Note 21 — Chapter II · BACKWARD TURKEY INVITES ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION

The Hedjaz Railway was a great national enterprise which indicated the strength of Moslem feeling in Turkey and which proved the desire of the Ottoman Government to construct national railways as far as capital and technical skill could be obtained. So far as Abdul Hamid was concerned, the railway was an attempt to gain prestige for his claim to the Caliphate, as well as a move to strengthen his political position in Syria and the Hedjaz. In April, 1900, the Sultan announced to the Faithful his determination to construct a railway from Damascus to the holy cities of Medina and Mecca. An appeal was issued to Mohammedans the world over for funds to carry out the work. The Sultan headed the list with a subscription of about a quarter of a million dollars, and by 1904 over three and a half million dollars had been collected. The only compulsory contributions were the levies of 10% on the salary of every official in the civil and military service of the empire. It is estimated that the contributions eventually amounted to almost fifteen million dollars. The engineers in charge of the construction were Italians, although the great bulk of the work was done by the army and the peasantry. Nearly seven hundred thousand persons were employed on the construction work at one time or another, the non-Moslems being replaced as quickly as Mussulmans could be trained to take their places. On August 31, 1908, the thirty-second anniversary of the accession of Abdul Hamid, the railway was completed to Medina, where construction was halted temporarily because of the Young Turk Revolution and the international complications which followed it. Corps de droit ottoman, Volume IV, pp. 242–244; A. Hamilton, Problems of the Middle East (London, 1909), pp. 273–292; Annual Register, 1908, pp. 328–329.