THE HISTORY OF THE NEAR EASTERN TELEGRAPHS · THE HISTORY OF THE NEAR EASTERN TELEGRAPHS BEFORE THE...

SUOMALAISEN TIEDEAKATEMIAN TOIMITUKSIAHUMANIORA361

ANNALES ACADEMIC SCIENTIARUM FENNIQE

JORMA AHVENAINEN

THE HISTORY OF THENEAR EASTERN TELEGRAPHS

BEFORE THE FIRST WORLD WAR

Preface 5

I. Early Attempts to Establish a Connection to India 13

1. The Mediterranean Lines 13a. Brett in Sardinia 13b. Gisborne's Plan: from the Dardanelles to Alexandria 18c. Concessions in Egypt. Cables in the Eastern Mediterranean .... 21d. Towards Alexandria. The Malta and Corfu Line 25e. The Ragusa and Alexandria Project 31

2. The Euphrates Project 42

3. The Red Sea Disaster 50a. The Red Sea Telegraph Company 50b. The Red Sea and India Telegraph Company 52c. TheTelegraph to India 57

4. The Ottoman Government Becomes a Telegraph Operator 59a. The Turkish Overland Line from Constantinople to

Shatt-al-Arab 59

5. The Indo-European Telegraph Department. The Gulf Cables 71a. The Founding of the Department 71b. The Building of the Persian Land Lines 72c. The Laying of the Gulf Cables. The Beginning of Telegraph

Correspondence between Europe and India 80

6. The Cable from Malta to Alexandria 89

7. British Telegraph Policy in the 1850s and 1860s 93a. The Government in London 93b. Indian Telegraph Policy 97

8. The Persian-Russian Line 100

II. The Siemens'Attempts to Establish a Connection to India 105

1. The Siemens Family as Entrepreneurs in the 1840s and 1850s 105

2. The Idea of a Line to India. Various Plans 107

3. The Final Scheme. Arrangement with Reuter 112

4. The Governments and the Concessions 119

a. The Attitude of the British Government 119

b. The Russian Concession 121

c. The Prussian Concession 128

d. The Persian Concession 129

5. Founding of the Company. An International Enterprise 132

6. The Building of the Line 142

7. The First Years of the Indo-European Company 148

III. The Submarine Cable to India 150

1. The British-Indian Submarine Telegraph Company 150

2. The Establishment of the Eastern Group 158

3. The Black Sea Telegraph Company 159

IV. The Carriers 1872-1890. The Struggle over the Rates 163

1. The Rates. The Companies versus the International

Telegraph Union 163

2. Georg Siemens' Negotiations in Teheran. Arrangements

concerning the Persian Lines 167

3. The Rise in the Indian Tariff. Convocation in Berne and

Conference in Rome 171

4. One Word Rate 178

5. Competitors and the Joint Purse of 1877-1878 181

a. Attempts to Avoid Competition 181

b. The Amount and Division of the Traffic 1871-1880 197

6. The Economic Results of the Carriers 1870-1878 198

a. The Indo-European Telegraph Department 198

b. The British-Indian Submarine. The Eastern Telegraph

Company 200

c. The Indo-European Company 201

7. The Joint Purse of 1877-1878 204

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V. The End of the Siemens Era in the Indo-European Company 211

VI. The Working of the Companies 1880-1914 217

1. The Amount and Distribution of Traffic 217

2. The Indian Government and the Indo-European TelegraphDepartment 219

3. The Indo-European Telegraph Company 224

4. The Eastern Telegraph Company. The Salonika Concession of1884 231

VII. The German Line to the Orient 235

1. Podbielski's Project and the Romanian Concessions 235

2. The trade of 1899 238

3. British Reactions 240

4. Deutsch OsteuropaischeTelegraphengesellschaft 247

5. The Turkish Overland Line. Negotiations between the

Eastern Company and the Osteuropaische Gesellschaft 251

6. The Germans in Constantinople 259

7. Negotiations in Berlin. The Black Sea Traffic 270

VIII. Odessa Line 273

IX. The Rates between Europe and India 282

X. The Persian Lines 292

1. The Foreign Lines in Persia 292

2. The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 on Persia.

Persian Telegraph Lines 299

XI. German Attempts to Reach the Gulf 306

Conclusion 317

Sources and Literature 331

Index 340

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LIST OF MAPS

27Map 1. The early Mediterranean telegraph cables

Map 2. The Turkish Overland Line 65

Map 3. The Persian land lines and the Gulf cables around 1865 81

Map 4. The Indo-European Line, the line in Caucasus 145

Map 5. The Indo-European Line, the European part 147

Map 6. The El Arish line 154

Map 7. The Persian telegraph lines around 1880 169

Map 8. The Aegean Sea cable connections around 1900 233

Map 9. The Ottoman telegraph lines in Anatolia and Syria in 1910 .... 260

Map 10. The International telegraph lines through Persia beforethe First World War 294

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 1 The building of the Indo-line in Caucasus in 1867-1869 143

Fig. 2 The Bombay cable number two laid in 1877 196

Fig. 3. The switchboard used in Persia before the First World War 296

Fig. 4 The Wheatstone receiver 297

Fig. 5 Interior of the Madras Instrument Room around 1914 303

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