The Enemy Within: Intra-governmental Discord and the Failure of the Ottoman System

This paper offers a re-assessment of our understanding of the Ottoman imperial government’s approaches to the southern frontiers of its empire, on both sides of the Red Sea by delving into its complex and often fraught intra-governmental relationships on the imperial, provincial, and local stratum.  A close examination of archival sources demonstrates a clear link between the failure of the imperial government’s strategic goals along the frontiers, and the differing attitude of the various levels of governmental administrators’ towards the Bedouin population in Africa and the Hijaz. Thus paper argues for the necessity of a multi-focal approach and the departure from the oversimplified bipolar relationship traditionally posited between “an” Ottoman government and “the” Bedouins of the frontiers.

Using the building of the Hijaz telegraph line as a case study through which to examine the various strata of government’s relationship to one another and the impact of that relationship of Istanbul’s success, this paper will argue that at the root of Bedouin crisis was the failure of the Ottoman government to protect the Bedouin tribes from the local authorities’ abuses of power, which the governor and the emir manipulated in order to hinder the progress of the telegraph line. The Bedouins evidently lived under constant threat of persecution and calculated oppression, and their sabotage of the telegraph line was an expression of rebellion against perceived injustice, not irrational behavior driven by superstition or ignorance as was regularly reported. The Yıldız Palace, driven by a wider strategic goal of maintaining Ottoman independence along the southern frontiers, adopted a strategy of building a delicate partnership with the Bedouin population, while Ottoman government representatives in Mecca did their utmost to maintain their hold on power, using a constant barrage of oppressive tactics against the Bedouin tribes and deliberately halting the telegraph line’s progress.