime, shaped the historiography of Ottoman Syria.¹²

Another significant development is the emergence of research on technological firms in the Ottoman Empire. Recently, this development became relevant to electrification as well. Until Duygu Aysal Cin’s work on the electrification of Istanbul, electricity constituted only a small part of the studies that dealt with the general development of the provinces.¹³ Works on electrification in the Arabic and Hebrew-speaking Middle East are available for the interwar period. Thus, Ottoman electrification as a topic has been only lately comprehensively addressed in the Arab provinces.¹⁴

The core of the analysis in this article relies upon the documents of the electricity company, divided between the Ottoman Archive in Istanbul (T.C. Cumhurbaşkanı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı, Osmanlı Arşivi) and the Belgian National Archive in Brussels (Archives de l‘État en Belgique, Archives générales du Royaume). Despite addressing the Electricity Company in the studies mentioned above, the Ottoman Archives addressing this topic remained unused. Telling the company’s story requires relying on both archives, while the reflections on the process in the Ottoman-Syrian press turn it from merely a trajectory of a bureaucratic approach to a social history of an Ottoman provincial capital. The next section will lead from the logic behind economic development in the Ottoman Empire and the spread of electricity in it to the electrification of Damascus.

The concession system

Electricity globalized rapidly from its very beginning, much faster than steam power a century earlier.¹⁵ The Ottoman encounter with electricity was quite fast, as already in 1882, Port Said met the electric grid, together with New York. However, about two decades later, Ottoman electricity companies started working through concessions that eventually reached foreign operators. As shall be demonstrated, it came with a cost. Still, foreign companies did not colonize Ottoman cities like Damascus. The Ottoman development policy, operated by the Ministry of Public Works (Turkish: Nafia Nezareti), was meant to channel globalizing processes for its own sake, and concessions were the tool to do so.

In the Hamidian period, the Ministry of Public Works made efforts to impose higher levels of state control over private entrepreneurship, especially in the Arab provinces, where French (mainly in Syria) and British (dominant in Iraq) companies were rapidly amassing power. The type of effort was to encourage local elites to become entrepreneurs and shareholders in Ottoman-incorporated companies. In critical projects from the 1890s onwards, such as lighting systems and electric grids powered by coal gas, the Hamidian government sought to prevent the transfer of concessions to foreigners. In some cases, such as the Hijaz Railway and the development of the Tigris and Euphrates drainage basins, it was the entrepreneur.¹⁶

Still, in most cases, it required Ottoman-local notables to raise capital by selling the Company’s shares to the public. The Ministry of Public Works awarded concessions in five primary sectors: railways and roads, ports, mining, urban services (water supply, gaslight, electricity, and tramway), and industry.¹⁷ In some cases, such as the port of Beirut, the issuing worked, and real public joint-stock companies emerged.¹⁸ Nevertheless, in many cases, European consortia took over significant projects in Syrian cities, evading the regulation that banned the transfer of the concession to foreign hands.

In the Middle East, gaslight and electricity were introduced concurrently at the turn of the twentieth century. In some cases, such as Damascus, residents experienced electrical power without having known a gaslight network. The Ministry of Public Works granted the concession to operate coal gas-based lighting in Damascus in 1888.¹⁹ Unlike Beirut, where the Ministry of Public Works gave the authorization three years earlier, and the network was built, in Damascus, the concessionaires did not activate their tender.²⁰ The city’s gasworks station was where petroleum companies sold kerosene tanks.²¹ In 1906, the 1,300 coal gas lamps that lit Beirut changed it dramatically, making the need for electric light less urgent. Damascus, which remained much darker as a city illuminated with lanterns,²² was exposed to electricity earlier.²³

The key protagonist in the organization of the enterprise and the concession market in Greater Syria was the Damascene Ahmad ʿIzzat al-ʿAbid, known as Izzet Pasha, the second secretary of Sultan Abdülhamid II. He was the main force behind the Hijaz Railway, the link between Damascus and the Hama-Homs-Aleppo railway, and the Electricity Company in Damascus.²⁴ He and some of his Damascene contemporaries from al-Midan neighborhood came from an Ottoman-Syrian elite family.²⁵ However, when he became a high officeholder in the Imperial Center, his power exceeded their previous municipal clout. He could exercise greater control and had more room to maneuver than grandees in Damascus. The case of Salim Malhame from Beirut, as explored by Jens Hanssen, was very similar.²⁶ The German orientalist Martin Hartmann accused him and Izzet Pasha of corruption and treason, the most severe instance of which related to the Damascus Electricity Company.²⁷

As shown below, both the rationale and the running of new enterprises in Greater Syria were more complicated. By no means can they be described as pure and simple corruption. The main problem in industrial enterprise in Greater Syria, particularly Damascus, was the inability to convince the Ottoman-Syrian elites to buy shares. The risks were too high compared to the potential yield, and there were far more attractive business opportunities in the booming real estate sector. The Damascus Electricity and Tramway Company case encapsulates all these elements and problems. Eventually, the Ottoman-Syrian elite fell back on landed interests, the most solid and lucrative investment in the hinterland and the cities.

Electrifying Damascus: from the concession to operation

The Ministry of Public Works published the first tenders for electrification in the late 1890s. The first concessions were granted and executed in Izmir and Salonica. The bid for the electrification of Damascus was published in 1903 and included a public lighting network, energy supply for households, and the construction of tramway lines powered by the electric grid, which the Ministry of Public Works awarded to Muhammad al-Arslan. Up to the eve of the First World War, other electricity companies started working in Istanbul, Edirne, Bursa, and Beirut.²⁸ The Ministry of Public Works awarded additional concessions in Aleppo, Jerusalem, and Baghdad, which were interrupted by the First World War.²⁹ During the First World War, Ahmed Cemal Pasha’s military administration published another tender for a hydroelectric dam on the Auja River that would supply energy to illuminate Jaffa and provide water to its surrounding citrus orchards.³⁰ By the end of the war, Damascus and Beirut were the only two Syrian cities where electricity companies operated. Beyond private generators that mainly worked in hotels in Jerusalem and Jaffa, two small power plants operated in Beersheba and the Jewish colony of Mesha, later Kfar Tavor.³¹

The Ministry of Public Works officially granted the concession for building and operating an electricity, tramway, and lighting company in Damascus to Muhammad al-Arslan on 30 July 1903, when both sides signed the first contract (mukavelename).³² Al-Arslan was an Ottoman-Lebanese subject whose identity is a bit unclear. According to the Ottoman papers, he belonged to the Ashraf of Beirut. According to both British and French papers quoted by Kais Firro and Max Gross he was the son of Mustafa al-Arslan, the former Druze Qaimaqam of the Shuf sub-district, and the brother of Amin al-Arslan, the Qaimaqam of Duma.³³ He could have been converted to Islam or could have been reported as a Muslim by Izzet Pasha who organized the concession from its beginning. In any case, it is very similar to other examples of concessionaires in the Arab provinces at the time, as al-Arslan was precisely the type of man the Hamidian regime sought to promote. As a well-regarded member of the Ottoman-Syrian elite whose family already held offices, he was the right person for the position. The Hamidian regime sought to remake these elites as shareholders and franchisers.

The Ministry of Public Works granted a 99-year concession, with the possibility of a governmental buyout after 30. It included the exclusive permit to produce, convey and sell electric energy to the Municipality of Damascus, public institutions within city limits, and private households.³⁴ The plan was to erect a power plant on the Suq Wadi Barada waterfalls, approximately 20 km northeast of Damascus, thus harnessing the water power.³⁵ The concessionaire was also obligated to locate generators powered by mazut, the heavy oil distillate, in the city for backup in cases of weaker flows in the Barada. The contract stipulated that the concessionaire would set up an electric grid within a 10 km radius from central Damascus to power the whole tram and lighting network. The concession also included a right of first refusal to construct a future telephone network within the legal range of the grid.³⁶

The concessionaire was responsible for constructing the grid and coordinating it with the Municipality, the Post and Telegraph Ministry (Posta ve Telgraf Nezareti), and the military throughout the process regarding safety issues. The only professional engagement the Ministry of Public Works took upon itself was to map the power plant region and the city of Damascus at scales of 1:100 and 1:4,000 respectively.³⁷ The blueprint had to be approved by the Ministry of Mail and Telegraph, whose infrastructure was to be used by the Electricity Company. While the structural regulation of the Ministry of Public Works on the circumscription of the electric grid within the urban fabric was quite strict, the Ministry tried to be as pro-business as it could at the financial level. The Central Government suspended all duties on importing, transporting, and using machines, materials, and services until the official report on the first revenue.³⁸

The contract reflected Hamidian efforts to keep industrializing entrepreneurship in Ottoman hands. The first article of the contract strictly prohibited the transfer of the concession to foreign hands of any kind since it was an Ottoman company:

The concession is given to Muhammad al-Arslan Bey from the ashraf of Beirut and an Ottoman subject of the supreme state… to illuminate neighborhoods which are within the range of 10 kilometers on each side with electricity, beginning in the center of the city of Damascus, under current state laws, and forbidding the transfer (of the concession) to any foreigner (hiç bir ecnebiye devr ve ferağ edilerek)…³⁹

Another article in the contract stipulated that the Company’s staff would need to be approved by the government and that all employees coming in contact with the public would need to speak Turkish. The Central Government included this proviso to secure the Ottoman character of the Company, but it also reflected a realistic approach to the incorporation of foreign experts.⁴⁰

The most crucial responsibility of the concessionaire was to raise the required capital. In this case, Arslan had to raise six million francs by selling the Company’s 12,000 shares for 500 francs each.⁴¹ This phase was critical given the amount of capital and the shareholders’ identity. The contract turned the Company into the leading light supplier in the city and made the Municipality’s monopoly on illumination completely redundant.

The logic behind establishing a joint-stock company, whose shares were to be held by Syrian elite family members, was to counterbalance this situation. According to the contracts, holders of ten shares and up would have a right to vote in the shareholders’ general meeting. Each owner could have up to ten votes since every ten stocks equaled one vote. In this way, the Municipality would indeed lose power, but the same elite that controlled it would recoup the control they lost as shareholders. Hence, power would remain within the Ottoman-Syrian elite. Five hundred francs per share (approximately 20 Ottoman liras), a sum equivalent to the monthly salary of a well-to-do government official, set a high bar for investment in the project.⁴²

The problems began when Arslan could not issue enough shares to start construction as not enough buyers of 500-franc shares were available in Damascus and Beirut. Donations by Ottoman-Syrian grandees to the Hijaz railway and documents showing the high concentration of liquid assets in the hands of the merchants of Damascus make it clear that the problem was not the availability of capital but reluctance on the part of potential buyers to invest in electricity.⁴³ Wealthy individuals did not want to take the risk, which was too high, while lower risks that gave higher yields were on the market. The Ottoman-Syrian elite made the economically rational choice of refraining from investment in electric infrastructure since real estate and agricultural output commerce were more secure, lucrative, and accessible. The electricity company’s concession was not the first to remain on paper. The gaslight network and a series of attempts to establish modern mechanized factories in Damascus met the same hardships that derived from low returns on high risk.⁴⁴

The Damascene records, both foreign and local, indicate that after the issuing failed, a Belgian group bought the lion’s share of the Company’s stocks and became its owner towards the end of 1904. In the end, Izzet Pasha became a member of the Company’s board of directors.⁴⁵ Nevertheless, how the strict official ban on transferring the concession to foreigners was actually negotiated and overcome remains a mystery.⁴⁶

The explicit ban on transfer was not merely a façade, even though foreigners routinely bought out Ottoman companies with the aid of Ottoman officials. The key player behind this process was Izzet Pasha, who, despite not having any official authority over concessions, was the man who made the crucial decisions. He organized the whole process from beginning to end. His handiwork is all over the correspondence dealing with the signing of contracts, but he was not mentioned in them as an official representative.⁴⁷ Nevertheless, the British Consul in Damascus argued that the whole project would not have worked without Izzet Pasha and his constant pushing and manipulation of the procedure.⁴⁸

Establishing the Electricity Company

The process involved in signing the contract and transferring control to the Belgian Consortium highlights the dilemma in Ottoman business administration. Provincial correspondence, both official and non-official, does not supply sufficient answers. In this case, the axis formed between the central government and the foreign corporation was the more powerful bond. Clearly, the British consul was right in indicating that Izzet Pasha was indeed the primary mover behind the whole affair.⁴⁹ Since Izzet Pasha was in charge of the entire process, it seems likely that the Belgian option was the alternative solution to the original plan of creating a joint-stock company that the Ottoman-Syrian elite would have controlled.

The Hamidian regime considered Belgian companies to be relatively reliable since Belgium had neither a history of penetration into Ottoman territories nor did it ever express territorial demands or ambitions concerning the Ottoman imperial domains. In sub-Saharan Africa, the only colonial sphere of Belgium, there were indeed Ottoman-Belgian tensions around the British-Belgian agreement on the interests in the Congo Basin, whose tributaries partly flowed in Ottoman territories in Sudan.⁵⁰ Still, along with American and German companies, which had the same record, the Belgians were a preferred option. Thus, Belgian business activity in the Ottoman Empire began almost immediately after its independence in 1830, when merchants urged King Leopold I to establish official relations. By the mid-1850s, steam engines made in Belgium powered factories in Istanbul, including the famous hat factory (feshane).⁵¹

In the Hamidian period, Belgian companies were awarded tenders, obtained concessions, and then managed Ottoman companies as owners of the controlling interests. The two most famous examples are the gaslight companies on both sides of the Bosporus. On the Asian side, two principal Belgian shareholders, the Banque de Barbant and later the Empain Group, bought the controlling interest of the Société Impériale Ottomane d’Eclairage par le Gaz et l’Eléctricité, which was the public gaslight supplier of Üsküdar and Kadıköy. On the European side, the Société pour l’Eclairage de la Ville de Constantinople, or Gaz de Stamboul, a holding company of the Banque de Bruxelles, managed a much more extensive network of gaslights, supplying coal gas and public lights to all the city’s quarters, including the suburbs of Eyüp, Bakırköy, and Yeşilköy. Its manager was Etienne Francou, who later became one of the key figures in founding the Damascus Electric Traction and Light Company.⁵²

By the end of 1904, it was clear that al-Arslan could not raise sufficient capital by selling shares. Izzet Pasha mobilized his extensive personal network among the Ottoman-Syrian elite in Damascus and Beirut, securing promises from elite members to buy shares in case there were enough buyers. However, the capital raised was only 24,000 liras, far below the threshold set by the Ministry of Public Works, and even out of that amount, 7,000 liras were simply promissory notes to Izzet Pasha.⁵³

After a short negotiation period, a new plan replaced the original one. Izzet Pasha and Etienne Francou put four Belgian companies in contact with the Ministry of Public Works and enabled them to buy all the Company’s shares for four million francs. At the end of that year, Francou and Izzet Pasha’s son, Mehmed Ali Bey, signed proxies for a contract that transferred all the rights from the first concessionaire, Muhammad al-Arslan, to a group of proxy holders on behalf of the Belgian companies, which became the Consortium. Francou guaranteed the contract, though neither he nor Mehmet Ali Bey had any official authority.⁵⁴

Hence, the informal network Izzet Pasha created was much stronger than the formal one of state bureaus and officials. Francou signed the contracts reissued by the Ministry of Public Works that modified the concession and changed the company’s name from the Damascus Electricity, Tramway and Lighting Company (Şam Elektrik, Tramway ve Tenvir Şirketi) to the Damascus Electric Traction and Lighting Company (Şam Cer ve Tenvir Elektriği Şirketi).⁵⁵ Four companies, La Société Générale des Chemins de Fer Économiques, le Groupe Empain (La Société Générale de Railways et d’Électricité), la Société Générale Belge d’Entreprises Électriques, and the Banque de Bruxelles, formed a new consortium, called the ‘Consortium Tramway et Eclairage Electrique de Damas’ in Brussels.⁵⁶ In the contracts, it was agreed that this consortium would be the sole owner and operator of the whole network and not only the holder of the controlling interest. The new contract with the consortium superseded all prior concessions, permits, or demands and the transfer of the edicts (firmans) to the consortium’s Brussels headquarters.⁵⁷

The entire process of transferring the ownership was very similar, if not identical, to that concluded with the electricity and tramway companies of Beirut, Salonica, and Izmir. With their holdings bought by French and German companies, the Damascene Electricity Company’s stocks were registered in Istanbul under a unified Ottoman company whose commissioner was Raik Bey, the Chief Technical Inspector of the Ministry of Mail and Telegraph.⁵⁸ Like the rest of the original concessionaires of all the metropolitan companies, Muhammad al-Arslan remained the official director, but it is clear that they functioned solely as frontmen. As stipulated by the Ministry of Public Works, al-Arslan received 18,000 kuruş as an annual salary from the Consortium through the registered Ottoman company.⁵⁹ This sum was the equivalent of the wages of a mid-ranking officeholder and was, in fact, a kind of honorarium that would comply with the initial legal commitments and constitute a symbolic reward for the transfer of the concession. It was by no means the salary of an active CEO.

The Ottoman bureaucracy often took such steps to appear as though it were acting legally, i.e. to maintain the façade of a genuine Ottoman company while letting foreigners promote entrepreneurial activity that the Hamidian regime considered necessary. The sole purpose of registering the foreign holdings under a unified umbrella in Istanbul was to form a legal shell for an activity that was at least nominally not a desirable one. ‘Ottoman on the outside and foreign on the inside (ʻuthmaniyya fi al-ẓahir wa-ajnabiyya fi al-baṭin)’ became a common way to describe the situation in actual terms.⁶⁰

Aside from Etienne Francou’s signature on the modified contracts, there is no hint of foreign involvement in the Company’s papers. Officially, the Belgian Consortium was totally absent from all these contracts. The agreements that directly violated the law and the original concession were signed at the Consortium’s headquarters in Brussels. The primary buffer to the risk of foreign ownership and management of Ottoman public services was an article that guaranteed Izzet Pasha’s membership on the Consortium’s board of directors.⁶² In the Consortium’s records, he appears as the Honorary Director.⁶³

The planning stage complied with the definition of an Ottoman shell containing a foreign entity. Despite the Ministry’s obligation to draw up the maps for the project, the consortium engineers surveyed and drafted the entire process. It was the first mapping of Damascus at the single-house level, which made the Consortium a powerful player in the city as a space producer and controller, far beyond its official role as an energy supplier.⁶⁴ All the maps and drafts are bilingual. They were initially drawn up in French and were then translated into Ottoman Turkish and annotated by the Ministry of Public Works.⁶⁵

The Company was indeed primarily Belgian, but its Ottoman registration was not a mere cover. The Ottomans could not build electrical grids and hydroelectric powerhouses and therefore sought to cooperate with foreign companies to acquire know-how. The possibility of a buyout by the state after 30 years, during which the Ottoman Empire intended to develop such expertise, would have made the electric network a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) venture. Inspection of the works by professionals and bureaucrats from government agencies enabled the Hamidian regime to regain some say in the process of building the network and later when operating it.

While working on the project, the Ottoman technical inspectors gradually became part of the Consortium, some even officially. In 1906, two Ottoman engineers, Mehmet Hulusi Bey, who was the head of the roads construction department (Turuk ve Maabir Müdürü), and Ferid Bey, the manufacturing manager (İmalat Dairesi Müdürü) in the Post and Telegraph Ministry, served as inspectors in the operation of the electric grid.⁶⁷ Hulusi Bey later became a director and a holder of 25 shares, which he received as a grant from the Consortium; he kept the position and the shares while climbing the ladder to the Minister of Public Works in 1911 and later became the Governor of Syria in 1914.⁶⁸ Thus, the nature of the Company’s ownership inevitably determined its relationship with the city, that, as shall be demonstrated, was quite complex.

Operating in the city

The operation of the electric grid in Damascus has to be examined through both prisms of business and urban management. Businesswise, despite serious doubts raised regarding its capabilities, the company succeeded. Damascenes constantly sought higher levels of electrification and more electricity, and there was always enough money to buy growing amounts of both energy and utilities.⁶⁹

The British, for example, considered the idea of electricity and a tramway network as an inapplicable fantasy, primarily due to their assessment of the local population’s lack of sufficient purchasing power and frugal consumption habits. The British Consul, William Richards, stated that Damascenes ‘will not pay even ten paras for the tramway and will prefer to walk’ and ‘will not buy lamps for their houses as they are used to live in a city where there is one miserable lantern every 100 meters’.⁷⁰ The whole idea of lighting the entire city seemed irrational to Richards due to the shortage of energy. However, he also maintained that precisely this same factor might constitute just the kind of challenge that would appeal to entrepreneurs.⁷¹

Hence, simply transforming Damascus from a city whose electrification seemed impossible to an electrified city was enough to characterize Izzet Pasha as a visionary. Not only was the electric grid indeed operational three and a half years after the official date of the concession, but the Damascus Company for Electric Traction and Light also made rising annual profits due to the steadily increasing number of domestic electricity consumers.⁷² The increasing net earnings of the Electricity Company and its positive balance at the end of every fiscal year proved the success of the investment despite all the pessimistic predictions.⁷³

Table

Year	Net Profit in Francs	Annual Yield in Comparison to Initial Capital (6 million francs)
1907	19,804	0.33%
1908	59,449	0.99%
1909	99,793	1.66%
1910	146,021	2.43%
1911	170,739	2.85%
1912	131,644	2.19%
1913	142,997	2.38%
1914	261,522	4.36%
1915	415,257	6.92%
1916	512,884	8.55%
1917	544,173	9.07%
1918	539,264	8.97%
1919	534,600	8.91%
1920	654,253	10.90%
1921	815,831	13.60%

In retrospect, the Ottoman-Syrian elites were right not to invest in the Electricity Company since the risk of investing in the Electricity Company was too high. Investment in real estate gave a higher yield on a much lower risk. A cursory examination of the Electricity Company’s annual net profits shows that until 1914, the yield on investment was quite low. Investment in housing in Greater Syria yielded between 3-4 per cent in small cities such as Homs, Nablus, and Gaza and 10-12 per cent in Beirut and Damascus, only from rental fees.⁷⁴ Furthermore, the construction costs in Damascus were low due to the availability of skilled labor and materials. For example, whereas constructing a large one-story house cost 20,000 francs in Jerusalem and 18,000 in Jaffa, it cost only 8,000 francs in Damascus.⁷⁵

Hence, the yield on real estate investment was higher and more stable. In a context of urbanization and local population growth for which the provincial administration allocated free plots of land, the Damascene elite had no real reasons to invest in its Electricity Company, particularly given the high risk of business failure. That risk was much lower for the Belgian Consortium. In the first place, the ability of the Ottoman-Syrian elite to raise capital, attract technical know-how, and recruit skilled labor was far behind the Belgian Consortium. The financial profit was more solid, with higher yield-giving investments, first and foremost real estate. The price was the loss of control over power and light in the city.

When the electricity network started operating in Damascus, it was clear that one of the elite’s most important means of control had been lost. This loss of power caused constant friction between the Municipality and the Company, prompting public struggles, boycotts, and strikes. The central dispute was between the Electricity Company and the Municipality. The Municipality’s initial problem was that it had no seat at the table of Central Government officials, business people, and regulators who managed the whole realm of concession-based incorporated companies. The only leverage that the Municipality had in this legal-economic nexus was the Damascene origin of Izzet Pasha, and this was far from sufficient to satisfy the Municipality’s expectations. The clash between the Municipality and the Electricity Company was the most important one before the First World War, not only because of its duration but also because it had both legal and broadly public political ramifications.

As of the first year of its operation, two disputes surfaced. The first had to do with the public lighting timetable and the other with the unfinished groundwork that left piles of rubble in the streets.⁷⁶ At least in the first year of the electrical energy supply, Damascenes did not distinguish between the Municipality and the Electricity Company’s responsibilities. Muhammad Kurd Ali noted this explicitly in his daily newspaper, al-Muqtabas, when he contended that people in the city were unaware of the contract details. But they were certainly aware of obstructions to the activity of the whole network and impediments it caused to the urban fabric and city life. At least in the beginning, they perceived illumination as a responsibility of the Municipality, as it had been before the operation of the electric grid.⁷⁷

By April 1909, the precise terms of the contract and the division of responsibility were already clear to the public, as al-Muqtabas showed.⁷⁸ From then on, the two entities in the dispute were the Municipality and the Provincial Council above it, on the one hand, and the Electricity Company on the other. First, the Municipality maintained that the Provincial Council should have regulated the transfer of the concession from Muhammad al-Arslan to the Belgian Consortium. Second, the Municipality demanded that the Electricity Company cover the pits and the unpaved surfaces between Bab Misr and Marja Square. Third, the Municipality attempted to impose the public lighting timetable unilaterally several times since it believed it had the authority to determine how illumination worked in the city.⁷⁹

At the beginning of 1913, the disagreements between the Company and the Municipality had festered into an open conflict. Aside from the dispute about the public lighting timetable, the Municipality claimed that the contract boiled down to extortion (gabn-ı fahis) and filed a lawsuit with the Council of State through the Provincial Council to modify it. The Municipality complained about the better terms in the contract signed with Beirut’s Municipality, knowing that the holdings of both these metropolitan companies were legally part of one Company registered in Istanbul. Damascus claimed that Beirut paid its Electricity Company the same annual rate for public lighting − 3,000 liras for 1,000 lights – although its power plant worked on coal rather than on water power as in Suq Wadi Barada.⁸⁰ Thus, the Electricity Company of Damascus was capitalizing on local water power, which was essentially a natural resource of the province of Syria, whereas the city got a lower rate and did not profit from it.

Conclusion

The immediate conclusion to be drawn from this article is the price of refraining from risk. The Ottoman-Syrian elite chose not to invest in the Electricity Company because the potential yield was not commensurate with the high risk. However, the price of this prudent economic decision was the loss of control over two essential parts of city life: power and light. Given that the Municipality was the elite’s locus of power, the loss of the Municipality was a critical loss for this elite.

The broader story of Damascene society and the Electricity Company is about how Ottomans approached development. Eventually, the central government made decisions that brought foreign powers into provincial capitals, giving them control over an unprecedentedly powerful tool at the expense of the Ottoman-local elites who controlled the municipalities. Moreover, the central government, represented by the Ministry of Public Works officially tried to prevent transfers of control to foreign hands. Still, when the dilemma was between Ottoman-local control over a lantern-powered lighting network and a privatized foreign-controlled electrical light network and tramway, they chose the latter. It is also the story of more general social issues, such as the critical role of informal networks in policy-making and the central control of energy. The Electricity Company controlled much more than power and light since the electric grid fundamentally changed the urban space of Damascus.

Despite the Damascenes’ unwillingness to invest in the Company, they more than welcomed it as consumers and demanded increasing amounts of electrical power and light. More developed cities in the Middle East, such as Cairo and Istanbul, were role models for the Ottoman-Syrian elite (despite Istanbul’s later encounter with the electric grid). Foreign involvement was integral to this development, a fact that all parties acknowledged. Still, establishing ‘ʻuthmaniyya fi al-zahir wa-ajnabiyya fi al-batin’ companies was a platform to absorb knowledge to vernacularize them in the future, as we can learn from the buyout articles in the contracts and the incorporation of Ottoman engineers like Hulusi Bey and Ferid Bey into the consortium’s directorate.⁸¹

The Ottoman economy in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries was indeed an arena where European powers competed for the influence that encroached on Ottoman sovereignty. However, doing business in the Ottoman Empire was never like doing business in the Belgian Congo, and the network in Damascus was not like the first Middle Eastern grid in Port Said, which meant serving colonial interests solely.⁸² Despite strong foreign influence, foreign companies sold electricity to citizens rather than foreigners. Therefore, it needed to negotiate with the authorities and often met widespread protests that they ultimately had to appease. Hence, the Ottoman Empire was not colonized by European superpowers or global corporations but truly attempted to channel globalization for the benefit of its citizens.

The dependence on foreign knowledge and capital was the primary reason for the contradiction between the strict ban on transferring concessions to foreign hands and the founding of companies that were actually foreign though legally Ottoman. This situation made city life less democratic in the sense that a commercial contract replaced regulation by elected delegates. Thus, the presence and management of foreign companies increasingly influenced the Ottoman landscapes, in this case, the urban setting. The Central Government outsourced municipal services in the full sense of the word. Despite the full awareness on the part of the Central Government of this situation and its attempts to diminish its undesired effects, it was clearly a predicament.

The entering of Damascus into a series of crucial development efforts of the central Ottoman Government led to significant changes in the city that we see today as an infrastructure boom. Within less than a decade, Damascus met the electric grid, the Hijaz Railway, the modern water system based on the Ain al-Fijah pipeline, and the telegraph line to Medina.⁸³ However, it came with the cost of the rapidly growing numbers and the influence of foreign agents in the city whose potency at least sometimes weakened the city’s older elites.

Izzet Pasha’s position in the central government and his close involvement in every single one of these ambitious and successful ventures made it clear as his house was the most blatantly illuminated one in the city: he was no longer one of the Ottoman-Syrian elite but above it. Even though he was absent from both Istanbul and Damascus after the Young Turk Revolution in the summer of 1908, he kept functioning as the Electricity Company’s president among his other connections with foreign companies. It is another aspect of his powerful position in the Ottoman Empire, particularly in Damascus, that eventually caused Ahmed Cemal Pasha to sentence him to death in absentia in 1916.⁸⁴

Acknowledgments

This article is based on part of my dissertation, titled: ‘Crises versus Opportunities: Entrepreneurship and Engineering in Late Ottoman Syria, 1890-1920’.

I want to thank my mentors, friends, and colleagues who contributed to this research, shaping it, and reading its results in this article. I am deeply thankful to my advisor, Professor Ehud R. Toledano, who has guided me in this study from its rudimentary stages in my doctoral studies. I thank Professor Yuval Ben-Bassat, Professor Orit Bashkin, Professor Uri M. Kupferschmidt, Professor Avner Wishnitzer, and Professor On Barak, whom I consulted at different stages of this study and to the anonymous readers of this article. Last but not least, I want to thank my friends and colleagues who read and commented on it: Professor Sam Dolbee, Or Pitusi, Dr Yusri Khaizaran, Dr Eilat Maoz and Maayan Brodsky.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 T.C. Cumhurbaşkanı Devlet Arşivleri Başkanlığı, Osmanlı Arşivi (hereafter BOA) A.}DVN.MKL, 45/16/1, ‘Şam şehrinin elektrikle tenviri ve tramvay hattı tesisi imtiyazının Beyrut eşrafından Mehmed Arslan Bey’e itası’, 17 Temmuz 1319 [30 July 1903].

2 Lisan al-Hal, 21 January 1907.

3 Servet-i Fünun, ‘Şam Elektrik Tramvaileri ve Elektrik Tenviratı’, 10 March 1907.

4 Nurçin İleri, ‘A Nocturnal History of Fin de Siècle Istanbul’ (Unpublished PhD diss., Binghamton University, 2015); Avner Wishnitzer, As Night Falls: Eighteenth Century Ottoman Cities after Dark (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).

5 On Barak, ‘Scraping the Surface: The Techno-Politics of Modern Streets in Turn-of-Twentieth-Century Alexandria’, Mediterranean Historical Review Vol.24, no.2 (2009), pp.187–205.

6 Stefan Weber, Damascus: Ottoman Modernity and Urban Transformation (1808-1918) (Aarhus: Aarhus University Press, 2009), p.107.

7 Hasan Kayalı, Arabs and Young Turks: Ottomanism, Arabism and Islamism in the Ottoman Empire, 1908-1918 (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1997); Hasan Kayalı, ‘Wartime Regional and Imperial Integration of Greater Syria during World War I’, in Thomas Philipp and Birgit Schaebler (eds), The Syrian Land: Processes of Integration and Fragmentation: Bilad Al-Sham from the 18th to the 20th Century (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1998), pp.295–306; Martha Mundy, Governing Property, Making a Modern State: Law Administration and Production in Ottoman Syria (London: I.B. Tauris, 2007); Eugene Rogan, Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850-1921 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

8 Ehud R. Toledano, State and Society in Mid-Nineteenth-Century Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Jane Hathaway, The Politics of Households in Ottoman Egypt: The Rise of the Qazdağlıs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Thomas Kuehn, Empire, Islam, and Politics of Difference: Ottoman Rule in Yemen, 1849–1919, The Image of An Ottoman City (Leiden: Brill, 2011); Dina Rizk Khoury, State and Provincial Society in the Ottoman Empire: Mosul, 1540-1834 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997); M’Hamed Oualdi, ‘Mamluks in Ottoman Tunisia: A Category Connecting State and Social Forces’, International Journal of Middle East Studies Vol.48, no.3 (2016), pp.473–90; Ulrike Freitag, A History of Jeddah: The Gate to Mecca in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020); Jens Hanssen, Fin de Siècle Beirut: The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005); Charles Wilkins, Forging Urban Solidarities: Ottoman Aleppo 1640-1700 (Leiden: Brill, 2010); Dror Ze’evi, An Ottoman Century: The District of Jerusalem in the 1600s (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996); Rogan, Frontiers of the State in the Late Ottoman Empire: Transjordan, 1850-1921; Martha Mundy, Governing Property, Making a Modern State: Law Administration and Production in Ottoman Syria; Yuval Ben-Bassat and Johann Büssow, Late Ottoman Gaza: An Eastern Mediterranean Hub in Transformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022).

9 James Gelvin, Divided Loyalties: Nationalism and Mass Politics in Syria at the Close of Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998); Elizabeth Thompson, Colonial Citizens: Republican Rights, Paternal Privilege and Gender in French Syria and Lebanon (New York: Columbia University Press, 2000); Najwa Al-Qattan, ‘Litigants and Neighbors: The Communal Topography of Ottoman Damascus’, Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol.44, no.3 (2002), pp.511–33; Fruma Zachs and Sharon Halevi, Gendering Culture in Greater Syria: Intellectuals and Ideology in the Late Ottoman Period (London: I.B. Tauris, 2015).

10 Talha Çiçek, War and State Formation in Greater Syria: Cemal Pasha Governorate during World War I, 1914-1917 (New York: Routledge, 2014); Salim Tamari, ‘Muhammad Kurd Ali and the Syrian-Palestinian Intelligentsia in the Ottoman Campaign against Arab Seperatism’, in M. Talha Çiçek (ed.), Syria in World War I: Politics, Economy and Society (New York: Routledge, 2016), pp.61–86; Ayhan Aktar, ‘A Propaganda Tour Organized by Djemal Pasha: The Arab Literati’s Visit to the Gallipoli Front, 18-23 October 1915’, in M. Talha Çiçek (ed.), Syria in World War I: Politics, Economy and Society (London: Routledge, 2016), pp.61–85; Nora Barakat, ‘Marginal Actors? The Role of Bedouin in the Ottoman Administration of Animals as Property in the District of Salt, 1870-1912’, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Vol.58, no.1–2 (2015), pp.105–34; Elizabeth Williams, ‘Economy, Environment and Famine: World War I from the Perspective of the Syrian Interior’, in M. Talha Çiçek (ed.), Syria in World War I: Politics, Economy and Society (London: Routledge, 2016), pp.150–68; M. Talha Çiçek, Negotiating Empire in the Middle East: Ottomans and Arab Nomads in the Modern Era (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021).

11 Stefan Weber, Damascus, vol.1, pp.106–08; Hudson, Transforming Damascus, pp.109–12; Grallert, ‘To Whom Belong the Streets?’, pp.224–83; Jacques Thobie, ‘L’électrification dans l’aire Syro-Libanaise des origines à la fin du Mandat français’ [Elecrification in the Region of Syria and Lebanon from the Origins to the End of the French Mandate], Outre-Mers: Revue d’histoire, Vol.89, no.334–335 (2002), pp.527–54; Frank Peter, ‘Les "Bonnes Affaires" de La Modernisation: Les Sociétés Anonymes et L’industrialisation En Syrie, 1908-1946’ [‘The "Good Deals" of Modernization’: public limited companies and industrialisation in Syria], in Nadine Meouchy (ed.), France, Syrie et Liban 1918-1946 (Damascus: Presses de L’Ifpo, Institut Français d’études Arabes de Damas, 2002); Emine Erol, ‘Osmanli Devleti’nde Aydınlatma Uygulamaları ve Verilen İmtiyazlar (1850-1914)’ [Lighting Implementation and Concession given in the Ottoman Empire (1850-1914)], Türk Dunyası Araştırmaları 175, no.August (2008), pp.201–25.

12 Cyrus Schayegh, The Middle East and the Making of the Modern World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2017), pp.34–91; Kristen Alff, ‘Levantine Joint-Stock Companies, Trans-Mediterranean Partnerships, and Nineteenth-Century Capitalist Development’, Comparative Studies in Society and History Vol.60, no.1 (2018), pp.150–77; Mostafa Minawi, The Ottoman Scramble for Africa: Empire and Diplomacy in the Sahara and the Hijaz (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2016), pp.99–117; Murat Özyüksel, The Hejaz Railway and The Ottoman Empire: Modernity, Industrialisation and Ottoman Decline (New York: I.B. Tauris, 2014).

13 Duygu Aysal Cin, ‘The European Competition to Electricify Istanbul in the Early Twentieth Century’, International Journal of Turkish Studies Vol.21, no.1&2 (2015), pp.95–116; Hanssen, Fin de Siècle Beirut: The Making of an Ottoman Provincial Capital; Yasemin Avcı, ‘Jerusalem and Jaffa in the Late Ottoman Period: The Concession-Hunting Struggle for Public Works Projects’, in Yuval Ben-Bassat and Eyal Ginio (eds), Late Ottoman Palestine: The Period of Young Turk Rule (London: I.B. Tauris, 2011).

14 Ronen Shamir, Current Flow: The Electrification of Palestine (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013); Fredrik Meiton, Electrical Palestine: Capital and Technology from Empire to Nation (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019), pp.41–46; Jacob Norris, Land of Progress: Palestine in the Age of Colonial Development, 1905-1948 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp.26–46; Burcu Kurt, ‘Osmanlı Irakı’nda Gündelik Hayatı Modernleştirme Çabalarına Bir Örnek: Bağdad Şehri Tramvay Projeleri’ [An Example to Modernization Efforts of Daily Life in Ottoman Iraq: The Tramway Projects in the City of Baghdad], in Kerim İlker Bulunur, Fatih Bozkurt, and Mahmut Cihat İzgi (eds), Osmanlı’da Şehir, Vakıf ve Sosyal Hayat [The City, the Endowment and Social Life in the Ottoman World] (Istanbul: Mahya Yayıncılık, 2017); Stephen Pascoe, ‘A “Weapon of the Weak”: Electric Boycotts in the Arab Levant and the Global Contours of Interwar Anti-Imperialism’, Radical History Review 2019, no.134 (2019) pp.116–41.

15 William J. Hausman, Peter Hertner, and Mira Wilkins, Global Electrification: Multinational Enterprise and International Finance in the History of Light and Power, 1878–2007 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008), pp.94–111.

16 Murat Özyüksel, The Hejaz Railway and The Ottoman Empire, pp.65–66; Camille Lyans Cole, ‘Nafia for the Tigris: The Privy Purse and the Infrastructure of Development in Late Ottoman Iraq, 1882–1914’, History of Science, online (2021), pp.1–5.

17 E. Pech and Banque Imperialle Ottomane, Manuel des Sociétés Anonymes Fonctionnant en Turquie, 1906, III–V; E. Pech and Banque Imperiale Ottomane, Manuel Des Sociétés Anonymes Fonctionnant En Turquie, 1911, III–V.

18 Ibid., pp.88–89.

19 BOA A.}DVN.MKL, ‘Şam şehrinin havagazı ile aydınlatılması hususunun tüccardan Hacı Şükrü Efendi’ye ihalesine dair mukavelename, şartname ve Ticaret ve Nafia Nezareti tezkiresi’, 29/18, 9 Mart 1307 [21 March 1891].

20 Hanssen, Fin de Siècle Beirut, pp.97–98.

21 The United States National Archives and Records, RG 84, Damascus, Vol.8, Mishaqa to Robeson, 30 June 1886; Mishaqa to Robeson, 12 July 1887; Vol.107, Mishaqa to Hollis, 9 December 1909; Jaridat al-Muqtabas, 17 June 1909; 9 March 1910.

22 Avner Wishnitzer, ‘Kerosene Nights: Light and Enlightenment in Late Ottoman Jerusalem’, Past & Present 248, no.1 (2020), pp.165–207.

23 Hanssen, Fin de Siècle Beirut, p.200.

24 Jaridat al-Muqtabas, 11 April 1909; Martin Hartmann, Reisebriefe Aus Syrien [Travel Notes from Syria] (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer (Ernst Vohsen), 1913), p.17.

25 Caeser Farah, ‘Arab Supporters of Sultan Abbülhamıd II: ʻİzzet Al-Abid’, Archivum Ottomanicum 15 (1997), pp.189–219; Ruth Roded, ‘Ottoman Service as a Vehicle for the Rise of New Upstarts Among the Urban Elite Families of Syria Last Decade of the Ottoman Empire’, Asian and African Studies Vol.17, no.1–3 (1983), pp.63–94.

26 Jens Hanssen, ‘"Malhame–Malfame": Levantine Elites and Transimperial Networks On the Eve of the Young Turk Revolution’, International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol.43 (2011), pp.25–48.

27 Hartmann, Reisebriefe Aus Syrien, p.17.

28 Pech and Banque Imperiale Ottomane, Manuel des Sociétés Anonymes Fonctionnant en Turquie [A Manual for Incorporated Companies Operating in the Ottoman Empire] (1911), pp.226–44.

29 BOA İ.DUİT, 34/13/1-2, ‘İmtiyaz, Tesis; Osman Vehbi Bey, Mühendis (Halep Şehrinde elektrik tevziiatı ve Elektrikli tramvai tesis ve işletme imtiyazı sahibi)’, 17 Eylül 1330 [30 September 1914]; Kurt, ‘Osmanlı Irakı’nda Gündelik Hayatı Modernleştirme Çabalarına Bir Örnek’, in Bulunur, Bozkurt, and İzgi (eds), Osmanlı’da Şehir, Vakıf ve Sosyal Hayat , pp.79–80; Avcı, ‘Jerusalem and Jaffa in the Late Ottoman Period’, pp.90–92.

30 CZA A32.80, Meir Dizengoff, Nahum Wilbuschewitsch, and Bezalel Yaffe, ‘Entreprise de Travaux Publiques à Jaffa’, 20 October 1915.

31 The Historical Section of the Foreign Office, Syria and Palestine (London: H.M. Stationary Office, 1920), p.120; Baruch Katinka, MeAz VeAd Hena [From Then until Now] (Jerusalem: Qiryat Sefer, 1961), p.130; Halide Edib, Memoirs of Halide Edib (New York: Arno Press, 1972), pp.412–13.

32 BOA A.}DVN.MKL, 45/16/1, ‘Şam şehrinin elektrikle tenviri ve tramvay hattı tesisi imtiyazının Beyrut eşrafından Mehmed Arslan Bey’e itası’, 17 Temmuz 1319 [30 July 1903].

33 BNA FO, 195/2165, Richards to O’Connor, 1 July 1904; FO 195/2165, Richards to O’Connor, 9 July 1904; Kais Firro, A History of the Druzes, (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 236, 240; Max L. Gross, “Ottoman Rule in the Province of Damascus, 1860-1909” (Unpublished diss., Georgetown University, 1979), pp.452–53.

34 BOA A.}DVN.MKL, 45/16/1/1-2, ‘Şam şehrinin elektrikle tenviri ve tramvay hattı tesisi imtiyazının Beyrut eşrafından Mehmed Arslan Bey’e itası’, 17 Temmuz 1319 [30 July 1903].

35 Archives Générales du Royaume 2 - Dépôt Joseph Cuvelier, Inventaires Electrobel, 5211/1, Ministère des Travaux Publics to la Compagnie des Tramway et d’éclairage de Damas 12 April 1912 [Hereafter: AGR2.DJC.Ebel]; BOA BEO 4335/325087/2/2, 20 January 1915; Servet-i Fünun, ‘Şam Elektrik Tramvayları ve Elektrik Tenviratı’, 10 March 1907.

36 AGR2.DJC.Ebel, 5196, ‘Précisions sur la concession du tramway accordée à Mohamed Arslan’, 27 November 1903.

37 BOA A.}DVN.MKL, 45/16/2/1, ‘Şam şehrinin elektrikle tenviri ve tramvay hattı tesisi imtiyazının Beyrut eşrafından Mehmed Arslan Bey’e itası’, 17 Temmuz 1319 [30 July 1903]; AGR2.DJC Ebel, 5202, 5206.

38 BOA A.}DVN.MKL, 45/16/1/1, ‘Şam şehrinin elektrikle tenviri ve tramvay hattı tesisi imtiyazının Beyrut eşrafından Mehmed Arslan Bey’e itası’, 17 Temmuz 1319 [30 July 1903].

39 Ibid.

40 Ibid. 1/2.

41 Ibid. 8/2, 17 Kanunuevvel 1320 [30 December 1904].

42 BOA A.}DVN.MKL 45/16/8/4, ‘Şam şehrinin elektrikle tenviri ve tramvay hattı tesisi imtiyazının Beyrut eşrafından Mehmed Arslan Bey’e itası’, 17 Kanunuevvel 1320 [30 December 1904].

43 Özyüksel, The Hejaz Railway and The Ottoman Empire, pp.93–94; Gad Gilbar, ‘The Muslim Big Merchant-Entrepreneurs of the Middle East, 1860-1914’, Die Welt Des Islams Vol.43, no.1 (2012), pp.17–21.

44 BOA BEO, 1597/119732/1/1, ‘Şam, Kudüs ve Haleb şehirlerinde buz fabrikası tesis ve inşası için Numan ebu Şair Effendi’ye ita buyurulan imtiyaz hakkındaki mukavelenamenin taleb buyurulan suret-i musaddakasının leffen gönderildiği’, Sadaret Mektubi Kalemi to Ticaret ve Nafia Nezareti, 2 Kannunuevvel 1312 [15 December 1903]; BEO, 1420/106437/1/1, ‘Haleb, Şam ve Kudüs şehirlerinde birer buz fabrikası inşası için Ebu Şi’r Numan Effendi’ye ita olunan imtiyaz mukavelenamesinde, fabrikanın tesis ve küşadı için belirlenen müddetin iradenin tebliğinden ayrı tutulması’, Sadaret Mektubi Kalemi to Nafia ve Ticaret Nezareti, 6 Kanunuevvel 1315 [18 December 1899].

45 Muhammad Kurd Ali, Khittat Al-Sham (Beirut: Dar al-ʻIlm Lilmalayin, 1969), p.216; Grallert, ‘To Whom Belong the Streets?’, pp.229–30; Weber, Damascus Vol.1, pp.106–7; Hudson, Transforming Damascus, p.110.

46 BOA A.}DVN.MKL 45/16/1/1, ‘Şam şehrinin elektrikle tenviri ve tramvay hattı tesisi imtiyazının Beyrut eşrafından Mehmed Arslan Bey’e itası’, 17 Temmuz 1319 [30 July 1903].

47 BOA A.}DVN.MKL 45/16/2/3, ‘Şam şehrinin elektrikle tenviri ve tramvay hattı tesisi imtiyazının Beyrut eşrafından Mehmed Arslan Bey’e itası’, 17 Temmuz 1319 [30 July 1903].

48 BNA FO, 195/2165, Richards to O’Connor, 22 March 1904; FO 195/2165, Richards to O’Connor, 10 October 1904.

49 BNA FO, 195/2165, Richards to O’Connor, 22 March 1904; Richards to O’Connor, 10 October 1904.

50 Minawi, The Ottoman Scramble for Africa: Empire and Diplomacy in the Sahara and the Hijaz, pp.73–74.

51 Özyüksel, The Hejaz Railway, p.33; Geyikdağı, Foreign Investment, pp.67–68; Houssine Alloul, ‘Belgium and the Hamidian Regime; or, the Antinomies of Small State Diplomacy’, in Houssine Alloul, Edhem Eldem, and Henk de Smaele (eds), To Kill a Sultan: A Transnational History of the Attempt on Abdülhamid II (1905) (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp.134–36; The Consulate General of Belgium in Istanbul, Belgium in the Ottoman Capital, From the Early Steps to ‘La Belle Epoque’ (Istanbul: The Consulate General of Belgium in Istanbul, 2000), pp.19–22.

52 The Consulate General of Belgium in Istanbul, pp.40–44.

53 BNA FO, 618/3, ‘Quarterly Report’, 7 January 1905.

54 BOA A.}DVN.MKL, 45/16/8/2, ‘Şam şehrinin elektrikle tenviri ve tramvay hattı tesisi imtiyazının Beyrut eşrafından Mehmed Arslan Bey’e itası’, 17 Kanunuevvel 1320 [30 December 1904]; AGR2.DJC Ebel, 5196/1, 27 November 1904.

55 BOA BEO 4412/330867/4/6, ‘Şam Elektrik Cer ve Tenvir Şirketi’nce ahaliye satılan elektriğe dair akd olunan imtiyaz mukavele ve şartnameleri ahkam-ı umumiye münderic ise de müşterileriyle takarrür edecek elektrik tevziatının şerait-i hususiyesi ile sair-i muamelat için kabul ve tasvib edilecek esaslar hakkında tanzim olunacak nizamnamenin irsali, 3 Nisan 1319 [16 April 1903].

56 AGR2.DJC Ebel, ‘Convention de base, règlement du syndicat’, 31 January 1905.

57 AGR2.DJC Ebel, 5185, ‘Convention entre Mehmed Ali et l’Émir Mohamed Arslan, concernant l’entremise de celui-ci auprès de la Sublime Porte en vue de l’obtention, pour le premier nommé, de la concession de l’éclairage et de la traction électriques à Damas’, 17 March 1903; 5186, ‘Éclairage électrique de la ville de Damas’, 22 April 1903; 5187, ‘Production et distribution de l’énergie électrique’, 22 April 1903.

58 BOA BEO, 2831/212311/1/1, ‘Selanik’te elektrikle tenvir ve tahrik ve İzmir’de elektrikle yalnız tahrik imtiyazıyla Beyrut ve Şam tramvay hatları imtiyazatının imtiyaz sahiblerinden alınıp uhdesine itası talebinde bulunan Fransa’nın Teraksiyon adlı şirketi hakkında bazı ifadatı havi’, 7 Mayıs 1322 [20 May 1906].

59 BOA BEO, 2778/208321/2/1, ‘Şam-ı Şerif’in elektrikle tenviri ve tramvaylar tesisi için teşekkül eden şirkete tayin olunan komiser maaşı’, 18 Şubat 1321[3 Mart 1906].

60 Lisan al-Ḥal, 22 October 1910.

61 BOA A.}DVN.MKL, 45/16/8/6, ‘Şam şehrinin elektrikle tenviri ve tramvay hattı tesisi imtiyazının Beyrut eşrafından Mehmed Arslan Bey’e itası’, 17 Kanunuevvel 1320 [30 December 1904].

62 AGR2.DJC Ebel, 5196, ‘Précisions sur la concession du tramway accordée à Mohamed Arslan’, 27 November 1904.

63 Ibid.; AGR2.DJC Ebel, 5241, ‘Cautionnements des administrateurs et titres en depôt, annex 8, 1905’; Lisan al-Ḥal, 11 February 1907.

64 AGR2.DJC Ebel, 5201, ‘Projet d’installations pour l’éclairage électrique de Damas, approuvé par les autorités turques (12 plans et un mémoire justificatif), January 1905.

65 AGR2.DJC Ebel, 5205, ‘Approbation par le ministère turc des Travaux publics de la deuxième série de plans concernant l’installation de la traction électrique’, 28 Şubat 1321 [13 March 1906].

66 Source: AGR2.DJC Ebel, 5201, ‘Projet d’installations pour l’éclairage électrique de Damas, approuvé par les autorités turques (12 plans et un mémoire justificatif)’, January 1905.

67 BOA BEO 2958/221783/1/1, ‘Şam şehrinin elektrik ile tenviri hakkında Turuk ve Meabir Müdürü Hulusi Bey’le Posta ve Telgraf Nezareti İmalat Müdürü Ferid Bey’in tayinleri’, 25 Teşrinisani 1322 [8 December 1906].

68 AGR2.DJC Ebel, 5253, ‘Cautionnements de M.M les administrateurs, annex et. 12’, 1918; BOA İ.DUİT, 8/36, ‘Tayin; Hulusi Bey (Ticaret ve Nafia Nazırı)’, 21 Haziran 1327 [4 July 1911].

69 On growing demand for electric utilities see Deutsche Levante Zeitung, ‘Elektrische Bedarfsartikel Nach Beirut und Damaskus’, 5 March 1913; ‘Absatzmöglichkeiten für Elektrotechnische Erzeugnise im Orient’, 12 March 1913.

70 BNA FO, 618/3, ‘Quarterly Report’, 7 January 1905.

71 BNA FO, 195/2165, Richards to O’Connor, 7 January 1904.

72 AGR2.DJC Ebel, 5170, ‘Modifications apportées aux statuts: approbation du ministère turc des Travaux publics; Assemble Generale Ordinaire’, 11 June 1911.

73 The table is based on: AGR2.DJC 5243-5257, Bilans au 31 décembre 1907-1921.

74 Ruppin, Syria, p.82.

75 Ibid.

76 Jaridat al-Muqtabas, 21 December 1908; 27 January 1909; 23 August 1910.

77 Ibid., 21 December 1908.

78 BOA BEO 4209/315606/1/1, ‘Şam Devair-i Belediyesi’yle elektrik şirketi beyninde münakid mukavelenamenin yok sayılacağı’, Sadaret to Dahiliye and Nafia, 8 Eylül 1329 [21 September 1913]; 8 Jaridat al-Muqtabas, 11 April 1909.

79 Jaridat al-Muqtabas, 10 March 1910.

80 BOA BEO 4209/315606/2/2, ‘Şam Devair-i Belediyesi’yle elektrik şirketi beyninde münakid mukavelenamenin yok sayılacağı’, 24 Kanunuevvel 1327 [6 January 1328].

81 BOA BEO 2958/221783/1/1, ‘Şam şehrinin elektrik ile tenviri hakkında Turuk ve Meabir Müdürü Hulusi Bey’le Posta ve Telgraf Nezareti İmalat Müdürü Ferid Bey’in tayinleri’, 25 Teşrinisani 1322 [8 December 1906].

82 Valeska Huber, Channelling Mobilities: Migration and Globalisation in the Suez Canal Region and Beyond, 1869-1914 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp.190, 136.

83 BOA İ.DH, 1411/16/1,4, ‘Şam şehrine celb ve isalesi mukarrer olan Hamidiye suyu için gazhaneye idhal edilecek petrolun beher sandığından belediyece resm alınması’, 30 Nisan 1319 [13 Mayıs 1903]; BNA FO, 195/2165, Richards to O’Connor, 22 March 1904; BNA FO 195/2165, Richards to O’Connor, 10 October 1904; BNA FO, 618/3, Quarterly Report, 7 January 1905; Archives Générales du Royaume 2 - Dépôt Joseph Cuvelier, Invetaires Electrobel, 5763, ‘Dossiers Constitués 1895-1913’; Hartmann, Reisebriefe Aus Syrien, pp.17–19.

84 Stadtbibliothek, Berlin, Public par le Commandement de la IVme Armèe, La Vérité sur la Question Syrienne [The Truth about the Syrian Question] (Istanbul: Imprimerie Tanine, 1916), p.166.