European Capitalism and the Late Ottoman EmpireCyrus TaheriHistory 594Dr. McCarthyIntroductionOn the eve of World War I, the Ottoman Empire spanned a territory of 1.7 million square kilometers, including present-day Turkey, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, and parts of the Arabian Peninsula. Its population amounted to over 23 million inhabitants, three-quarters of which were in Anatolia. Although the Empire had gone through a period of substantial transformation and economic growth in the 19th century, especially towards the end of the century, it was considerably poorer and less developed than the European industrial countries, in terms of real gross domestic product (GDP). , both per capita and cumulative. Ottoman GDP in 1913 (at current prices) was $370 million, and GDP per capita was approximately $171. Compare these figures respectively with $226.4 billion and $4,921 for the United Kingdom, $257 billion and $676 for British India, $138.7 billion and $3,485 for France, $257.7 billion and $1,488 for Russia, 244.3 billion and 3,648 dollars for Germany, 100.5 billion and 1,986 dollars for Austria2. It should be noted, however, that in terms of GDP, the Ottoman Empire was significantly richer than neighboring Egypt and Persia. In the context of competition with European imperialism and finance, however, this would not be sufficient. The First World War would be the realization of the desire to defeat and colonize the former Ottoman Empire, manifested in the partition of the defeated Turks in the Treaty of Sèvres. In this article I hope to explore and analyze these economic relations between the Ottoman state and the Western powers to better understand why the Turks were destined to lose the First World War._________________________________________________...... middle of paper..... This became evident in the rapid collapse of most businesses.”6 Alongside state-sanctioned industry, service- and trade-related industries themselves continued to grow and take on characteristics of capitalist accumulation. However, these forms of small-scale production took on ethnic and religious characteristics. Keyder provides a Marxist analysis of the politicized nature of these entrepreneurs. He claims that class and nationalistic antagonisms grew side by side through the domination of economic production by the Greek and Armenian minorities, who, according to him, “could receive a protected status from the European powers that effectively placed them beyond the reach of Ottoman law and taxation”. authority…the multiethnic social structure of the empire had prepared itself for an ethnic division of labor that ultimately culminated in class differentiation”.7