Suaad Alghafal A Bridgehead to Africa ZMO-Studien Studien des Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient Herausgegeben von Ulrike Freitag Band 39 Suaad Alghafal A Bridgehead to Africa German Interest in the Ottoman Province of Tripoli (Libya) 1884 – 1918 ISBN 978-3-11-068496-4 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-068501-5 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-068506-0 DOI https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110685015 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. For details go to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Library of Congress Control Number: 2021930705 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2021 Suaad Alghafal, published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston The book is published open access at www.degruyter.com. Cover image: © Dr. Abdelhamed Jamil, Department of Geography, King ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com To my mother Warda and my father Mohamed: You are the reason for what I am today and what I want to be tomorrow To my brothers: I am really grateful for your continuous help and support; without you I could not have reached this stage in my life Acknowledgments This book is the result of the research done for a doctoral degree at the Freie Uni- versität Berlin. At the beginning, I express my deep gratitude and appreciation to Prof. Dr. Ulrike Freitag, my first supervisor. Prof. Dr. Freitag did her best to help me in Germany and even when I was in Libya, and provided me with all the support I needed. I deeply thank PD Dr. Nora Lafi, I appreciate very much the knowledg e she has shared with me concerning original documents, books, maps, among many other sources. I would also like to thank Prof. Dr. Torsten Tschacher, Prof. Dr. Islam Dayeh, and Dr. Christian Sassmannshausen for their precious com- ments during the defense. I owe deep gratitude to Damascus University (Syria) and specifically to Prof. Moḥammad Aḥmed. Furthermore I am very grateful to the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship, the Freie Universität Berlin and the employees at both respected institutions. Erasmus Mundus financed this research. Indeed, with them I rarely felt lonely in Berlin. A big thank you to all the participants in the Doctoral Colloquium of Prof. Dr. Ulrike Freitag. Moreover, I am grateful to Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) and I would like to extend my gratitude to Dr. Thomas Ripper, the head of the ZMO library. I give my special thanks to Prof.ʿImād al-Dīn Ghānim for his continued help. He provided me with valuable documents and his own books and other literature which were very important for understanding the history of Libya and its relationship with Germany. I give my special thanks to Dr. Gihan Abdalla and Mrs. Nushin Atmaca for their help. In addi- tion to that, I would also like to thank Antonia Bosanquet, Svenja Becherer and Dr. Silke Nagel. Overall, I express my appreciation to all my friends in Berlin and in Libya who are suffering right now from the cruel conditions of the war there, though these did not prevent them from providing me with necessary books and documents from the Libyan Archive. Contents Introduction 1 1 European Colonial Ambitions and Economic Expansions of the Reich (1884–1918) 7 1.1 Behind Colonialism and Imperialism 7 1.2 German Colonial Ambitions 17 1.3 Jihad in Libya as a Resistance Movement against Colonialism 22 2 The Province of Tripoli and its Significance for German Interests (1870–1884) 25 2.1 The Province of Tripoli: A Colonial Bridgehead to Africa? 27 2.2 Political Situation and Administrative Structures between Natural Resources and Slave Trade 33 2.3 Cites as Centers of Trade Networks 45 3 The German Scramble for Africa (1882–1909) 73 3.1 German Travelers in the Province of Tripoli and the Second Congress of Berlin 81 3.2 Trade between Germany and the Province of Tripoli 96 3.3 The German Consulate in the Province of Tripoli 100 4 German Economic Activities in the Province of Tripoli and Ottoman- German Relations in 1910 113 4.1 Bank of Rome and Scientific Missions. The Italian Occupation 139 4.2 Jihad in Libya and the German Position toward it 149 4.3 German Declaration of Neutrality toward Libya and German Health Missions 158 5 German-Ottoman Rapprochement Policy and its Impact in Libya during World War I (1914–1918) 163 5.1 German-Ottoman Support to al-Sanūsīyya Movement 166 5.2 Attack on the British Army in Egypt and Battles with the Libyan Mujāhidīn in 1915 171 5.3 Libyan Defeat in Egypt and German Policy 179 Conclusion 189 Glossary of Arabic Words 199 X Contents Bibliography 203 Appendix 223 Index 237 Contents XI List of Tables Table 1: The number of fruit trees in the province of Tripoli 1869 Table 2: Quantities of crops and cereal produced in 1869 Table 3: Production of fruits and vegetables (1870–1884) Table 4: Species and numbers of animals and livestock in Tripoli Table 5: Value of German import from Tripoli (1884–1909) Table 6: Amount of German exports to the province of Tripoli (1903–1906) in kilogram Table 7: Goods transported from the port of Hamburg to the port of Tripoli by cargo ship Khythnos on May 19, 1910 Table 8: Goods transported from the port of Hamburg to the port of Tripoli by cargo ship Anatolia on June 12, 1910 Table 9: Goods transported from the port of Hamburg to the port of Tripoli by cargo ship Lipsos on July 19, 1910 Table 10: Goods transported from the port of Hamburg to the port of Tripoli by cargo ship Galata on August 13, 1910 List of Pictures Picture 1: Example of a convoy in Ghadames in 1884: Postcard by courtesy of Nora Lafi, private collection. Picture 2: Friday market in Tripoli city in 1900: Postcard by courtesy of Nora Lafi, private collection. Picture 3: Goods in the port city of Tripoli and customs: Postcard by courtesy of Nora Lafi, private collection. List of Maps Map 1: Cities of the province of Tripoli: Map from Gallica Bibliothèque de France, “Tripoli and Egypt”, 1918, GE C-4739: ark:/12148/btv1b530644090. Map 2: Ottoman African provinces: Ottoman map of the Ottoman Sahara BOA achive Istanbul HRT.h, Number 18, 1217H.Z.29 (23-3-1803). I thank the BOA Istanbul Archive for the authorization to work on the material of Nora Lafi. Map 3: Caravan trade routes in the province of Tripoli in the 19th century: De Mathuisieulx, H.M., A travers La Tripolitaine, Hachette, Paris, 1912, p. 19, Gallica, BNF. Map 4: Port city of Tripoli: Wathāʾiq Dār al-māḥafūḍāt al-tārīkhiyya al-Sarāya al-Ḥamrāʾ, Ṭarābulis. Map 5: Slave trade lines and routes in 1850: © Dr. Abdelhamed Jamil, Department of Geography, King ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz University (Jeddah, Saudi Arabia). Map 6: Barth‘s journey to the province of Tripoli: Map of part of Northern Africa showing the routes of the expedition under Messieurs Richardson, Barth, Overweg & Vogel in the years XII Contents 1850 and 1853/constructed by Augustus Petermann from the Royal Geographical Society; lithographed by A. Petermann – 1854, “Themenschwerpunkt Tripoli”, Régence de Tripoli: Bibliothéque nationale de France. Source: gallica.bnf.fr/. Map 7: Rohlfs’s journey to al-Kufra in the province of Tripoli: Rohlfs, Kufra: Reise von Tripolis nach der Oase Kufra ausgeführt im Auftrage der Afrikanischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland, Leipzig, 1881. Map 8: Nachtigal’s journey in the province of Tripoli: Nachtigal, Gustav, Sahara und Sudan, 3 vols., Berlin, Leipzig, Weltgeist-Bücher Verlags-Gesellschaft m.b.h., 1879–1889. Map 9: Battle to control Siwa Oasis in 1916, Libyan-Egyptian border provinces and places of battles during World War I: Map dedicated to “The defeat of the Sanussi”, 29/3/1916, Microfiche, Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Allgemeine Angelegenheiten I A – Weltkrieg WK Nr. 11u, R21284-1, Bd. 2. Appendix 1: Table of German exports to the province of Tripoli in 1910: Bundesarchiv, Die Jahres-Handels- berichte des Ksl. Vizekonsulats in Tripolis (Tripolitanien), August 1907 bis Juni 1916, Tripolis, R 901/4443, Nr. IIº559. 2: A request submitted to the German government by Aktien-Gesellschaft für Bergbau und Hüttenindustrie in Frankfurt am Main to obtain the approval of the Ottoman authorities to search for nitrates in the province of Tripoli 1911: Bundesarchiv, Die Handels- und Schifffahrtsverhältnisse mit Tripolis, Bd. 3, vom Januar 1910 bis Mai 1912, R901/4412, Nr. IIo 855. 3: Libya‘s borders in the 19th and 20th centuries: Historical Atlas of the Muslim People, compiled by Roolvink et al Amsterdan, 1957. 4: The German submarines on the Libyan coast during World War I: U-Boote der Kaiserlichen Marine an der Libyschen Küste 1915–1918, al-markaz al-waṭanī li-l-māḥafūḍāt al-tārīkhiyya; I deeply thank Dr. ʿImād al-Dīn Ghānim for providing me with this document. 5: Movement lines used by the German submarines journeys: Ghānim, ʿImād al-Dīn, ʿAmalīyyat al-ghūwaṣāt al-ʿalmānīyya, p. 125; I deeply thank Dr. ʿImād al-Dīn Ghānim for providing me with this document. Introduction Turkish authority has never done anything to introduce modern progress, nor has it been concerned with organizing this country. ‘One must wonder,’ said a writer, ‘how Europe has tolerated for so long at its doors the stigma of a savage Africa ...’ while Algeria and Tunisia have become in civilization the equals of the countries of Europe.