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Article ID: CBB001212669

Steam Power and British Influence in Baghdad, 1820--1860 (2013)

Parry, J. P. (Author)

Historical Journal
Volume: 56, no. 1
Issue: 1
Pages: 145-173
Publication date: 2013
Language: English

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Steamboats Steam engines; steam turbines Cross-national interaction 19th century Great Britain Baghdad (Iraq)

Very little has been published on British political activity in the province of Baghdad in the nineteenth century. Indeed, those formally responsible for it -- officials in India -- considered the region insignificant. This article argues, however, that it was not insignificant either to men on the spot or to influential British public figures in London and Constantinople. These men argued for its strategic and commercial potential, based on an inter-continental rather than a narrowly Indian view of policy, and optimism about the transformative material and moral power of steamships. Their pressure was responsible for the introduction of British armed steamers to the Mesopotamian rivers in 1835 and their retention throughout the century. This helped to ensure that the British had greater power in the region than any rival. The British also cultivated good relations with Arabs, expecting Ottoman rule to collapse in favour of something more progressive. The case of Baghdad shows the value for diplomatic historians of seeing Britain's European and Indian strategy as connected. It also raises doubts about the importance to British officials of promoting specific commercial interests abroad: the British in the region were much more concerned with the projection of power, reliability, and even-handedness. For the early Victorian mind, the key to progress was surely not the making of particular tariff arrangements, but the dynamic potential of steam itself.

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