THE IDEA TO BUILD RAILROADS, AND A PROJECT NAMED AFTER ITS AUTHOR:“CHESTER PROJECT”
DEMİRYOLU İNŞASI FİKRİ VE SAHİBİNİN ADIYLA İFADE EDİLEN BİR PROJE: “CHESTER PROJESİ”

Author : Yaşar ÖZÜÇETİN -- Emrah ALTAY
Number of pages : 1193-1232

Abstract

Having established relations with the Ottoman Empire, at first, as an outcome of its interest-oriented policy in the Mediterranean Sea, USA then turned into a state structure, which was favoring Armenians in Anatolia, as an outcome of the policy it pursued thereafter, and aspired to achieve its self-seeking interests. While Armenian rebellions within Ottoman country escalated especially as of the year of 1890, USA aspired to take credit for the approaches and actions, being taken for suppressing these rebellions. Upon claiming that the acts being performed within Ottoman country were causing damages to its schools, USA, in the year 1900, dispatched one of its battleships, named “USS Kentucky”, to İstanbul under the captaincy of Admiral Colby M. Chester for the purpose of immediate compensation of the aforementioned damages. While Admiral Colby M. Chester was establishing positive relations with the Ottoman statesmen, the idea to build railroads in between Anatolia-Mosul-Kirkuk regions in the care of a foreign company turned into a project, and by way of naming the project after its author, Chester was bestowed with a status.. As being a project with such profundity, it could not have been understood well at the outset, while it was consisted of such inextricable ideas, having been articulated to the finest details, in order not to allow its addressee to see what was lying behind. Despite having been seen as a service within Ottoman country in terms of its entrepreneurship, it was then sorted out to be a means for exploiting the country upon respective analyses and .assessments thereon. Despite its initial failure, Admiral Colby M. Chester, upon having it rearranged, tried to sell his Project to the new structure, having come to the fore as the successor of the Ottoman State.Having the draft project introduced to discussions in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM), majority of the MPs found it adequate to dwell on the form of the project..The efforts of the MPs, who were indicating the real purpose of the project as the exploitation of oil reserves and mineral deposits, could not have prevented the approval of the Project in the Assembly. Mosul Question, having come to the fore at Lausanne Conference, somewhat determined the destiny of the project; USA, foreseeing that New Turkey would lose Mosul, had suspended the railroad building project..Yet the exclusion of Mosul with rich oil reserves from the project would stand for the failure of all

Keywords

US-Ottoman Relation, Chester Project, Railroad Construction, Anatolia-Mosul-Kirkuk, First Term of TB

Read: 912

Download: 419