Discovery of Oil in the Minds and the Lands of the Ottoman Empire

The story of oil in the Ottoman Empire is not limited to the rich oil reserves in Mosul and Bagdad. The Sultan Abdulhamid II had to deal not only with great powers that were after rich oil reserves but also with modest entrepreneurs who dreamt of setting up smaller oil wells. This book focuses on this other, overlooked aspect of the story of oil, i.e., on the granting of a concession for a small oil field that put in motion the huge apparatus of the State. The aim of the book is to analyze the impact of the (discovery of) oil in Erzurum Pulk on the actors of the system’s institutions as well as their perception of the oil concession applicants and their identities. This book also argues that rather than adopting a protectionist policy in relation to the Pulk oil, Abdulhamid II prefers to use it as a tool for his planned rapprochement between an Ottoman Empire now reduced to the position of a peripheral State, and the German Empire, which is in the position of a Central power. The study should be especially useful to professionals in oil, Ottoman Empire, Middle East history and imperialism, nationalism, center periphery relations.