hıstory, culture and polıtıcs ın the medıterranean

Hıstory, Culture And Polıtıcs ın the Medıterranean

“The Need for a Plural and Dıverse Unıty”

sy m p os ı u m pa p e r s

edıtors

Alp Yücel KAYA

Ayşegül SABUKTAY

Dilek AKYALÇIN KAYA

HISTORY, CULTURE AND POLITICS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN“THE NEED FOR A PLURAL AND DIVERSE UNITY”SYMPOSIUM PAPERS

Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Mediterranean AcademyMehmet Ali Akman Mah. Mithatpaşa Cad. No: 1087, 35290 Konak-IzmirPhone: 0232 293 46 13 Faks: 0232 293 46 10 Certificate No: 22595

Izmir Mediterranean Academy History Library -4

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EdıtorsAlp Yücel KAYAAyşegül SABUKTAYDilek AKYALÇIN KAYA

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This book was prepared for publication by Izmir Mediterranean Academy, which is a free cultural service of Izmir Metropolitan Municipality. It is a free publication of Izmir Mediterranean Academy. All rights reserved. Cannot be reproduced without reference and without the written consent of Izmir Mediterranean Academy, except for reviews. It cannot be sold.

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H I S T O RY, C U LT U R E A N D P O L I T I C S I N T H E M E D I T E R R A N E A N S Y M P O S I U M

I. INTRODUCTION

Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Culture and Art Workshop was held in 2009 with contributions from opinion leaders and people fond of Izmir and identified a vision made up of three elements. Izmir was envisaged as a city of design and innovation, creating an attractive focal point in the Mediterranean and as having democratic governance. In the last five years, this vision was adopted in Izmir. In line with this vision, Izmir Metropolitan Municipality de-veloped projects such as Izmir-Sea and Izmir-History and started to implement them. The Municipality also founded the Izmir Mediterranean Academy in line with this vision to function both as a think-tank and a democratic platform. Visions are developed to direct the future of the cities. But at the same time they change the cities’ outlook and perception of history.1 The Academy wants to contribute to the realization of this vision. Developing a vision will guide the future of the city. But it also changes the city’s view of and insight into its own history. Writing Izmir’s history with a Mediterranean perspective will add new depths to the history of Izmir. A vision gains meaning and becomes excit-ing only when it becomes fully integrated with history. With this meeting, the Academy aims to provide such an historical depth to Izmir’s vision. Therefore, in my speech, I will attempt to elaborate a metanarrative upon the Mediterra-nean. Such a metanarrative can provide new dimensions for the construction of Izmir’s historical narrative by establishing a framework in which Izmir’s history can be placed.

Today, the Mediterranean is probably going through a period in which it is lagging behind the most with respect to the world in its 10,000 year long

1 On this subject see, İlhan Tekeli: İzmir Tarih İzmirlilerin Tarih ile İlişkisini Güçlendirme Projesi, İzmir Büyükşehir Belediyesi, İzmir, 2015.

Upon A Medıterranean Metanarratıve ın Whıch Izmır’s Hıstory Can Be Placed

İlhan TEKELİ

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history. Many Mediterranean research centers have been established in vari-ous countries. In parallel with the popularization of higher education in the contemporary world, academics from many countries are increasingly engaged in monographic works on Mediterranean cities, particularly the port cities2, Mediterranean nature and environment, etc. In this sense, our knowledge of the Mediterranean is growing more rapidly in comparison to previous years. But still we do not have a metanarrative into which we have agreed to place the historical geography of the Mediterranean and the area around.

Although nowadays most of the northern Mediterranean countries have come together within the EU, the contemporary Mediterranean is still essen-tially a Mediterranean of nation states. Perhaps the reason why the Mediter-ranean countries cannot agree upon a metanarrative is because each country, while relating itself with the concept of the Mediterranean, does not or cannot restrain its own particular nation state instincts. The elaboration of a metanar-rative about the Mediterranean can also be seen as the construction of a Medi-terranean identity. This would not mean the negation of other identities, but the Mediterranean identity would be one of the many identities that each individual bears in the contemporary world of individuals with multiple identities.

A Mediterranean metanarrative, while establishing the narrative of each pe-riod, has to offer explanations of three important qualities of these periods. The first explanation would be of how the Mediterranean has managed to maintain its unity or integrity in every period. Secondly, it needs to account for how the Mediterranean has subsequently generated so many differences and accommo-dated them in this unity. The third explanation needs to determine the place and the nature of the dynamics of development that the Mediterranean has. In other words, the historical geography3 metanarrative of each period will reveal the ways in which the differences and unity of that period were generated within the dynamics of change of the said period. In this narrative, the relationship with geography will be considered not in terms of determinism but of contingency. The notion of contingency will help us to grasp the emergence of differences. Let us pursue a separate line of argument about how to consider the three qualities of the metanarrative in order to clarify how to develop this metanarrative.

2 Eyüp Özveren-Oktay Özel-Süha Ünsal-Kudret Emiroğlu: Akdeniz Dünyası Düşünce, Tarih, Görünüm, İletişim Yayınları, İstanbul, 2006. Çağlar Keyder, Y.Eyüp Özveren, Donald Quataert: Doğu Akdeniz’de (1800-1914),Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, İstanbul,1994. Daniel Goffman: İzmir ve Levanten Dünya (1550-1650),Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, İstanbul, Ekim 1995.

3 On this subject see, Allan Baker: Geography and History Bridging and Divide, Chambridge University Press,2003. Robin A. Butlin:Historical Geography, Edward Arnold, London, 1993.

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Firstly, during a certain period of time, when and by whom assertions about Mediterranean unity or integrity were made will be considered. The develop-ment of such a viewpoint requires the advancement of knowledge about the earth and the assumption of the name ‘Mediterranean’.4 After the development of such awareness, the conclusion that unity existed can be found through ref-erence to the perceptions of the inhabitants of the Mediterranean and of others that lived outside the Mediterranean. The former is a conclusion from within and the latter is from without. In order for the inhabitants of the Mediterra-nean to develop such a judgment they needed to have experienced the process of becoming Mediterranean. In order for outsiders to reach such a verdict they needed to have experienced the process of othering of the Mediterranean. Both judgments are subjective. The third possible actor that can reach the judgment of unity is the historian or the writer of historical geography. The historian makes this judgment when they place a long period of time between themselves and the period that they study. My main concern in this paper will be the judg-ments of this third actor.

All three inferences would be legitimate and subjects for analysis when considering the contemporary Mediterranean. However, when we think back 10,000 years, such inferences become impossible. The capacity of humanity and the culture established by humans were not sufficient to derive such conclu-sions. In the initial periods of the Mediterranean, and even after the Neolith-ic revolution, human perceptions of the spread of time and space were very limited. Knowledge of world geography had not yet developed. A sea defined as the Mediterranean did not exist. Because the Mediterranean was unknown, a judgment about its integrity from inside or outside cannot be made. It can be argued that the only actor that can make certain judgments of unity about the early periods of the 10,000 year life of the Mediterranean are historical geogra-phy writers, who emerged after the sciences of history and geography reached a certain level of development.5

When the first period is considered, the historical geographer cannot have a subjective basis for their account of the territorial integrity of the Mediterra-nean; such an account could only be derived from objective findings. Those who arrive at such an inference can base the Mediterranean unity on two different

4 Latin name Mediterranée denotes an area between lands. For the Romans, it is ‘Mare Nostrum’, indicating the integrity of the Roman control. In Hebrew it is ‘Yam Gadol’, that is, Great Sea. For Egyptians it is ‘Green Sea’ and for the Turks, ‘White Sea’. David Abulafia: Büyük Deniz , Alfa Tarih, 2012, p.19.

5 On this subject see.: Beau Riffenburg: Antik Dönemden Günümüze Haritacılar, The Royal Geographical Society, Türkiye İş Bankası, Kültür Yayınları, İstanbul, 2012.

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kinds of logic. The first is the internal unity that emerged through the mech-anism and indigenous dynamics of Mediterranean society. The second is the expression of unity through the effects of external dynamics.

Braudel6 developed his assertions about the integrity of the Mediterranean between the 12th and 16th centuries on the basis of three findings and two mech-anisms. The first of these was that the Mediterranean was a closed interior sea, secondly, the north-south line of the sea was narrow and climatic differences were limited due to limited differences in latitude along the coasts, and thirdly maritime transport technologies had reached a certain level of development. On the basis of these findings, Braudel used two mechanisms to account for the emergence of similar patterns of life in the Mediterranean and the surround-ing area. Firstly, people demonstrate similar forms of adaptation to similar physical conditions (such as the climate, soil qualities and so on). Secondly, when a certain level of maritime transport capacity is reached, the spread of technologies, ideas and beliefs accelerates in parallel with improvements in trade and mutual interaction between communities. However, explanations of Mediterranean integrity between the 17th and 19th centuries have been based on how the Mediterranean complied with outside developments.

We have seen that inferences derived about Mediterranean unity or integri-ty have, in the course of history, been to a great extent dependent on progress in humanity’s capacity to mobilize capital and the technologies of production and transportation. If it is accepted that the unity attributed to the Mediterra-nean depended on the capacity built in society, it should also be realized that that the content attributed to this unity would also change over time.

Secondly, let us consider the production mechanisms of diversity in the Mediterranean. Before the mechanisms, we need to specify the scale or the level of diversity. Let us first address diversity at the level of humans. The Mediter-ranean, especially in the first period, when it was perceived as the most active geographical area in the development of world civilization, and consequently as an area of great wealth, was exposed to invading forces and migration from outside. When it is recalled in this context that Slavic-Germanic tribes from the north, Arabs from the south and the Turks from the east entered the Mediter-ranean basin, the extent of linguistic, religious, ethnic and political diversity to which that the region was exposed can be easily understood. This sea has pro-vided an environment for very different peoples to come in contact with each

6 Fernand Braudel: The Mediterrenean and the Mediterrenean World in the Age of Philip II, Vol. II. Harper and Row Publishers, New York, 1972.

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other and develop together. The second measure upon which the diversities in the Mediterranean can be based is the cities and particularly the port cities. The most dynamic elements of the Mediterranean history have been the cities. In the cities and their colonies a certain civilization developed, particularly in the first historical periods, while they also functioned as a diversity production mechanism at a different level. Port cities such as Izmir have an interesting feature in this regard. These settlements exhibit diversity at the individual level with the slaves, sailors, itinerant merchants, etc. Within this diversity not only the goods but knowledge and ideas are exchanged. The contribution of itinerant merchants was of critical importance to the dynamism of these cities. The image of the foreign merchant is somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand, it has a certain appeal as a wealthy foreigner, but on the other hand, he has been portrayed since Homer as deceptive and is approached with suspicion.

The third level of differences could be established over territorial sovereign-ties. The fragmentation of the Mediterranean and its surrounding geography into territories constitutes another source of differences in the Mediterranean basin. If it is recalled that city-states played important roles in the Mediterra-nean history, the second and third levels would appear to be integrated in these cities. The Mediterranean topography, fragmented by peninsulas and large bays (inner seas), facilitated high tendencies among local communities to establish separate states. The distances between the northern and southern coasts of the Mediterranean, while allowing relations between the two coasts, also helped various states to maintain their independence and control over distinct hinter-lands. It can be argued that the disintegration of sovereignties would be essen-tial in the Mediterranean, which would facilitate conditions for the generation of differences. However, each sovereign power, particularly when the king de-rived his legitimacy from divine right, would perceive the establishment of his global rule as a sacred task and consequently would constantly try to enlarge his territory. In cases when such a power emerged in the Mediterranean, its similarity to an inland sea did not obstruct but rather assisted this tendency towards unity. During the Roman Empire the whole Mediterranean became ‘our sea’ (Mare Nostrum) for around 200 years.

The realization of such a complete sovereignty led to the Roman Empire becoming an ideal model for later periods. Indeed, Byzantium and then the Ottoman Empire would attempt to form the second and the third Rome re-spectively, but they were not able to make the Mediterranean “Mare Nostrum” again. It should be kept in mind, however, that the fall of the Roman Empire was caused not by factors originating from internal dynamics but by the effects of external dynamics.

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An interesting indicator of the disintegration of sovereignty is that a form of pirate rule was able to emerge in Cilicia even when Rome was dominant over the entire coastline of the Mediterranean Sea. Although there was cut and dried style of control around the seas, a group of pirates were able to establish a hit and run form of control by using the opportunities that the coastal topogra-phy provided and by making certain trade routes quite risky, and this control, albeit limited, could evolve into a distinctive kind of sovereignty.

Thirdly, let us consider the way in which to account for the dynamics of devel-opment within each period of the Mediterranean metanarrative. The first issue to clarify in this context would be whether the factors that produce dynamics of change come from inside or outside of the Mediterranean basin. We know that in the initial stages of Mediterranean history the innovative capacity that was leading global progress largely stayed inside the Mediterranean. But it will not be correct to formulate the narrative of social development in the Mediterranean as a linear aggregate of this innovative progress. It will be necessary to mention the existence of an external dynamic, even for this period. When the Meditterranean reached a point ahead of the world outside, it would face the threat of invasion and immigration from outside. New adaptation mechanisms emerged.

When the center of innovative development that developed the world shifted away from the Mediterranean, the mechanisms for the generation of differenc-es and unity in the Mediterranean would also assume a new character. In par-allel with the shift of this innovation and the ability to move large amounts of capital outside of the Mediterranean, the power to determine the developments in the Mediterranean also shifted away from the Mediterranean basin. The Mediterranean, which used to receive population through migration turned into a region that exported population through migration. The presence of such an exogenous center of development would affect developments in the Mediter-ranean according to the aims of this exogenous center. But the differences in the different Mediterranean regions’ capacity to adapt to the dynamics of devel-opment generated by the external center resulted in rising inequalities within the basin. This, in a sense, operated as a diversity producing mechanism.

After looking at the elements of the Mediterranean historical geography metanarrative, let’s consider the way in which this metanarrative could be for-mulated on the basis of these three elements. Writing the 10,000 year long Med-iterranean history requires the division of this history into certain periods. In the establishment of these periods, the differences in the nature of develop-ment dynamics and the changes in the mechanisms of diversity and integrity will be essentially established. Explicating the elements of the metanarrative

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above, a single development oriented mechanism has been focused on to ensure ease of expression. However, the historical geography of the Mediterranean will be written from a multi-focused development perspective. In the histori-cal geography narrative of each period, while the locations of development as a multi-focused system within the possibilities provided by the initial data of physical and human geography form the line of development, the unity and diversity of the Mediterranean will also emerge. In this narrative of develop-ment, the presence and form of political power will certainly have an excep-tional place. The elaborated narrative could be called a human geography with ensured continuity or the regional history of the Mediterranean. To test the adequacy of such a narrative of historical geography, it could be investigated whether this narrative hinges upon evidence that could be reduced to sub-divi-sions and even to landscape descriptions.

Following a methodological clarification regarding the historical geography metanarrative to be elaborated in this paper, I shall define the path that I will follow in this talk. After the introduction, essential geographical variables that influenced the formation and development of the Mediterranean and the ca-pacity transformations generated by technological and organizational develop-ments will be addressed. This section will provide the inputs that the attempted Mediterranean metanarrative will be based on. The elaboration of the metanar-rative will commence in the following section.

II. FACTORS RELATED TO PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY, TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEVEL THAT HAVE DETERMINED MEDITERRANEAN HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY

There was no Mediterranean world before 8000 BC. The melting of glaciers in 8000 BC as a result of the earth’s warming led to a 120 m rise in the level of the Atlantic Ocean. The ocean waters began to flow through the Straits of Gibraltar into what is now the contemporary Mediterranean basin. Before the formation of the Mediterranean, there were lakes in this basin, which were not connected with one another. Waters flowing from the ocean formed a large inland sea.7 For an inland sea, the borders of the Mediterranean are very open. But in order to write about the historical geography of the Mediterranean, the extent of the land to be considered along with the sea and the coastal line needs to be defined. There may be diverse definitions as to the determination of this.

7 A.Sherat. “The Human Geography of Europe: A Prehistoric Perspective”, Robin A.Butlin, Robert A. Dodgshon (Editors), An Historical Geography of Europe, Clandon Press, Oxford, 1998.

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How to Define the Mediterranean Expansion?

If you were to do an analysis of environmental pollution for the Mediterra-nean, all the water basins from which waters flow into the Mediterranean sea would need to be included as the inner Mediterranean. This is a very large area.

Historians, such as David Abulafia, have preferred to discuss a much more limited inner area while narrating the history of the Mediterranean. Abulafia has kept the Black Sea and its coasts out of his narrative, while considering the Mediterranean as limited to the sea, islands, coasts and port cities. Braudel’s Mediterranean is defined more broadly. The inner area is defined both by its flora and its topography. For Braudel, the northern borders of the Mediterra-nean extend as far north as the spread of olive trees, and the southern borders up to where palm trees cease to appear. After stating that the mountains are parallel to the coast, Braudel defines the coastal extent of the Mediterranean as the strips and deltas between the mountains and the coasts. These strips of land are connected to the inner regions through river valleys and land crossings.

If you were to discuss the contribution of the Mediterranean to world civ-ilization, Abulafia’s narrow definition of the Mediterranean would be enough. However, if a narrative of the integration of the Mediterranean with the world economy is intended, then a broader definition similar to Braudel’s will be re-quired. If, on the other hand, a narrative of the Mediterranean’s environmental history is the intention, then an even broader definition that includes the histo-ries of all the waters that flow into the sea of Mediterranean would be required.

The Coastline of the Mediterranean and its Role in the Organization of Political Power

In the organization of political power in and around a sea, the provision of shelters for vessels and the determination of the location of ports, the shape of the coastline plays an important role. The shifting Alpine Mountain system, which emerged through the convergence of African and Asian tectonic plates in geological times, was effective in the formation of the Mediterranean’s north-ern coastline. When the ocean waters filled the Mediterranean, a coastline with numerous gulfs, islands and straits was formed. A much smoother southern coastline exists because, in the absence of a mountain range, the coastal area meets a large desert. Strategic locations with great significance in describing Mediterranean historical geography emerged through the opportunities provid-ed by the busy coastline, particularly in the north and the large offshore islands.8

8 See Bernard Randolph: Ege Takım Adaları, (Arşipelago), Pera Turizm ve Ticaret A.Ş, İstanbul,1998.

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While being an inland sea allows the coastline to encircle the sea, there is a certain distance between the northern and southern coasts. The magnitude of this distance is of critical importance. Straits, where the two shores get very close, become checkpoints for marine traffic. “Kilid-ul Bahir” (The Lock of the Sea), as Yıldırım Beyazıt named the castle that he built on the Dardanelles in Galippolli, expresses this function very well. But, in general, because the dis-tance between the northern and the southern shores of the Metditerranean is quite far, conditions suitable for the formation of states on the two shores completely independent from one another emerged.

Mediterranean Currents

Because the amount of evaporation from the Mediterranean surface is great-er than the amount of water brought by the rivers from the land to the Med-iterranean Sea, water from the Atlantic Ocean continuously enters the Medi-terranaean from the Straits of Gibraltar. The water entering the Mediterranean creates an eastward flow towards the southern coast. This inflow reaches the Levant, turns north on the eastern coast and turns westward on the north coast. The situation is completely different for the Black Sea. The amount of fresh water pouring into the Black Sea from numerous rivers is much greater than the surface evaporation. In this case, a flow of fresher water occurs as an upper current from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. At the bottom, a salt water current flows into the Black Sea from the Mediterranean. In the Bospho-rus, as a result of the Venturi effect 9 created by the narrow strait, the speed of the current gets close to 4 knots. When this flow corresponded to the direction of the wind, journeys in the opposite direction could become impossible during historical periods prior to the invention of the steam engine in ship technology. The water entering the Aegean Sea from the Black Sea joins the current heading west towards the northern shores of the Mediterranean and flows towards the Atlantic through Gibraltar.10

When these general directions of flow reach islands in the Mediterranean, they create currents around the islands. During periods when the movement of ships depended on rowing and wind power, the knowledge of these currents was of really critical importance for captains sailing in the Mediterranean.

9 The Venturi effect is a law of physics that explains the acceleration of the flow of a liquid when entering from a wider into a narrower passage.

10 David Abulafia: Ibid, p.23.

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Mediterranean Climate and Winds

The Mediterranean climate is of a type very suitable for human settlement. It is a type of Subtropical climate. The Mediterranean is under the influence of the humid temperate climate of Western Europe in the winter, and in the summer, the arid climate of Africa. Precipitation largely occurs between November and April. Most rainfall occurs in the autumn, while the second most precipitation takes place in the spring. The Mediterranean climate is under the influence of the Atlan-tic Ocean in the winter and the Great Sahara in the summer.

The direction of the winds is determined by the location of high pressure and low pressure centers in and around the Mediterranean. The winds blow from high pressure centers towards low pressure centers. The displacement of the high and low pressure centers according to the season changes the direction and intensity of the wind. Generally the dry air descending on the Mediterranean as a high pres-sure mass during the summer months blocks the air masses, hence preventing the formation of cyclones over the Mediterranean, so that the sea becomes suitable for sailing during these months. During the winter months, the Azores high pressure zone becomes active and winds blow from there towards areas of low pressure emerging throughout the Mediterranean and the coasts around it, which leads to cyclone formation.11 Because of this, the Mediterranean was kept closed to voy-ages between 25 October and 5 May each year. This prohibition was implemented by keeping harbors closed to marine traffic between those dates. This meant that the Mediterranean functioned as a connector for 6 months, as a separator for 6 months of each year. The Mediterranean, while functioning as a uniting medium between 5 May to 26 October, from October 26 to May 5 it served the opposite purpose. After the Venetians announced in 1290 that their ports would be open during all seasons, due to the developments in ship technology and navigation, the Mediterranean became an integrative factor for all seasons. In 1560, Venice felt the need to prohibit voyages again between November 15 and January 20.

Because of the features of its coastline and its inland sea character, the Mediter-ranean is affected to a very limited extent from the strong tidal movements of the Atlantic Ocean. Tides do not cause problems for sailing vessels, while facilitating the formation of deltas at the mouths of rivers. But when the current and the wind were in the same direction significant difficulties were caused for voyages prior to the invention of steamships.12

11 Sam White: Osmanlı’da İsyan İklimi, Alfa Yayıncılık, İstanbul, 2012.

12 On this issue see, John H.Pryor: Akdeniz’de Coğrafya, Teknoloji ve Savaş, Kitap Yayınevi, September 2004.

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During its 10,000 year long history, the Mediterranean climate did not re-main constant. During the Little Ice Age, which is usually dated between 1570 and 1870, increasing rainfall and a fall in temperature led to significant chang-es in agricultural production: plains were deserted, settlements retreated to the mountain slopes; wetlands, marshes and reeds replaced the former settle-ments. Consequently, outbreaks of malaria increased and in the 17th and 18th centuries a new agrarian structure emerged on the slopes and plateaus. While farmlands were reduced in size, the area of tree-based products increased. In the Mediterranean, the balance between wheat, tree products (olives, grapes) and sheep stock was re-established.13

Developments in Mediterranean Ship Technology

In order to discuss a Mediterranean civilization as a whole, the presence of advanced marine transportation technology is required. The first vessels, consisting of rafts and sails date back to the year 4,000 BC in Egypt. Egyptians began to make the first wooden boats around 2,900 BC. But it was the Phoeni-cians who began to use ships actively in the development of a civilization be-tween 1,500 BC and 1,200 BC.14 The differentiation between merchant ships with sails and warships with oars was settled in the Mediterranean during these centuries. This distinction survived until the 17th century. Sailing ships which required smaller crews transported cargos – for instance wheat – seven to ten times more cheaply than land transport. This made the provision of food for port city dwellers easier than for those in inland cities located at some distance from the sea, and led to the develpoment of larger port cities. In this period, merchant ships could do an average of 4.5 knots. This was three times faster than road transport. But it was impossible to engage in battle with sailing ships. Being dependent on the direction of the wind for movement, ships that found themselves in a position facing the wind would stand no chance. Consequently, warships with oars which had rams on the bow, moved by a large number of rowers, were deployed for naval battles. Vessels with oars were able to reach around 9 knots of speed. However, this rate could be maintained for only up to an hour.15 Vessels with oars also used sails during the majority of their voyage time. 1/5 of voyages were accomplished using sails and 1/7 by means of oars.16

13 Faruk Tabak, Solan Akdeniz 1550-1870 Coğrafi-Tarihsel Bir Yaklaşım, Yapı ve Kredi Yayınları, İstanbul, 2010, pp.20-30.

14 David Abulafia: Op.Cit, p.100.

15J.G. Landels, Engineering in the Ancient World, Chatto& Windus, London, 1980, p.136. and Hendrick Willem van Loon, Ships, Somerset Books, New York, 1935, p.99.

16Michael E. Mallett, The Florentine Galleys in the Fiftenth Century, The Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1967, pp.1-5.

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An increase in the number of vessels used in the Mediterranean began with the Bronze Age. Copper and tin increased the demand for transport. Anoth-er major advance in maritime transport in the Mediterranean occurred with the reduced cost of ship building in parallel with technological developments between the 7 th and 11th centuries. In earlier times, the boat’s hull was made by connecting the planks together, inside which a base frame was placed.17 Fol-lowing the technological leap forward in the said period, first the keel and the frame of the boat were built and then the planks were fitted. In ancient times, the vessels used square sails. Latin sails began to be used in the Mediterra-nean after the 9th Century. This innovation provided the boats with the capacity to cruise against the wind. During this time, the boats performed maneuvers with the help of two large paddles at the back of the boat.

In the 13th Century, cogs (sailing ships that arrived in the Mediterranean from northern seas) became more effective than the round ships of the Med-iterranean. Round ships used to employ one crew for each five tons of cargo, while the cogs needed one crew for each ten tons of cargo. With the cogs, stern rudders began to be used to steer the Mediterranean boats. Cogs had a 150-ton payload capacity. “Karaka” was born out of the cogs in the 14th -15th Century in the Mediterranean. Three triangle sails were placed on the rear mast to make the vessel more appropriate for the Mediterranean’s tricky coasts. In this period, four-masted karakas were built and the vessels reached a capacity of 1,000 tons.18

Large galleys (rowing ships) began to be used as trade ships in the 15th Cen-tury. The pioneers were the Florentines in 1422.19 This may not have beeen a technological innovation, but it was an important organizational invention. For the same purpose, the Genoese were using “taridas”, which were sailing and rowing ships at the same time.20 In rowing ships, one ton of freight required one crew, while in sailing ships 10 tonnes of freight required one crew, which meant that the cost of freight for rowing ships was tens times higher than for sailing ships. The Italians started a commercial revolution by using ships that were ten times more expensive. The extra cost of the rowing ships was reduced through substitutions. The first of these substitutions was to reduce the risk and thus cut the insurance costs. Commercial galleys usually sailed in four-ship convoys. Because the increased number of the crew guaranteed safety

17 Ufuk Kocabaş:”İstanbul Üniversitesi Yenikapı Batıkları”, Ufuk Kocabaş (ed.), İstanbul Arkeoloji Müzeleri 1. Marmaray-Metro Kurtarma Kazıları Sempozyumu Bildiriler Kitabı 5-6 May 2008, İstanbul, 2010, p.30.

18Walter Brownlee, The First Ships Round the World, Cambridge University Press, 1974, p.5.10.

19 Florentines abandoned commercial galleys after 1480. Michael E. Mallett, Ages.17-34.

20 W.S.Lindsay, History of Merchant Shipping and Ancient Commerce, London, 1874. p.489.

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against pirate attacks, lower insurance premiums were paid in comparison to the sailing ships. The second substitution was obtained through specialization in the composition of goods among ships. In the commercial galleys, freight usually light in weight but high in value, such as spices, precious fabrics, etc. was carried. As the value of the transported goods in safer ships increased, greater savings were obtained from insurance costs. The third substitution was the shortening of the time of transport: with the use of galleys, which moved for most of the journey by wind power, and, when necessary, by rowing, the time spent on voyages was reduced, or, more importantly, the time taken could now be estimated. In this case, the time that the ships spent in ports to sell and purchase goods was shortened. The fourth substitution was provided by the the monopolis-tic organization of this trade. For example, the commercial galleys of Venice were built by the government and on certain routes their use was put up for auction among merchants. No other Venetian ship was allowed to purchase goods from the ports that these galleys were going to.21 This condition led to high profitability.

The end of vessels equipped with oars in the Mediterranean came about as a result of the introduction of cannons in sea battles. Before the introduction of cannons, ships would ram into one another and then fights with swords would take place, just like battles on land. If a ship’s deck was filled with warriors jump-ing from one ship that was fastened to the other by hooks, the defenders would retreat to the front and rear upper decks to shoot arrows like soldiers at a castle. When the first culverine cannons were placed on ships, they were positioned to shoot from the upper decks to the deck of the other ship. The cannon became the main weapon of sea battles after the second half of the 16th Century. But in the 16th Century, the Ottomans and the Venetians were both still using warships with oars. The last warship with oars was built in the Galata shipyard in 1663.

Galleons began to dominate the seas by the 17th Century, which continued until the industrial revolution. Galleon dominance led to the closure of galley ports in the Mediterrranean. Galleons were used for both commercial and mil-itary purposes. Galleons used as warships were narrower vessels carrying sixty to hundred cannons. The three-lazaretted galleaons held 120 cannons. Brit-ish galleons were equipped with iron cannons instead of bronze ones, which increased the shooting rate. Commercial galleons were also partially armed. Galleons, which were initially 500 tons reached a size of 1000 tons in time, particularly those used in trade.22

21 W.S.Lindsay, Ibid, p.492.

22 Frederick Leslie Robertson, The Evolution of Naval Armament, E.P. Dutton & Company, New York, 1852.

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The most important breakthrough in ship technology came about with the widespread use of steam ships in the early 19th Century. They got their kinetic energy from steam power. Iron-steel made steam boats replaced wooden sailing boats in the Mediterranean from the 1830s and 1840s onwards. This development reduced the risks posed by natural conditions during sea journeys. The introduc-tion of steam boats faciliated the specialization of the ships according to their pur-pose and cargo types. Passenger ships, dry cargo ships, tankers and so on began to develop. Inorganic forms of energy such as engine power, gas tribunes, electric power and nuclear power provided the power for ships in the 20th Century.

When the improvements in shipbuilding technology allowed the construc-tion of high tonnage ships, these ships were equipped with large artillery bat-teries. The cannons of these batteries did not fire iron balls as in earlier times, but large explosive projectiles. Against these projectiles, warships began to be equipped with heavy armor. As missiles developed after artillery technology, guided missile launchers would replace artillery batteries on board ships. Huge aircraft carriers, shipping air forces to sea battles, would also develop in par-allel with the critical importance that air force assumed in 20th Century wars.

Developments in Shipping Knowledge and the Development of Infrastructure to Assist Shipping in the Mediterranean

Until the 12th Century, sea voyages consisted mainly of coastal captaincy, that is travelling along the coasts. Captains had detailed knowledge of these coasts and they sailed by referring to signs on the shores and avoiding excep-tional storms. Captaincy skills were obtained mostly in master-apprentice re-lationships. This did not mean, however, that no offshore voyages were under-taken during this time. Phoenicians used the wind rose. Offshore voyages were undertaken to a certain extent by employing astronomical knowledge at night and solar knowledge during the day.

Offshore voyages became easier with the introduction of the compass in the 1250s. Initially, the water compass and then the needle compass were invented. Compass usage became more widespread after 1320 following the invention of an easy to use practical compass by Flavio Gioia from Amalfi. The compass rose was divided into 8, 16 and 32. Each of these divisions corresponded to a wind direction.

Compass navigation, which made sailing possible without being dependent on the coastal signs, led to the development of portal maps in the 13th and 14th centuries. These maps were often Mediterranean oriented. They used to be drawn on gazelle or sheep skin to prevent them being worn out during frequent use. These maps had 17 compass (wind) roses. A map showing the details of the

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shores was placed over a 32 line canvas starting from each rose.23 Ships at sea navigated by referring to the compass roses on these maps and, when necessary, corrected their courses by referring to the signs on the shores.24 These devel-opments evolved in parallel with the introduction of cogs as sailing ships and the beginning of the use of commercial galleys with oars in the Mediterranean. Being able to navigate without depending on the shores and weather conditions led to the introuction of routes that went beyond the Mediterranean on the north-south axis and resulted in significant commercial developments.

Navigation improved in the 14th Century with maps and maritime manuals which led to greater knowledge. But the major breakthrough was the develop-ment of astronomy based navigation following voyages to the ocean. Portugal was the pioneer of this breakthrough. The beginning of such ventures is con-sidered to be the 1415 Morocco expedition of Prince Henry, who was known as The Navigator. The second breakthrough of the Portugese occurred in the second half of the century during the reign of John II, when Prince Peter initiated the development of offshore latitude-based correction tables.

Initially, determining the location during navigation was based on astro-nomical knowledge through the calculation of latitude. Instruments had been invented to measure the altitude of the pole star in the northern hemisphere. In the measurement of altitude quadrants were used. In Oriental astronomy, the quadrant was known as the ‘rubu tahtası’ (quarter board). But since there is no such star in the southern hemisphere, latitude could only be detected through the measurement of the sun’s altitude. 25 The astrolabe was used for this purpose. However, sufficient knowledge to develop a guide book on this subject was not acquired until the mid 16th Century.26

In the mid 15th Century, an offshore boat detecting its location was unable to obtain precise results in the calculation of longitude. In fact, this calcula-tion was theoretically very easy, given that the time at the place of origin was known. For this purpose, hourglasses were used, but even with these it was not enough. Accurate measurements became possible after 1736 by using stop-watches. 27

23 Kemal Özdemir:Osmanlı Deniz Haritaları, Marmara Bankası Yayınları, 1992, p.41.

24 Susanna Biadene:”Venedik Correr Müzesi Deniz Haritaları”, XIV-XVIII Yüzyıl Portalan ve Deniz Haritaları, İtalyan Kültür Merkezi, İstanbul, 1994, p.13.

25 A. Estácio dos Reis: “Navigatİyon Instruments”, Knowledge of the Seas Pavillions 1998 Lisbon World Exposition, p.105

26The first navigation manual in English was Rutter of the Sea translated from France in 1528. The first English written navigation book Regiment of the Sea was published in 1574.

27 A. Estácio dos Reis, Op.Cit., p. 112.

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With the development of latitude calculation the transition from portal maps to maps with latitude and longitude commenced. Mercator’s map dated 1569 is the most renowned of this type. It was this map which led to the revival of the name Atlantic.28 With the introduction of Mercator’s map, cartography became differentiated from the field of navigation to become a scientific field in its own right. The Portuguese thus lost their supremacy and the Dutch and Flemish began to dominate the field of cartography by the 17th Century.

Ottoman sailors of the 16th Century were equipped with the cartographic and astronomy based navigation knowledge of their era. Navigation knowledge was easily disseminated among sailors gathered in the Mediterranean ports. The first navigation center of the Ottomans in this regard was Gallipoli. Map makers and captains were initially trained there, including Pirî Reis. Another center was Galata.29 The most renowned of the portal map makers was Safaî. It could be asserted that Ottoman portal map making was as advanced as that of the Portugese, Catalans and Venetians, which dominated the Mediterranean. Indeed, the 1513 world map of Piri Reis was the contemporary of the world maps known as ‘Cantinos’. The most renowned of the Ottoman navigation man-uals was the Book of Navy (Kitâb-ı Bahriye) by Piri Reis, which he presented to the Sultan (Suleiman the Magnificant) in 1523. This book was structured like the isolarios, which had been written since the beginning of the 15th Century in Europe, but contained much more detailed information than isolarios.30 When the Ottomans attempted to reach the Indian Ocean in the early 16th Century, navigation knowledge based on astronomy became a necessity. Consequently, in Seydi Ali Reis’s book Mirat-ı Kainat (Mirror of the Universe), the calculation of the altitude of the sun and the stars, measurement of time and the calculation of the qibla (the direction of Mecca, which Muslims face in worship) were ex-plicated in detail.31

Since ancient times, lighthouses have been used to facilitate navigation. The first known lighthouse was built in Dardanelles (in Kumkale) around 700 B.C. The Lighthouse at Alexandria, which was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World, came into service in 270 B.C. A significant number of lighthouses were destroyed during the Middle Ages after the fall of the Roman Empire. The

28 Frédéric Mauro: “The Atlantic and the Establishment of Contacts between Continents”, Knowledge of the Seas Pavillions 1998 Lisbon World Exposition, p. 69.

29 Evliya Çelebi talks about the existence of 15 mapmakers in 8 workplaces, 45 compass makers in 10 workplaces and 20 hourglass makers in 15 workplaces.

30 Günsel Renda: “Osmanlılar ve Deniz Haritacılığı”, XIV-XVIII Yüzyıl Portalan ve Deniz Haritaları, İtalyan Kültür Merkezi, İstanbul, 1994, p. 20.

31 Pirî Reis: Kitab-ı Bahriye (Birinci Cilt): Tercüman, İstanbul, (no publication date), p. 85.

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17th and 18th centuries saw the revival of lighthouses. Wood and charcoal were used as fuel for the lanterns. As maritime trade intensified, lantern making became widespread around the Mediterranean. The first lighthouse of the Ot-tomans was built in Fenerbahçe in 1562. During the Ottoman Empire, around 200 lighthouses were built. After the Crimean War, modern lighthouses began to be made. In 1860, The General Administration of Lighthouses was estab-lished and two Frenchmen were appointed as its managers.

One of the most important steps in terms of improving security, which would reduce the risks of navigation for ships at sea, was the introduction of the use of wireless radios on ships in 1891. In a conference held in Berlin in 1903, international rules were established on the subject. By 1912, 479 coastal radio stations had been set up and radios were placed aboard 2752 ships around the World.

Development of Transport Containers Used in Marine Transportation

For the development of maritime trade in the Mediterranean, improvements in shipping technology was not the only necessity. Containers to convey the marine transport of liquids, especially, such as wine and olive oil, and grains such as wheat and barley, had to be improved. The first containers used for this purpose were ‘amphorae’. An amphora is a kind of pot with two handles, a pointed bottom, a narrow neck and a large body. Ceramic pottery making was known in Anatolia since 6000 BC. The clay obtained through mixing soil with water is shaped and then hardened by baking. Amphorae manufactur-ing commenced in 2000 BC with the beginning of marine transportation. The Phoenicians also used glass vessels. The necked amphorae with pointed bottoms began to be manufactured from 900 BC onwards. They became very common by 700 BC. Different amphorae were manufactured in each settlement. Because of this, amphorae discovered in modern times provide us with precious data for the analysis of maritime trade in ancient times. Amphorae were used until the 7th Century AD.

Amphorae were replaced by wooden barrels for the transport of liquid goods. According to the Roman Plinus, barrel making started in the Alps. Barrels are large cylindrical containers made by pinning/compressing wooden strips with wooden and metal rings. They are easier for use in transportation and more durable compared to amphorae.

As a result of the increase in metal production after the industrial revolu-tion, metal containers were introduced for the transportation of both liquid and solid matter. The smaller of these are tin containers. They are 20 liter con-

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tainers made of thin metal plates with stannous cover produced by means of electrolysis. Tin containers were first introduced in 1810s. Cylindirical contain-ers of 200-220 liters made of painted thick metal plates are called metal barrels. They have been used in many areas of industry and began to be used recently for the storage of hazardous waste, too.

In enhancing the efficiency of maritime transport, the impact of the im-provements in the containers used remained very limited. To ensure greater efficiency, specialization was developed, as in tankers and cargo ships. A revo-lutionary breakthrough in this regard occurred in the 1950s with the introduc-tion of cargo containers for the transportation of dry goods and has quickly become widespread. Once dry goods are placed in truck size containers, land, rail and marine types of transportation can be coordinated. Loading and un-loading costs in maritime trade were cut and the transfer of the cargo to other types of transportation became cheaper. This effective solution has led to the development of container ships and specialized container ports.

On the Development and Differentiation of the Corporate/Legal Insrastructure in Mediterranean Trade and Capital Accumulation

Knowledge of technological developments is important in elaborating the historical geography narrrative of the Mediterranean according to time peri-ods, but that alone is not enough and needs to be complemented by an exam-ination of institutional developments. Associating these institutional changes with the processes of capital accumulation would, in particular, improve the understanding dynamics of development in the Mediterranean.

Three distinct stages could be identified in this regard, when elaborating the Mediterranean historical geography. The first of these is the development of the concept of “legal entity” in Roman law. The capacity of a person to do business is limited on their own. The development of the notion of “legal entity” made a very important contribution to the increased capacity of social actors to do business. The term legal entity arises from the association of a group of people and assets, and is considered as a single person. Legal entities make up for two shortcomings of real persons. First, the lives of legal entities are not restricted as in human life, and, second, by bringing together many real persons with their assets/capital, they increase their capacity to do business. Legal entities became an important step, through the city governments and incorporation, in the improvement of the capacities of actors in the historical geography of the Mediterranean.32

32Douglass C. North: Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge University Press, 1990.

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In the 13th Century, a commercial revolution was experienced in Mediter-ranean trade. With the usage of Cogs and commercial galleys in Mediterra-nean maritime trade and the development of new navigation methods, trading voyages became better organized and systematic. Under these conditions, mer-chants were no longer compelled to travel with their goods. They were able to reside in the port cities and conduct their businesses in other ports through their partners or agents. The transition from travelling merchant to resident merchant thus became possible. This transition faciliated a differentiation be-tween the port cities and the emergence of a different order of stratification than before between them.

These developments were also reflected in changes in the forms of ship own-ership. During the times of the travelling merchants, ship ownership was di-vided among a large number of small capital holders. The Arabs called this form of ship ownership karavaniye or suqiyya. The former involved the division of ownership among the participants in the trading voyage, and the latter, among traders in a commercial center. 33 With the development of trade and the in-crease in capital accumulation, single proprietorship was to become the domi-nant form of ownership after the 14th Century.

In parallel with this great transformation, transitions in the forms of insti-tutionalization of commercial activities also began to occur. It is known that during the Roman period, single entry accounting books were being kept. 34 Single-entry accounting, while adequate for traveling merchants, was no lon-ger sufficient for resident merchants. Therefore, the dual-entry or T-type ac-counting systems were developed in Venice. Only such an accounting system would allow the resident merchant to observe and check his and his partner’s or agent’s transactions separately.35 This type of bookkeeping would facilitate the ability of the merchant doing business in multiple markets to calculate money owed to him and his debts in each market at the same time.

Another important development was the introduction of policy. Süftece in the Islamic World and transfer of witness-ship via kitab’ül kadı (book of the judge) in the Ottoman World had the same function. This institutional arrangement had become a necessity with the emergence of the resident merchant and was also useful for travelling merchants. Since the merchant was no longer travelling

33 Aly Mohamed Fahmy:Muslim Naval Organization in the Eastern Mediterrenean from the Seventh to the Tenth A.D. National Publication& Printing House, Cairo,1966, pp. 158-162.

34 W.S.Linsay: Op.Cit., p. 185.

35 Fredric Lane: Venice A Maritime Republic, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1973, p.140.

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they were not compelled to carry money in their transactions. Organizing the subsequent transfer of money was causing further problems. Besides, carrying cash in business trips provided opportunities for robbers. In addition, seasonal scar-cities in obtaining silver and gold coins were also overcome this way. Policy, while solving all these problems, would also lead to the development of a new institution.

There were two insurance practices in the era of travelling traders, which suited their needs. One of these was the overall average and the other bottomary. Overall average meant that the value of goods jettisoned by the captain in mo-ments of danger would be distributed among all cargo owners according to the value of the ship and cargo.36 Bottomy, on the other hand, consisted of undiffer-entiated lending and insurance liabilities. Ship owners and cargo owners could obtain credit by showing their ships and goods as a guarantee. A bill of credit was prepared to correspond to the debt. If the cargo arrived at the port safely the equivalent of this credit would be paid. If an accident occurred during the voyage or the ship was captured by pirates then they would be spared from any obligation to pay this debt.37

These forms of insurance were not suitable for needs of the resident mer-chant. Marine insurance, a system that is still in effect, which provides for the insurance of the goods in return for a premium paid in advance, developed along with policy. When a policy was issued, because the goods on board were not secured during the journey, in case of an accident, this debt would be left unpaid. Covering this debt required marine insurance to complement the pol-icy. These insurance transactions were initially enacted by bankers or money lending merchants.38

During the 12th and 13th centuries, the south of the Mediterranean was con-trolled by Muslim countries. Until then, there was no significant difference be-tween the commercial practices of the Muslim countries and those of Italy. With the commercial revolution of the 13th Century, differences began to emerge.

In the Islamic World, the basic form of partnership in sea trade was ‘mu-dabere’. A mudabere type partnership was formed when the travelling mer-chant borrowed money while transporting a commercial cargo from people who wanted to use their capital. If the merchant also put capital in the pro-spective business the partnership turned into ‘mushareke’. These partnerships did not have long-term goals, they were short lived. They were terminated with

36 William D. Winter: Marine Insurance, Mc Graw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1952, p. 2.

37 William D. Winter: Age New York, 1952, p. 2.

38 William D. Winter: Ibid, p. 50.

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the completion of a specific business transaction. If one of the partners died during the business, the partnership would be automatically wound up. Being more flexible than the Jewish system of ‘iska’, these forms of partnership were instrumental in the spread of Islam in Africa and the East. In Islam, the only institution or ‘legal entity’ that ensured the continuity of wealth was the foun-dation. Foundations developed in the 8th and 9th centuries but they could not be used to make a profit. Foundations invested in the city management to provide various infrastructure facilities and urban services.39

The ‘commenda’ and ‘societas maris’ types of partnership in Medieval Ita-ly were the counterparts of the Islamic ‘mudarebe’ and ‘mushareke’. However, between the 13th and the 16th centuries, the Italians developed new forms of le-gal entities with longer lives that were suitable for mobilizing large amounts of capital. Initially, ‘family companies’ based on unlimited joint responsibility were introduced to supersede the ‘commenda’. In 1407, the Genoese founded the San Giorgia Bank. The Medicis’ firm’s system of ‘poyra’ and ‘ispit’ lasted for 97 years.40

However, modern commercial institutions were born not in Italy but in England and the Netherlands. The pioneer in this context was the Chartered Levant Company founded by the English in 1581. These companies would later turn into joint-stock companies and become widespread after the 18th Centu-ry.41 By the 19th Century, the formation of joint-stock companies and obtaining legal entity status ceased to be dependent on government approval. As Muslim countries of the Mediterranean were not able to develop new legal entities indig-enously and hence failed to reorganize their commercial affairs in impersonal institutions, trade continued through personal relationships. In the second half of the 19th Century, Muslim countries, pioneered by the Ottomans and Egypt, im-ported modern company law and the institution of the municipality from Europe.

Piracy

Trade and piracy go hand in hand. 42 In the 13th Century, investing in piracy in Genoa and other port cities had become a commercial practice. Capital own-ers used to equip a galley to collide with ships belonging to the enemies of the city or the church. The financiers were promised a profit ranging from 25% to 100%. After the voyages, pirates would pay the promised profits in Genoa or

39 Timur Kuran: Yollar Ayrılırken, Yapı Kredi Yayınları, İstanbul, 2012.

40 Timur Kuran: Ibid, pp.98-100.

41 For Holland’s story, see, G.R. Bosscaha Erdbrink: At the Threshold of Felicity: Ottoman- Dutch Relations During the Embassy of Cornelis Calkoen at the Sublime Port 1726-1744,Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevi, Ankara, 1975.

42 Cyrus H. Kanaker: Piracy was a Bussiness, R. Smith Publishers Inc, Rindge, New Hampshire, 1953, p. 24.

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where the stolen goods were sold.43 Piracy had an almost institutionalized place in the system. The integration of piracy with the system was not solely in the domain of trade but also in the military domain. For central powers, equipping large navies was very expensive. Consequently, the central powers maintained relatively small fleets and during major campaigns and wars, they would mobi-lize the pirate forces that they were in contact to join with their naval forces. The crusader alliance, for example, employed the Maltese knights while the Otto-mans worked with the pirates based in North Africa, such as Barbarossa Khair ad-Din, Turgut Reis and so on. In terms of legitimacy and respectability in so-ciety, there was no functional or qualitative difference between these Barbary pirates and the Maltese Knights. These pirates, as in the examples of Barbarossa and Andrea Doria, could become the commanders of these great naval powers.

III. A NARRATIVE OF MEDITERRANEAN HISTORICAL GEOGRA-PHY BY HISTORICAL PERIOD

Six periods would be appropriate in constructing a narrative about the 10,000 year long history of the Mediterranean according to the differences in historical geography processes. These periods can be listed as follows:

• First Period: From the formation of the Mediterranean in 8,000 B.C. to the fall of Troy in 1,000 B.C.

• Second Period: From 1,000 B.C. to 508 B.C. when the Roman Republic was founded.

• Third Period: The Roman and Byzantium Mediterranean. From the be-ginning of the Roman Republic to the 13th Century Mediterranean commercial revolution.

• Fourth Period: The Mediterranean that generated the Renaissance be-tween the 13th and 16th centuries. The Mediterranean as the world’s commercial center and striving to maintain its central status.

• Fifth Period: The Mediterranean under imperialist control during the time between the 17th Century and the end of World War II.

• Sixth Period: The formation of the Mediterranean of nation states in the post-war period with the end of colonialism and the division of the nation states in the Mediterranean into two by the European Union.

The First Period: From the Formation of the Mediterranean in 8,000

43Eugene H. Bryne: Genoese Shippinc in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries, Medieval Academia of Armenia, 1930, p. 62.

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B.C. to the Fall of Troy in 1,000 B.C.

This is a very long period of 7,000 years that includes the Neolithic period, Chalcolithic period (Copper Age), Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age.44 For the first 5,000 years of this stage it would be wrong to talk about a Mediterranean integrity. There were small settlements on the Mediterranean coast at convenient locations which had poor relations with one another. The Bronze Age had to begin in order to talk about a Mediterranean phenomenon. Although the Bronze Age began in Anatolia in 3,000 B.C., it occurred in Crete, Aegean and Hellas (Greece) between 2,500 and 2,000 B.C.45

A Mediterranean integration began during this period. Phoenicians had cre-ated a trade network between the eastern Mediterranean port cities during the 1400s B.C. The Mediterranean civilization of the time had developed around two focal points. Firstly the Cyclades and Crete in the Aegean Sea and secondly Troy. In the development of the first civilizations in the Aegean, its multi-is-landed structure had been very effective.

Mineon civilization in Crete was established in 3,500 B.C. It consisted of a palace oriented administration and economies. Palaces were administrative centers. Temples were located inside the palaces. Businesses and storage areas were also inside the palace. Among these, the Knossos palace system has been studied the most. The tin trade was common on the island. Bronze tools were produced with copper coming from Cyprus. Although not decrypted yet, the Minoan culture had writing. The end of this civilization is assumed to have been the volcanic explosion on the island of Tera in 1630 B.C. 46

The Cyclades islands consist of 220 islands around the island of Delos on which the Cycladic civilization thrived between 3,000 and 2,000 B.C. Of these islands, Milos had obsidian as the most important trade material and Kyontos had copper.

The Mycenaean civilization emerged in the 1800s B.C. with the Acadian inva-sion of Greece through their military domination over local farms. Myceanans replaced the commercial network of the fallen Minoan civilization with their pirates. The focus of the Mycenaean civilization was the city of Mycenae, which was a commercial center rather than a political one. Mycenaeans began sending

44 On this subject see, Ufuk Esin: İlk Üreticiliğe Geçiş Evresinde Anadolu ve Güneydoğu Avrupa I. Doğal Çevre Sorunu, İÜ Edebiyat Fakültesi, İstanbul, 1979. Ufuk Esin: İlk Üreticiliğe Geçiş Evresinde Anadolu ve Güneydoğu AvrupaIı. Kültürler Sorunu, İÜ Edebiyat Fakültesi, İstanbul, 1981.

45 On this subject see, Sevgi Aktüre: Anadolu’da Bronz Çağı Kentleri, Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, İstanbul,1994.

46 David Abulafia: Op.Cit, p. 43-46.

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their goods to Sicily and Italy. They were using the Mycenaean alphabet in 1,400 B.C. They spread across Thessaly, Thrace and in the Dardanelles direction and clashed with the Trojans in Anatolia. The Mycenaean civilization ended in the 1,100s B.C. with the invasion of Dorians from Macedonia.47

Troy’s location at the entrance of the Dardanelles, which was suitable for harboring vessels, had earned it a strategic importance in terms of the passage to the Black Sea. This city, which had no Neolithic predecessors, was founded in the Bronze Age. The population of Troy was engaged in weaving and farming and the city performed the warehouse functions. During the Bronze Age the city was destroyed several times but was rebuilt layer by layer. The destruction of the Troy of the seventh layer by fire in 1190-1180 B.C. marked the beginning of the Dark Ages in the Mediterranean.48 The Mycenaeans were responsible for this destruction. The city’s revival could only occur after the end of the Dark Ages.

As the end of the Bronze Age was approaching, commercial relations be-tween the port cities of the Eastern Mediterranean, Aegean and Ionian seas and their surroundings were quite advanced. In a sense, in this age, only this scale of the potential of the Mediterranean had been partially realized.

At the end of the Bronze Age and the beginning of the Iron Age an insuffi-ciently explained decline took place. Cities that constituted the centers of the then Mediterranean civilization were destroyed. During this time, not only the cities located on the islands and along the coast but the important cities of the inland empires also collapsed. Indeed the Hittite capital, Hattusas in Anatolia was also destroyed in the 1200s B.C. Cultural centers around these cities had dis-integrated and palace economies collapsed, resulting in a return to village econo-mies. A dark age was to be experienced for about 400 years between 1200 and 800 B.C. during which time political authorities that controlled vast areas vanished. There are no written sources of this time that have survived to our time.49

The Second Period: The Time Period from 1000 B.C. to the Formation of the Roman Republic in 508 B.C.

As the Mediterranean was coming out of the Dark Ages from 800 B.C. on-wards, three innovative commercial hubs began to emerge: the trade networks

47 For detail on this subject see, George Thomson: Eski Yunan Toplumu Üstüne İncelemeler, Tarih Öncesi Ege I. Payel Yayınları, İstanbul, 1983. George Thomson: Eski Yunan Toplumu Üstüne İncelemeler, Tarih Öncesi Ege II., Payel Yayınları, İstanbul, 1985.

48 For details on the subject of Troy, see, Troya Efsane ile Gerçek Arası Bir Kente Yolculuk Sergisi Kataloğu, TC. Kültür Bakanlığı, Yapı ve Kredi Kültür Sanat Yayıncılık, İstanbul.2002.

49 David Abulafia: Op.Cit, p. 71-88.

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that were established by the cities of Phoenicians, Greeks and Etruscans.

Phoenicians settled in the eastern Mediterranean and they established in-dependent cities such as Arados, Sayda, Sur and Ugarid. These cities, which existed side by side on the Lebanese coast, did not form a political unity. They were concerned with trade not with occupying new lands. In this respect, the independence of these cities constituted a major advantage. They were not yet using money in their trade, although lumps of silver and copper were used for large payments. They called themselves ‘Canaanite’, which meant merchant. It was the Greeks who named them ‘Phoenician’. They were active throughout the Dark Ages. The Phoenician alphabet was developed around 1050 B.C. They estab-lished colonies around the Mediterranean that was emerging out of the Dark Ages: in Sicily and Corsica and then, crossing the Straights of Gibraltar, Cadiz on the Atlantic Ocean coast in 800 B.C. Carthage, that was established by the Phoenicians in 800 B.C. on the southern coast of Mediterranean, would become one of the Mediterranean’s innovative centers.50

The Greeks, as they were coming out of the Dark Ages consisted of the Dora, who after destroying the Mycenaean in 800 B.C. settled on Rhodes and 12 is-lands of the Aegean; Ionians, who lived in cities between the rivers Meander Minor and Hermos; Aeolians, who settled in the cities north of the Hermos and the Arcadians in the Peleponnese. They lacked a common identity like the Phoenicians. The formation of Greek (Helennic) identity among them occurred after the emergence of the Persian threat in the 6th Century B.C.

At the center of the Greek trade network, Corinth was increasingly import-ant in the 700s B.C. as a focus of innovation. They exportied weapons and ar-mor made of bronze and iron. The first triremes propelled by oars were built there. As Corinth grew and became unable to feed its population, they began to establish colonies along the coasts of the Ionian and Adriatic seas. They export-ed the grain produced in these colonies. 51

Acadians, escaping from Dora, arrived in western Anatolia in 1000 B.C. and began to establish the 12 Ionian cities. These were Ephesus, Colophon, Teos, Miletus, Myous, Priene, Lebedos, Erythrae, Clazomenae, Phocaea and Chios. Later, Smyrna was added to these. Ionian cities experienced their golden age between 650 and 546 B.C. On the one hand, they had a strong trading network and, on the other, historians and philosophers, such as Thales, Anaximander,

50 On this subject see, Sabatino Moscati:Fenikeliler, Dost Kitabevi, Ankara, pp. 25-158.

51 David Abulafia: Op.Cit., pp. 111-128.

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Hekataeus, and so on, made these cities centers of scientific and philosophical development.52

The Lydians invaded Miletus and Smyrna in 700 B.C. and began to control the other Ionian cities economically. The Lydian King Croesus occupied Ionia. As the Persians coming from the east defeated the Lydians in 546 B.C., Ionia fell under the rule of the Achaemenid Empire and the Ionian cities entered an era of rapid collapse.

Around 750 B.C. the Etruscans formed the first major innovation center of the western Mediterranean in central Italy. The word Etruscan meant ‘barbar-ic pirates’ in Greek. They established cities like Pisa on the west coast of Italy, Tarquinia, Caere and Veii. They developed the Villanovan culture. The Etrus-cans economy was based on the metal trade. They borrowed the alphabet from the Greeks in 700 B.C. Kyma and Ischia, cities that the Greeks established on the western coast of Italy, led to the improvement of relations between the Greeks and Etruscans.53

City states were the essential components of the trade network that brought the Mediterranean lands together. The city state was a closed and self-sufficient settlement. It was a form of settlement which was autonomous, ruled by written laws and had one or two gods of its own. The landowners of its hinterland, where dry land farming was carried out, dwelled in the city. There was no place for foreigners in the city and slavery was common. This system produced surplus products for trade. Business and government was conducted in an agora located in the city center. These conditions facilitated the faster en-try of money into circulation.

The second component of the Mediterranean trade network was colonies. They increased in number generally after 800 B.C. These colonies should be viewed as separate cities rather than as dependent partners in terms of politics and commerce.

The interaction of these three trade networks gained intensity in Sybaris in southern Italy, where an ‘emporium’ was formed to bring together all the Greek, Phoenician and Etruscan goods. This lasted until the collapse of Sybaris in 560 B.C. The place where Greek and Phoenician cultures competed was the island of Sicily. Greek (Hellenic) culture spread up to the east coast of Spain during

52 For a detailed account of this subject, see. Sevgi Aktüre: Anadolu’da Demir Çağı Kentleri, Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, İstanbul, 2003.

53 David Abulafia: Op.Cit., pp. 129-148.

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this period: emporiums were established in Tarragona and Tyris.54 Since the Phoenician, Greek and Etruscan trading systems began to cover the entire Med-iterranean during this period, the establishment of the Mediterranean’s unity was completed.

The Third Period: From the Establishment of the Roman Republic to the 13th Century Commercial Revolution: the Mediterranean of Rome and Byzantium

During this period, the commercial networks between city states and the islands ceased to be the main mechanism of Mediterranean unity. This main mechanism began to be the political power projects aiming to control vast in-land territories. Now the domination over the seas would be obtained through the control of lands. Previous inland powers such as the Assyrians, Hittites and Egyptians were not concerned with control over the sea. The sea consti-tuted the boundaries of their control. During the Persian expansion of the 6th Century, initially the Persians did not interfere with the internal affairs of the cities that they occupied. Their governance was limited to taxation. However, the Ionian cities had strong ties with the sea. Occupying these cities altered the Persians’ conquest program to include the Helennic cities, too. When the Persians formed a large navy in 499 B.C., this fleet was essentially made up of Phoenician vessels.

Under this threat, 31 cities united to form the ‘Delian League’ in 477 B.C. The Island of Delos, a cult center in the middle of the Aegean, was found suitable for such a function. The anti-Persian alliance proved to be successful. Athens emerged from these battles as the capital city of a maritime power. As the capi-tal of an empire, it experienced a magnificent construction boom. In the mid-5th Century B.C., Athens had an elite democracy.55 As the population rose in and around Athens, serious food shortages occurred. The grain of Sicily, Euboea, Mytilene and Thrace was particularly needed. For this, Athens had to expand to become an empire. This would be a maritime empire based on naval power. The Delian League was balanced by the Peleponnesian League, which brought to-gether the southern Greek cities under Spartan hegemony. The contest evolved into conflict and the Peleponnesian War began between the Athenians and Spartans in 432 B.C. The war initially witnessed Athenian victories and spread to Mytilene and Sicily. In 427 B.C., the Athenians launched the Sicily front to block Sicilian grain from reaching the Peleponnese. Being successful in Sicily,

54 David Abulafia: Op.Cit., pp.149-162.

55 On this subject, see: Alfred Zimmern: The Greek Commonwealth: Oxford University Press, Glasgow,1961.

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they then attacked Syracuse in 414 B.C. But this campaign was defeated and the Athenian fleet was crushed. In 405 B.C., the Athenians lost their entire navy to the Spartans and sued for peace. The Aegean Sea fell under Spartan hegemony. The Athenian Empire thus collapsed.56

The balance of power in the Mediterranean was reshaped with the birth of the Roman Empire. The beginning of this process could be said to be the for-mation of the Roman Republic in 509 B.C., after the overthrow of the Roman King. It took centuries for Rome to take the entire Mediterranean under its control. In the initial two centuries, the Romans formed armies modelled after the Etruscan army with Greek military knowledge, and, beginning from central Italy, extended their power over all of the Italian peninsula.

During the collapse of the Athenian Empire, the Roman Republic’s power over Italy was advancing but it still lacked naval power. The Carthaginians remained as the only significant naval power in the western Mediterranean.57 Carthage had relations with the Greek cities in Greece, Sicily and Italy. Greek became the second language of the Carthaginian elites. Carthage as a cosmo-politan city with its vast residential settlements, commercial and naval harbors had become one of the most important centers of civilization of its age.58

Athenians recovered in the early 4th Century B.C. They formed a new Athe-nian confederation and won the Knidos sea battle against the Spartan navy in 394 B.C. The Athenians improved their economic wellbeing and achieved major advances in the architecture of the city. During the 4th Century B.C., Athens experienced the golden age of democracy, rhetoric and philosophy. Plato, Dem-osthenes and Aristotle lived during this time. The Athenian academia had its heyday. The decline of Athens’ power occurred with the rise of Alexander of Macedonia. Alexander got himself elected in 335 B.C. as the commander of the Corinthian Union, formed an army from all the Greek cities, crossed the Dar-danelles in 334 B.C. to begin his campaign. He initially won the Granikos war against the Persian army.This victory opened up the gates of Anatolia to Alex-ander. His army conquered Miletus and Halicarnassus and turned towards Perge. In 333 B.C., Alexander beat the Persian army again in Issos at the gates of Cilicia, hence virtually getting revenge for the Greeks. But, instead of moving towards Persia, he decided to engage in moves to end the Persian domination on the Mediterranean coast. Alexander took the Phonecian cities which were


57 On Carthaginians, see, Sabatino Moscati: Op.Cit., pp.159-252.

58 David Abulafia: Age, s.199-205.

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providing the Persian navy with vessels and established Alexandria to ensure that Egypt had access to the Mediterranean. He was personally involved in the planning of the city. After Egypt, Alexander turned to India. His dream was to form a Helennic-Persian Empire. When he returned from India to Babylon and passed away at the age of 32, his dream was left half achieved. Just as Hel-lenistic art influenced Cathage and the Etruscans, Hellenistic ideas appealed greatly to the Jews, Syrians and Egyptians. More than Greece, Alexander al-lowed Alexandria to become the center for spreading Hellenistic culture. A correspondence between the Gods of Egypt and the Greek Gods was established. The elements that made Alexandria a focus of culture were, more than trade, its ‘museum’ and ‘library’.59

The Treaty that the Romans signed with Carthage in 509 B.C. indicated that the newly established Roman Republic was interested in trade rather than war. They wanted to dominate the land more than the sea. The fact that Rome re-newed this treaty with Carthage in 348 B.C. was indicative of the fact that they were still not willing to become a naval power. The Roman advance towards the south Etruscan lands developed their interests in the sea. They initially devel-oped the port of Ostia at the mouth of the Tiber to ship goods from Greek Italy and the Etruscan cities to Rome.

The event that moved the Romans out of Italy was the Punic Wars through which the problem of dominance was resolved between Rome and Carthage. The First Punic War took place in Sicily and Africa between 264 B.C. and 241 B.C. Between 263-262 B.C., there were 40,000 Roman soldiers in Sicily; and Rome won the war. In 256 B.C. the Roman navy, consisting of a 250 vessel strong fleet defeated 350 warships of Carthage at Cape Economos in Sicily. This victory opened up the Sicilian Straits to the Romans and took them to Africa. Finally, in 241 B.C., the Romans decisively defeated the Carthaginians on the sea and they began to control Corsica and Sicily. Upon this, the Carthaginians turned towards North Africa, Malta, Ibiza and Spain. The Second Punic War (218-201 BC) is renowned for the Carthaginian Hannibal’s several successful battles against Roman army. However, the decisive victory was the Romans’ in the Battle of Zama of 202 BC. With the treaty of 201 BC, Carthage was compelled to pay substantial compensation to Rome and burn 500 of their warships. Car-thage lost all its territories outside Africa.

After consolidating its control of Macedonia, Middle Greece and Syria, Rome had achieved control over almost all the Mediterranean by 187 BC. In Egypt, the

59 David Abulafia:Op.Cit., pp.181-198.

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Ptolemaic dynasty was still in power. By 151 BC, Carthage had completed war reparation payments. The third Punic War began when Carthaginians refused the Roman demand to move their city 15 km. inland from the coast. In 146 BC, the Romans razed Carthage and thus ended the 120 year long Punic Wars.

In the same year, Rome conquered Corinth and Corinthean artworks were taken to Rome. When the Roman dominance was established over Greece, the Mediterranean became ‘Our Sea’ (Mare Nostrum). After the conquest of the Carthaginian region and Corinth from Carthage60 the whole area between Spain and Rhodes became Roman territory. Their merchants established good ties around the whole Mediterranean. But the Roman aristocracy was not en-gaged in trade, since they viewed themselves as distinct from the merchants.

As Rome expanded its dominance over Italy, it granted the status of ally to the citizens of many cities falling under its rule. They formed colonies un-der the supervision of senior military officers. Captives from Carthage and Corinthos were employed in agriculture, while Iberian captives were sent to work in the silver mines of southern Italy. Slaves could earn their freedom by paying with their savings. Around 1 BC, 200,000 slaves are estimated to be in the city. Freedmen were able to earn great wealth as bankers and merchants. In Rome, the migrant population, consisting of Greeks, Syrians, Africans and Spaniards had swollen in nomberand Greek became the first language in cer-tain quarters of the city.

The transformation of the Mediterranean into a Roman lake was completed by Octavius’ declaration of the annexation of Egypt in 30 BC. During Octavius’ reign, all the Mediterranean coasts and islands fell under Rome’s sovereignty and thus began the 200 year era of Pax Romana. The conquest of Egypt solved the problem of meeting the demand for grain.61 By 27 BC, Augustus had turned the ‘Roman Republic’ into a ‘Roman Empire’.

Two events that significantly affected the order that existed during the late Roman era were,

• The adoption of Chistianity by the Roman Empire,

• The invasion of Germanic tribes

The Romans had copied the Greek gods with new names. They also wor-shipped their Emperor as God. But the Jews were granted the right to worship.


61 David Abulafia: Op.Cit, pp..225-246.

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As Christianity began to spread, the Christians were competing with the Jews while being tortured by the Romans. Constantine converted to Christianity in 312 AD and his policies accelerated the dissemination of Christianity in the Med-iterranean. But soon, differences of opinion emerged. While building the New Rome (Constantinople), Constantine did not want this city to be contaminated by pagan temples. He presided over the clerical council held in 325 AD in Nicaea. The ‘Nicene Creed’ adopted there became the foundation of Orthodox Christian-ity. By 700s AD, when Arab raids began, Christianity had become established in the Mediterranean in two branches, as Catholicism and Orthodoxy.62

This empire came under pressure from the migration period which began around 350 AD with the Chinese pressure from the East. Hun, Slav and Alan migration uprooted the mainly Germanic tribes including Goths, Anglo-Sax-ons, Vandals and Franks and forced them to move in a south-west direction. Rome faced this fact in 375 AD and with the impact of tribal migration it would split into two as West Rome and East Rome in 395 AD. Migration continued in the 5th Century and because of the invasions in the West Rome and western Mediterranean, instability began to reign. In 410 AD Gotham Alarik sacked Rome to be followed by the Visigoths’ invasion of Iberia. Other Barbarian tribes, including Vandals, Sueves, Alans, were marching towards the Roman Empire. They established an Ariusian order there, in line with the teachings of the Nicene Council. Vandals attacked Rome in 455 AD and captured Corsica in 456 AD. They also ruled Sardinia for a certain period. They were raiding Sicily annually. Vandals established a unique maritime empire. In 476 AD, with the Germanic warrior Odoacer’s deposing of Emperor Romulus, the Western Ro-man Empire came to an end.63

The disappearance of Western Rome resulted in an eastward shift of eco-nomic weight. The east was urban, the west was rural. Alexandria, Ephesus and Gaza were developing. 150 years after the founding of New Rome, the political and ethnic geography of the Mediterranean had changed dramatically. The Byz-antine general Belisarios established sovereignty over Sicily and seized Naples, following Justinian I’s seizure of Carthage and the overthrow of the Vandal kingdom in 534 AD. The impact of Byzantium began to reach Genoa. The 540 AD plague in the Mediterranean also hit Constantinople. The city lost 30 per cent of its population. Justinian continued his expansion. He took control of the Cartegena region by sending troops to southern Spain. After the inclusion


63 For a classical account of the collapse of the Roman Empire, see: Edward Gibbon: Roma İmparatorluğu’nun Gerileyiş ve Çöküş Tarihi, Cilt.I,II,III, Bilim Felsefe Sanat Yayınları, İstanbul, 1987-1988.

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of Sardinia and the Balearic Islands under the Byzantine rule, Byzantium had taken an important step towards realizing the goal of re-establishing the Ro-man Empire. Anatolia encountered the Persian threat a second time. Sardis was destroyed by the Persians in 616 AD and could not be rebuilt. Pergamon shared the same fate. Mainland Greece suffered destruction under Slavic domination.64

Byzantium had been unable to reproduce the unity of ancient Rome’s by the 6th Century. They were not only threatened by the northern barbarians but a strong threat was also coming from the east. This threat came from not merely the Persians but, more importantly, from the newly assurgent Muslims. Muslim Arab armies had captured Syria and Egypt. The focus of the Arabian expansion was Iraq and Iran. They invaded North Africa and decisively razed Carthage. They built a new city in Tunisia. An Arab fleet defeated the Byzantine navy near Rhodes in 654 AD and Arab armies besieged Constantinople in 674 AD and 717AD. Islam, while breaking down the Mediterranean unity was lay-ing the foundations of a new association for a part of the Mediterranean. The Arab Berber armies’ invasion of Spain in 711 AD increased the self-confidence of the Muslim fleets. Byzantium lost most of their naval supremacy in the west of Sicily. In the 800s AD, seas in this region became very dangerous. The main aim of the Muslim fleets was to loot, including taking prisoners, rather than expansion of territory.

The Muslim advance in Europe was halted in 732 AD by the Franks’ victory in the Poitiers war. The main force facing them was Charlemagne and the Frank-ish army. Franks seized a large part of Italy in 751 AD. In 791 AD, they captured Istria on the Adriatic coast from the Byzantines. Byzantium saw the Adriatic as a line of defence. The disagreement between the Franks and Byzantium in-creased in 800 AD, when the Pope crowned Charlemagne as the King of the Holy Roman and German Empire. Among the Germanic tribes, only the Franks had converted to Catholicism. Charlemange managed to get the population that had settled in swampy areas and the lagoons of Piave, the Po and Adige rivers on his side. Byzantium sent a fleet in 807 AD and took back most of the lagoons. Venice was born out of the lagoons and the Adriatic war between Chalemagne and the Byzantium. The conflict with the Franks led the dispersed lagoon population to gather in a defendable group of islands protected by a long ‘lido’ from marine invaders and far enough from the coastline to deter land invaders. As Marseille declined, Venice became an innovative center for maintaining commercial and diplomatic relations with the Eastern Mediterranean. This city would play an


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important role in determining the fate of the Mediterranean in a later period.65

The expansion of Muslim dominance to include Morocco, Spain and finally Sicily turned the southern half of the Mediterranean into a Muslim lake which offered considerable opportunities. Since Muslims were barred from entering the ‘infidel’ lands, trade in the Mediterranean was realized through the Mus-lims’ opening up of their territories to Christian and Jewish merchants. The Arab invaders of Egypt set up their base in al-Fustat in the 7th Century. They then moved their headquarters near to the castle of New Cairo. Fustat became the center of the Jewish and Coptic population. Geniza documents discovered in a synagogue in Fustat revealed rich information about Fustat trade. Alli-ance marriages were taking place between the Jewish families of Fustat and Palermo. Merchants managed to improve the trade networks that connected the Mediterranean with Yemen and India. Eastern spices began to flow into the Mediterranean via Egypt. While flax from Egypt was sent to Sicily and Tunisia, sometimes silk arrived over from Spain and Sicily. In 969 AD, Cairo became the base of the Fatimid dynasty and the Caliphate moved there. Levant and the North African cities were revitalized. Only a few Italian cities used to send their ships to the Muslim ports. In this sense, Venice and Amalfi were exceptional. The Amalfians increased their wealth by remaining neutral in the conflict between Christians and Muslims.66

The rise of Pisa and Genoa in Italy is at least as interesting as the rise of Amalfi. These two cities had been successful in clearing the western Mediterra-nean from pirates and building trading colonies throughout the east, including the Holy Land, Egypt and Byzantium. Genoa’s natural wealth was limited. It was cut off from the grain-producing plains. The most favored products of the coastal lands were wine, chestnuts, herbs and olive oil. Except for shipbuild-ing, it was not an industrial center. After long centuries of improvements, its harbor became satisfactory by the late middle ages. In order for Genoa to sus-tain its economy, the Genoese had to be successful in trade. One of the most ambitious trade networks of the era was born from this need. The position of Pisa was different. The city, being placed a little inland from the sea on the two banks of the Arno River, lacked a good harbor. The city was closer to grain growing and sheep farming areas. Pisa was in a better position than Genoa in terms of feeding its citizens. But it was vulnerable to attacks from the Muslim pirates that came from strongholds in Tuscany, Provence and Sardinia. Pisa

65 Fredric C. Lane: Venice A Maritime Republic, The John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1973, pp. 1-8.


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and Genoa decided to clear the Tyrrhenian Sea from pirates. Because central au-thority in Italy was highly weakened, Genoa and Pisa formed their own navies. Power in these cities passed into the hands of local Patricis. In the early 12th Century, these began to organize themselves as city republics. Patricia created the commercial empires of Genoa and Pisa. Patricia did not want to share power with artisans and sailors. These cities evolved into oligarchic republics rather than democratic republics.67

Genoa, Pisa and Venice merchants behaved differently from the Amalfi mer-chants, who had been predominant during the previous period. They targeted a higher level of consumers, in the palaces and cities of southern Germany. They purchased Dutch wool fabrics from the Champagne markets. These three cities began to establish a commercial network spreading throughout Western Eu-rope, outside of the Mediterranean. Trade was beginning to change its nature. Steps were beginning to be taken towards a commercial revolution. Genoa, Pisa and Venice, after establishing their commercial hegemony, began to reverse the Muslim dominance in the Mediterranean. Venice cooperated with the Byzan-tines in 880 AD to liberate the Adriatic of Muslim pirates and earned conces-sions from Byzantium in return. The navy of Pisa carried out attacks on Muslim Palermo in 1063 AD and on the city of Mahdia on the Tunisian coast in 1078 AD. Following the Norman knights’ conquest of Sicily around 1060 AD, the Muslims lost their dominance in the Mediterranean by the end of the 11th Century.68

A new initiative to break Muslim control over the Mediterranean was launched by the Pope’s organization of Crusades in 1085.69 The Crusaders cap-tured Antioch in 1098 and Jerusalem in 1099. Muslim fleets were not able to resist the Christian navy. Settlements in Eastern Mediterranean fell to Pisans, Genoese and Venetians. The Byzantine Emperor, realizing that he could not survive without Venetian support, confirmed the concessions granted to Venice in 1126 AD. A quarter was set up in Constantinople’s Golden Horn for the Vene-tian merchants. This was a blow to the merchants of Amalfi and Geniza. Roger I completed the conquest of Sicily in 1091 AD. Norman rule was thus established in Sicily. Messina became the main port of call that connected Genoa and Pisa with Acre and Alexandria. After the transition of the Crusader County of Edes-sa to the Muslims, the Pope called for the Second Crusade. This campaign that occurred between 1147 and 1148 AD essentially targeted Byzantium. Roger I of



69 On this subject, see: P.M.Holt: Haçlılar Çağı 11.Yüzyıldan 1517’ye Yakındoğu, Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, İstanbul, 1999.

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Sicily tried to seize his opportunity and attacked Greece. He captured Tripoli and Mahdia in Tunisia. In 1127 AD, he also seized Malta. But after his death in 1154, Roger’s son could not maintain the unity of the Norman kingdom. Byz-antines invaded Sicily with the help of Apulia and Venice. William II (1166-1189 AD) managed to acquire wealth as the master of the grain growing lands of Sicily. An alliance developed between the Sicilian economy and the economies of Pisa, Genoa and Venice. He attacked Alexandria in 1074 AD. In 1185 AD he ad-vanced deep into Byzantium and occupied Thessoliniki, but could not hold this city. At the end of the 12th Century, Saladin had established dominance over Jerusalem, Syria and Egypt. When he defeated the Frankish forces and seized Acre, the Third Crusade was launched in 1189 AD. This was a mainly naval force campaign. Acre was taken back. This city had a critical importance for the Italian cities’ eastern trade. In Acre, Pisans, Genoese and Venetians had their autonomous quarters. Among these communities conflicts always occurred. By 1200 AD, the Sicilian kingdom had disintegrated and Sicilian waters had fallen under the control of Italian pirates.

When the Fourth Crusade was being planned in 1202 AD, Alexandria, the main power base of Saladin, was chosen as its main target. But the political crisis in Byzantium that occurred during the preparations led to the diversion of its destination to Constantinople, under Venetian guidance. Constantino-ple was invaded and looted in 1204 AD. Some artworks were taken to Venice. Among them were the four horses that were taken from the hippodrome and relocated to the Piazza San Marco.70 Byzantine princes from around various regions of Byzantium tried to organize resistance to Latin rule.

During the Latin Empire’s rule over Constantinople, Venetians dominat-ed the western Aegean and Constantinople. When Mihail Paleologos of Nicaea took back Constantinople and ended Latin rule there in 1261 AD, the situation changed. Paleologos granted the Genoese, who had supported his side in this battle, concessions to establish a Genoese colony in Constantinople and have access to the Black Sea in accordance with the Nifu Agreement of March 13, 1261.71 During the 57 years that Byzantian Emperors were away from Constanti-nople, Smyrna had gained importance as a commercial port. After their return to Constantinople, the Byzantines focused on the north, leaving Smyrna to the Genoese and Anatolia to Muslim control.

70 Frederic C.Lane: Ibid, p.41.

71 On this subject, see: G.I. Bratianu: Recherches Sur Le : Commerce Génois Dans La Mer Noire Au XIII Siècle, Librairie Orientaliste Paul Geuthner, 1929; David Abulafia: Op.Cit., pp.361-379.

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The first to sail to the Black Sea were the Genoese. However, the Byzantines granted similar concessions to the Venetians in 1268. Venetian – Genoese con-flict accelerated. The Genoese were based in Galata and established colonies along the southern coast of the Black Sea, including Amasra, Sinop, Amisos, Fatsa and Trabzon. They were involved in the slave, timber, grain, fish, wax, copper, soap and hemp trade. Trade on the northern coast of the Black Sea, on the other hand, was based on the concessions granted by the Golden Horde Khanate. On this coast, Tana was a Venetian colony and Kefe was a Genoese col-ony. The Genoese turned this port into the center of trade extending from Con-stantinople to beyond the Caspian Sea. In 1293, the contest between Venice and Genoa evolved into a six year long war. The Genoese won the war and extended their territory.72 After the Genoese seizure of control over Black Sea trade, the importance of Amisos and Trabzon increased. In this commercial improvement in the Black Sea, both the Italian city states and the concessions granted by the Mongolian Golden Horde played important roles.73

While the sovereignties in eastern Mediterranean were constantly being re-defined through conflicts, the western Mediterranean was not calm, either. In the early 13th Century, the Almohad dominance over the lands of Spain and Tunisia had also entered into a process of disintegration. Pisa and Genoa were competing to control the western Mediterranean. However, they were chal-lenged in the 13th Century by a union of cities consisting of Perpignan, Montpe-lier, Marseille and the island of Mallorca, which was rapidly gaining strength under Barcelona’s leadership and was supported by Jaime I, King of Aragon and the Count of Catalonia. By the late 13th Century, Catalan ships achieved a good reputation in terms of reliability. They were aiming to break the Ital-ian dominance over the spice trade with the east. However, since their power stemmed from relations that they had established in Tunisia and western Med-iterranean, they had to settle with their specialization in grain and the North African slave trade. During the Crusades, they became involved in the Acre command’s failed attempts to protect the coastal line of the Jerusalem King-dom. At the end of the Fifth Crusade between 1219 and 1221 AD, the Nile delta and Damietta were seized for a short time. French King Louis IX’s Damietta campaign of 1248 AD ended in disaster. Mameluks under the Ayyubid dynasty established sovereignty over Egypt and Syria in 1250 A.D. Mameluks eliminat-

72 Emel Kılıç:”Bir Ortaçağ Yerleşiminin İktisadi Yapısı Üzerine Bazı Değerlendirmeler: XIII-XV. Yüzyıllar Arasında Samsun”, Osman Köse (Editör): Tarih Boyunca Karadeniz Ticareti ve Canik, Canik Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, No.5, May 2013, pp.19-46.

73 On this subject, see: Mehmet Tezcan: ”Türk-Moğol HΑkimiyeti Döneminde Karadeniz’de Ticaret”, Tarih İncelemeleri Dergisi, Vol. XXIV, no.1, July 2009, pp.151-194.

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ed the Kingdom of Jarusalem in 1291 AD. With this event, the city of Acre lost its function as an international commercial center.74

As a commercial revolution was underway in 13th Century, a world economy was also emerging. The Mediterranean was connected to the world through three channels.75 One of those was the northern route connecting the Mediter-ranean from Genoa, Venice, Constantinople via Trabzon and Tabriz to Samar-kand and Asia through the ‘Silk Road’. The second channel, which can be named the middle route, was the ‘Spice Road’, beginning in Venice and going through Antioch, Aleppo, Baghdad and Basra, and from there connected to India. The third one, the Southern Route, started in Alexandria and continued through Cairo and the Red Sea to reach India via the Indian Ocean. The Mediterranean was linked closely to Asia but its connection with Europe was much weaker. Such a network of relations was not solely the result of the political forma-tion around the Mediterranean. The reorganization of trade routes beyond Asia with the rise of the Mongol Empire in the 13th Century also had some impact. Following the rise of the Mongols, a route to bring Asian silk to the Black Sea coast was opened. When this development concided with the transition in the Mediterranean, the northern route emerged.

The Fourth Period. The Mediterranean between the 13th and 16th Centuries: The Mediterranean that Created the Renaissance, became the World’s Commercial Center and Strived to Maintain its Central Position

The commercial revolution that occurred in the Mediterranean in the 13th Century facilitated the dynamics for the emergence of city states such as the republics of Pisa and Florence, the Genoa Republic, the Venetian Republic, the Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, the Duchy of Milan, the Duchy of Savoy, and the Papal Government. The effects of the commercial revolution and the innovative environment that emerged in Italy through the interactions of city states resulted in the birth of the Renaissance. The Mediterranean was rediscovering the idea that it had produced in Ancient Greece. The value given to humanity, which had become degraded during the Medieval Ages was re-established. In the humanist thinking which developed, belief in human capability and anthropocentrism was revived. The beauty of truth, the human ability to find the truth were emphasized. In this context the earth began to be seen as a place worthy of investigation, an outlook that facilitated the way

74 For the structure of trade in this period, see: W.Heyd: Yakın –Doğu Ticaret Tarihi, Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, Ankara, 1975.

75 On this subject, see: Şerafettin Turan: Türkiye-İtalya İlişkileri, Metis Yayınları, İstanbul, 1990.

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to geographical discoveries and enlightenment in Europe. This development would paradoxically lead to a process of decline in the Mediterranean vis a vis Europe in the next period.76

The Mediterranean, which had made significant advance throughout the commercial revolution was faced with a major black plague disaster during the mid-14th Century. Great plagues that had ceased to occur since the 8th Century began to reappear in this period. The plague, which the Mongols brought to Kefe, the Genoese base in Crimea, reached Constantinople in 1347, and from there it would spread to Gaza, Alexandria, Naples and Majorca by 1348. In this epidemic, a huge loss of lives was experienced. After this, the plague in the Mediterranean would reoccur at regular intervals. The plague could be con-tained finally after 1840.77

In the late 14th Century, sovereignty was divided among small powers around the Mediterranean. The big contest to control Mediterranean trade was taking place between Genoa and Venice. This competition developed into warfare from time to time. The main disagreement was about the control of transport from the Aegean to the Black Sea. The first war occurred between 1350 and 1355. During this war, Hungary captured the Dalmatian duchy from Venice. During the second war of 1378-1381, the Genoese burned villages along the Venice Lido and attacked Chioggia at the southern end of the lagoon in 1379. However, when Venice managed to withstand these attacks, the Genoese could not continue the siege and peace was made. Venice lost the island of Tenedos, conceded Genoese rights over Cyprus and recognized the Genoese role in the sugar trade. Venice sent their galleys to Beirut and Alexandria and maintained their central role in the Levant trade particularly in substances like spice. The Genoese with their round bodied ships sustained their specialization in the trade of more bulky goods, such as alum, cereals and dried fruit.78

The 15th Century witnessed the integration of the fragmented sovereignties of both the western and eastern Mediterranean and their becoming great pow-ers. Another significant event of the 15th Century was the commencement of the age of geographical explorations around the world’s oceans. The rising power in the western Mediterranean was the Catalans. In 1392, they invaded Sicily. Alphonso V took Naples in 1442. The capital of the Catalonia Aragon Kingdom,

76 For a classical work on this topic see: Jacob Burckhardt: İtalya’da Rönesans Kültürü,I.II,Maarif Vekaleti, İstanbul,1957-1958.

77 On this subject see, Daniel Panzac: Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda Veba (1700-1850),Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, İstanbul,1997.

78 David Abulafia: Op.Cit, pp.421-429.

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Barcelona, became the base of marine power and expansion. This naval power took control of the Belem Islands, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, southern Italy and Athens in the 15th Century. On these grounds, with the marriage of Aragon King Ferdinand II with the Castilian Queen Isabella I in 1469, the foundations of the Spanish Kingdom were laid. The overthrow of the Granada Emirate in 1492 marked the end of the last Muslim state in Spain. Following the fall of the Navarre Kingdom in 1512, the monarchies came together under a single King-dom of Spain in 1516.

While this integration was taking place in the west of the Mediterranean, in the east of the Mediterranean the Ottoman Empire was rising and integrating regional political dominance. The Ottoman state was essentially a land pow-er without an initial strategic goal over the sea. But Mehmed II’s conquest of Constantinople in 1453 was an important breaking moment. Mehmed II had brought in a navy to the siege of Istanbul. He had the vision of the revival of the Roman Empire under Muslim dominance. Reaching the Mediterranean was part of this vision. Mehmet II began to advance down the Adriatic coast capturing Valona and Scutari. The Ottomans also attacked the Venitian bases in the Aegean and captured Lemnos and Negroponte. But they maintained the Ve-netian trade concessions. The Ottomans wanted the Venetians to continue their business but did not accept their dominance at strategic locations. They wanted to keep control in their hands. Following the conquest of Trabzon in 1461 and after the death of Mehmed II, the Ottoman’s capture of Kili and Akgerman, the Black Sea became a Turkish lake.79 In fact, since 1453, the Galata based Black Sea trade of the Genoese had already been losing ground.

One of the most critical problems of the Ottomans regarding the aim of improv-ing their control over the Mediterranean was the Knights Hospitaller’s control over Rhodes and Halicarnassus. Mehmed II’s siege of Halicarnassus in 1480 was not successful. The Hospitallers continued to threaten Mediterranean trade.80 The Turks’ surprise move for the Catalans was the siege of Otranto in 1480. Mehmed II’s death in 1481 led to a decrease of the Ottoman threat towards Italy.

Realizing the impossibility of full control over all the ports on Adriatic coast, the Ottomans decided to facilitate the development of a city state where trade could be carried out between the Ottoman and the Christian worlds. The Ragusa-Dubrovnik Republic developed by taking the advantage of this aware-

79 Mustafa Daş Türkmen Töreli:”XIV ve XIX Yüzyıllarda Batılı Seyyahların Gözüyle Karadeniz Ticareti”, Osman Köse: Tarih Boyunca Karadeniz Ticareti ve Canik, Canik Belediyesi Kültür Yayınları, No.5, Mayıs 2013, pp. 843-852.

80 See. Nicolas Vatin: Rodos Şövalyeleri ve Osmanlılar, Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, İstanbul,2000.

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ness. This city was in a sense bound to exist dependent on Apulia. Ragusa sur-vived without wine and fruits thanks to wheat, olive oil and salted meat supplied by Apulia. The city specialized in weaving wool arriving from Italy and Spain.

As two great powers were emerging in the west and east of Mediterranean in the 15th Century, Italy’s leading innovative city states, Venice and Genoa, were struggling to keep their trade networks functioning. Because of this, they maintained respectful relations with the Sublime Porte. In Egypt, on the other hand, the Mamelukes wanted to have their say over the eastern Mediterranean. They invaded Cyprus in 1424-1426. As the Ottoman and Mameluke pressure increased in the western Mediterranean, the Genoese turned to the west. They began to purchase sugar from Sicily and Spain, and grain from Sicily and Mo-rocco. Turning to the west evolved into reaching the Atlantic Ocean: the Geno-ese crossed Gibraltar to reach Maderia in the 1420s and later sailed as far as the Azores, Canaries, Cape Verde and Sao Tomé. These were Portuguese settlements. But the capital and technology to supply these territories were provided by the Genoese. At this stage, the main aim of Portugal was to improve their influence in the Mediterranean rather than going to India. In the pre-Roman ages the major actors of the Mediterranean were city states. The Roman Empire intro-duced a different form of sovereignty. But now, in the 15th Century, city states were being born again in Italy.

At the end of the 15th Century, the initial results of the age of discovery began to bear fruit. In this, the Renaissance’s outlook on the world as a place to be discovered had an exceptional share. But it was the Portuguese Prince Henry the Navigator who laid down the institutional infrastructure of this movement. Henry gave the orders for geographical expeditions in 1412. In 1413, the expeditions to African coasts commenced. The input of this activity for Portugal would be the increase in the slave trade from 1434 onwards. In this move, the Ottomans’ control of both the spice and silk roads played a role. The Ottoman grip over the traditional trade routes could be held responsible for the alternative pursuits of the marine states. The initial explorers were Italian sailors. Of the sailors that discovered America, Christopher Columbus was Genoese and Amerigo Vespucci was Florentine. But Vasco de Gama who turned the Cape of Good Hope and reached Calcutta in 1498 and Magellan who travelled around the world in 1522 were Portuguese. Vasco da Gama’s voyage to India via southern Africa had an immediate impact on the Mediterranean. The first spice ships reached Lisbon in 1501. The Portuguese entered the Red Sea in

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1503.81 In 1504, Venetian ships could not find spice to purchase from Alexan-dria and Beirut.82 Ottomans wanted to cut the Portuguese connections of the Mediterranean trade with India. This project led to the Ottoman expansion in the south. Following Selim II’s conquest of Syria in 1516 and Egypt in 1517, the Suez fleet was formed by the Ottomans to challenge the Portuguese influence in the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The Suez fleet was partially successful, since, although the Portuguese influence was not totally eliminated, their dominance was limited to certain boundaries.

In the first two decades of the 16th Century, the Ottoman conquest of Syr-ia and Egypt turned the eastern Mediterranean into an ‘Ottoman Lake’. The most strategic threat to this dominance was the Knights Hospitaller rule over Rhodes. Suleiman the Magnificent took Rhodes in 1522.83 When Rhodes fell from the Knights’ grip, the forts of Halicarnassus, Aydos and Tahtalı and the islands of Kos and Symi also passed to Ottoman control.

Corsair activities increased dramatically in the Mediterranean after the 15th Century. For piracy to exist, a lively sea trade was required. The revolution in sea trade facilitated an environment for piracy to develop. The Barbarossa Brothers, who began piracy in the Aegean Sea in the early 16th Century, began to appear off the Maghreb coast after 1512. Following naval battles with the Spaniards in 1516 and 1517, they captured Ténes and Tlemcen in North Africa, thus taking Algeria under control.84 In order to balance Hayreddin Barboros-sa’s ascent in Algeria through raids around the Mediterranean, the Holy Rome Emperor Charles V gave Malta to the Knights Hospitaller in 1530, who had lost Rhodes.85 The two major political powers of the time, after establishing two corsair bases in Malta and Algeria where the conflict was at its peak continued their contest both at the level of two states and through proxy wars at the level of corsairs. 86

The power contest between Suleiman and Charles V was raging both on land and at sea. When the Sultan sent his troops to Hungary via Austria in 1532, he

81 Halil İnalcık:”The Ottoman State: Economy and Society,1300-1600”, Halil İnalcık, Donalt Quataert,An Economic and Social History of the Ottoman Empire 1300-1914,Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,1994,p.319.

82 Fernand Braudel: Op.Cit. pp.543-545.

83 On this subject see: Roger Crowley: İmparatorlukların Denizi Akdeniz, April Yayıncılık, Istanbul 2008.pp.17-43.

84 On this subject see: Fuad Carım: Cezayirde Türk’ler, Sanat Basımevi,1962.

85 Charles V of Habsburg dynasty was coronated as the King of Spain in 1516. He was declared the Holy Rome Emperor in 1519i.

86 Roger Crowley: Op.Cit., pp.45-72.

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did not meet significant resistance on land. But the same year, the navy com-manded by Andrea Doria, who went over to Charles V’s side, captured Koroni Fortress. The Sultan summoned Hayreddin Barbarossa to Istanbul from Alge-ria to work out a response to this move. Barbarossa, who entered the Golden Horn with fourteen galleons in summer of 1533, was declared Hayreddin Pa-sha, the 67 year old Admiral of the Ottoman Navy. In the winter, a huge fleet was built in the Ottoman shipyard, the largest of its time. In the summer of 1534, the Ottoman fleet was spreading fear around the Mediterranean. The Ot-toman shipyard continued to strengthen the naval force. The Ottomans were planning to ally with the French King François I against Charles V and launch a military expedition to Italy. Suleiman commenced an expedition to Valona on the Albanian coast in May 1537. Barbarossa, on the other hand, arrived on the Adriatic coast. During these years, he attacked the coast of Apulia, which was then in Spanish control, and took captives. He took, in the Aegean and Ionian Seas, the islands of Siros, Aegina, Ios, Paros, Tinos, Karpathos, Kasos and Naxos, and besieged Corfu. The Pontificate managed in 1538 to form a Holy League Navy by bringing together the Venetians, Genoese, Maltese and Spanish against the Ottoman menace. As the League’s fleet assembled around Corfu un-der the command of the Genoese Admiral Andrea Doria, Hayreddin was in Kos. He set sail with his fleet towards Preveza, capturing Kefalonia island on his way. When his fleet entered Preveza, it was already September. The artillery fire from the castle was keeping the Leaguse’s fleet away from the coast. The battle that took place on 28 September 1538 was won by Hayreddin Pasha. The Holy League collapsed and the Venetians had to sign a treaty conceding conditions imposed by the Ottomans in 1540.87

By the second half of the 16th Century, these two great powers were in strug-gle and the Ottomans turned towards the main Mediterranean islands. Malta was the major target. But they were defeated in Malta, and the Ottoman ad-vance towards the western Mediterranean was thus halted. Under these condi-tions, the Ottoman navy turned towards Chios, which was under Genoese rule, and Crete and Cyprus, which were under Venetian rule. In 1566, they managed to take Chios and Genoese forces left the island. In 1570, a 400 ship strong navy and 100,000 strong army headed to Cyprus. Nicosia and Famagusta fell and Cyprus was made an Ottoman province.88 The fall of Cyprus caused an uproar in Europe. The Papacy managed to assemble a new Holy League fleet consisting

87 Roger Crowley: Op.Cit., pp.89-98.

88 For details of this subject see: Ahmet C.Gazioğlu: Kıbrıs’ta Türkler 1570-1878, Kıbrıs Araştırma ve Yayın Merkezi, Lefkoşa, Aralık.2000.

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of the Venice, Genoa and Spanish Kingdom navies. On 7th October 1571, the Holy League and Ottoman navies clashed in Lepanto near Corinth. The Ottoman navy suffered a humiliating defeat. 89 Although the Ottomans renewed their fleet with-in a year, the idea of Turkish supremacy in the Mediterranean was gone forever.

The Mediterranean had found a way to contain the Portuguese influence. However, resisting British and Dutch dominance, countries which had become strong in the Ocean by the end of the 16th Century, would not be so easy. Un-like the Portuguese, the British aimed to seize control of trade on its existing routes, as opposed to diverting the trade routes. Until 1580s, the British trade with the East was conducted through the Venetian and Genoese merchants. In trade that they were directly involved in, they were using Ragusa and Venice vessels. The British organization for the direct seizure of this trade commenced with the launch of the Turkey Company, which would later, in 1592, assume the name Levant Company, on 11 September 1581 by Elizabeth I. After the defeat of the Spanish Armada by England in 1588, the realization of this project became easier.90

While the great powers of the Mediterranean were fighting among them-selves throughout the 16th Century, the importance of the Mediterranean had become greatly reduced vis a vis the world as a result of developments in the Ocean. Braudel’s estimate suggests that the total tonnage of war and merchant ships in the Mediterranean was somewhere between 300,000 to 350,000. In this account, Ottoman ships tonnage was 80,000, Spanish ships’ tonnage was 60,000, the city states of Venice, Genoa, Marseilles, Naples and Sicily 40,000 to 30,000 each, and a capacity of around 10,000 tons was assumed for the cor-sairs.91 The total tonnage in the oceans, on the other hand, is estimated as 600,000 to 700,000. When the maritime capacity in the oceans doubled that of the Mediterranean, it was no longer possible to keep this capacity away from the Mediterranean.

The Fifth Period: the Mediterranean Falling under Imperialist Con-trol between the 17th Century and the End of the World War II

The main aspect of this period that distinguished it from others was the transition of control from native powers to foreign powers. The native pow-ers were able to establish political supremacy after achieving military success. However, the powers that came from outside established their rule in a differ-ent fashion. They imposed their control by maintaining relations. The rule they

89 On this subject see: Fredric C. Lane: Op.Cit., pp.369-374.

90 Halil İnalcık: Op.Cit. p.366.

91 Fernand Braudel: Op.Cit., p. 445.

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established was not merely military supremacy but a multi-faceted supremacy.

The innovative environment that the Italian city states created led to the Renaissance and to taking the first steps towards the scientific revolution of the 15th and 16th centuries; however, the leadership of the Enlightenment of the 17th Century and the industrial and technological revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries slipped from their hands into those of European states such as Brit-ain, France and Holland. In terms of the institutionalization and development of capitalism, the situation was similar. As capitalism developed and became institutionalized from the 16th Century to the 19th, the Mediterranean lost its exceptional status as the centre of innovation and turned into a place which had to adapt to innovations that were taking place elsewhere.

Of the two most innovative cities, Genoa played a different role than Venice in the process of the Mediterranean falling under the control of outside pow-ers. During the first half of the 16th Century, the silver that arrived from Amer-ica in large quantities used to flow to Sevilla, which was under Genoese control. This flow caused the strengthening of Genoese families such as the Grimaldi, Pinelli, Lomellini, Spinola and Doria families. These families were involved in the profitable business of managing Philip II’s finances. The financial power of the Genoese bankers caused a revival of Venice’s spice trade. The shift of the America-Europe silver flow from Seville to Amsterdam shook the Genoese bankers significantly. The emergence of Dutch hegemony resulted in a shift to the north in the world capitalist economy. Genoese bankers financed industri-al projects in France and Austria in the 17th and 18th centuries, although the profitability of these projects was diminishing. Their financial interests moved from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and North Sea. This contributed to the process of decline in the Mediterranean.92

The 17th Century was a turning moment in the Mediterranean. The Genoese attempts to revive the Levant trade had lost its significance for the merchants of the Atlantic Ocean, when compared to the commercial business opportuni-ties from the Netherlands to Brazil, from Britain to North America and to the East Indian islands, and from London to Moscow. Changes in the Mediterra-nean’s establishment of relations with the world were dictating which cities of the Mediterranean would gain or lose their importance. Cities of this new age derived their power no longer from the relations they had with other Mediter-ranean cities, but from the relations that the Atlantic merchants established with their cities.

92 Faruk Tabak: Op.Cit, pp. 12-19.

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The English began to establish supremacy in the beginning of the 17th Centu-ry through commercial relations. The Venetians and Medicis began to use ‘ber-toni’s, sailing ships with high decks. The Medicis were very pleased to employ English sailors. They also began to purchase gunpowder from Britain.

One of the rising cities of the 17th Century Mediterranean was Livorno in Italy. Livorno flourished by becoming the center of the Dutch network in the Mediterranean. The little ice age that the Mediterranean entered in 1550 led to an increase in Italy for the demand for grains. Dutch ships were bringing grain from the Baltic and rye was an important item among the grains. Italians were satisfied with rye brought from the north. When the famine hit northern Europe they gathered grain from the Aegean illegally. The Dutch interest was focused on the eastern Mediterranean, Aleppo, in particular. In Aleppo, there was a Dutch consul. The ships anchored in Iskenderun from where the goods were transported overland to Aleppo. In this trade, indigo and rhubarb were exceptionally important. Livorno carried out its trade in connections with Aleppo, Thessaloniki and Izmir.93

During the 15th and 16th centuries, Izmir’s economic life was quite stagnant. The fate of Izmir changed as a result of the concessions granted to the French in 1569 and to the English in 1580. While the Genoese and Venetian share in Izmir’s trade was declining, France, Britain, Netherlands and Austria began to replace them. The Levant Company of the British obtained concessions in 1581 and the Dutch got the same in 1612. In 1666, the French company was found-ed. These companies had a monopoly over trade. The Levant company chose Izmir as its base in Anatolia. In 1610, the English and French consulates moved from Chios to Izmir. As a result of the shift of the silk trade to Izmir with the end of the Safavi-Ottoman war, the improvement of agricultural production by the Karaosmanoğlu family, who dominated the Aegean, in line with European demand and the Ottomans’ deliberately flexible policies, by the late 17th Centu-ry Izmir had become the shining star of the Levant, attracting many Jewish, Greek, Armenian and Arab merchants.94

In this century, the Ottomans sustained their 16th Century strategy of the conquest of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean islands in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean. The only strategic island that was not under Ottoman control was Crete, which was ruled by the Venetians. When they decided that


94For details of this process, see. Daniel Goffman: İzmir ve Levanten Dünya 1550-1650, Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, İstanbul, 1995.

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conditions were ripe, the Ottomans launched their Crete expedition in 1645. Chania and Rethymno fell to Ottoman rule in the first year. The conquest of Kandiya, the capital of the island, was delayed until 1669. A lengthy war with land mines was fought, resulting in many casualties. The key to keeping the war going the war for both sides was to maintain supply lines from outside the island. For this, maritime transportation had to be sustained. The Ottomans hired English and Dutch ships for this purpose. While the Egyptian and Alge-rian navies helped the Ottomans, the Knights of Malta helped the Venetians. In 1667, following Köprülü Fazıl Ahmet Pasha’s arrival on the island, the de-fenders of Heraklion Castle were defeated. The subsequent treaty left the island fortresses of Suda, Granbosa and Spinalongo to the Venetians, but for the Ve-netians, the loss of Crete meant the loss of dominance in the Eastern Mediter-ranean. It could be said that the English did not give much importance to this war. The Turco-Venetian war did in a sense belong to the past. The English had different ways to establish control. 95 The change of possession of Crete did not change the island’s business. By 1751, all the trade fleet consisted of Muslimves-sels. The common language of the island was Greek and not Turkish.

After making peace with the Dutch in 1688 and defeating the Spanish and French in late 17th and early 18th centuries, the English had become the sole dominant power in India and North America. In 1707, England and Scotland united to form Great Britain. The British strategy in the Mediterranean went through a transformation. Great Britain began to search for permanent bases in the Mediterranean. The British took Gibraltar and Minorca with the Utrecht Treaty of 1717.

In the 18th Century, the Russians, taking the advantage of the power vacuum emerging in the Eastern Mediterranean from the weakening of the power of theVenetians and Ottomans, began to benefit from the capitulation privilag-es that had been given to England and France. They began to open consulates wherever they wanted. Their control in the Eastern Mediterranean increased. When the Ottomans were defeated by the Russians in their attempt to take back Crimea in 1787, they lost the lands between the Moldovia and Dniester rivers including the Ozimek and Odessa castles. Odessa developed as a commercial and industrial city in the hands of the Russians and became the base of their Mediterranean trade.

95 On this subject see: Ayşe Nükhet Adıyeke Nuri Adıyeke: Fethinden Kaybına Girit. Babıali Kültür Yayıncılığı, İstanbul, 2006.Ali Ekrem Erkal (Ed.): Ustazade Yunus Bey’in Girit Fethi Tarihi, Book I, İzmir, 2010.

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Towards the end of the 18th Century, Greeks increased their activities both in the Black Sea and in the eastern Mediterranean ports. In this, the Russians’ policy from 1779 onwards of encouraging the Ottoman Greeks to engage in trade in the Black Sea area under the Russian flag played a part. The Greeks, who had settled in Marseille, Genoa, Livorno, Naples, Trieste and Odessa, had already built an effective commercial network. In this network, Odessa, which had been taken by Russia, had an exceptional place. In 1802-1803, Odessa was importing, via Turkish, Russian and Austrian ships oil, wine and dried fruits from Greece, Italy and Spain, while exporting grain double in value compared to its imports. Odessa was also functioning as the intellectual center of the Greek nationalist movement.96

As the Russo-Turkish war continued, the French Revolution was taking place. After the revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte gained power during the first coalition as a hero and invaded Venice on 12 May 1797. In line with the principle of freedom of the French Revolution, Napoleon emancipated the Jews from their confinement in the ghettos and conquered many islands in the Ionian Sea. This practically put an end to the historical role of Venice in the Mediterranean. During the Directors’ rule, Napoleon was commissioned to invade the British mainland. But he criticized this mission, arguing that this strategy was wrong and that an indirect strategy was required against Britain which involved the invasion of Egypt to cut the British connection with the Indian trade. The Eu-ropean power that dominated Egypt would dominate India, too. Consequently, he landed in Egypt with a large fleet and troops on 19 May 1798. Napoleon took with him a large scientific delegation and printing machines capable of printing in French, Greek and Arabic.

While sailing towards Egypt, Napoleon first captured Malta, an island of strategic importance, on June 12, 1798. The French landed troops in Alexan-dria on July 1, 1798 without declaring war on the Ottoman Empire. In fact, although this attack occurred in Ottoman territory, it was part of a conflict between the emerging English colonial empire and the French colonial empire. Admiral Nelson went with his fleet to Abukir a month after the French landing and destroyed the entire French navy. The French forces were now trapped in Egypt. Upon this, Napoleon commenced the invasion of Egypt. He defeated the Ottoman forces defending Cairo and expanded the invasion further south. He was also initiating scientific research, which would lead to the birth of a scien-

96 Özlem Yıldız: “XIX Yüzyılda Karadeniz Ticaretinde Rumlar”,Osman Köse (Ed.),Tarih Boyunca Karadeniz Ticareti ve Canik, Canik Belediyesi, Kültür Yayınları, No.5, May 2013, pp. 963-972.

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tific discipline in later years to be known as ‘Egyptology’. It was impossible for the Ottomans to remain silent in the face of this fait accompli. The Russians and the British were ready to cooperate with the Ottomans against the French occupation. On September 2, 1798, the Ottoman Empire declared war on the French. It was realized by 1799 that the program of Napoleon’s Egypt expedi-tion was wider than initially thought. Napoleon championed, on the one hand, the protection of people from Mameluke oppression and declared his closeness to Islam, and on the other, he was advancing militarily towards the north. In February 1799, French troops headed towards Syria, capturing Al-Arish, Gaza and Jaffa. However, Napoleon faced fierce resistance from the Ottoman defend-ers of Acre commanded by Jezzar Ahmed Pasha and retreated to Egypt on May 20, 1799. He defeated the Ottoman army sent after him on 25 July 1799 but his supply line with France was still cut off. Napoleon was deserted by the main-land. He returned to Marseille in September 1799. General Kléber, who he left behind, signed treaties and evacuated Cairo in 1800 and Alexandria in 1801.97

During these battles, the Russian and Ottoman fleets had cleared the Ionian islands of the French. When the Russian navy was summoned by the Tzar to the Black Sea, they left these islands, and particularly Corfu, to the Ottomans. The British took Malta back.98 Although his Egypt expedition was defeated, Bonaparte’s aspirations on the English mainland had not faded away. During the 3rd Coalition, Admiral Nelson won the sea battle at the Cape Trafalgar of southern Spain against the French and Spanish navies on 21 October 1805. This meant the decisive end of Napoleon’s ambitions towards Britain, while mani-festing the supremacy of the British navy over the world’s oceans. Napoleon lost at sea, but on land he defeated the Russian and Austrian coalition forces at the battle of Austerlitz. The French renewed their navy in Toulon and seized Ra-gusa in 1808. When the Napoleonic Wars ended, Ragusa was given to Austrian Empire by the Congress of Vienna. In this new age, while Venice was declining, Ragusa was sharing the same fate. By 1815, the British had acquired the bases that they were aiming for in the Mediterranean. Malta, Corfu and Sicily were all in British hands.

After the first quarter of the 19th Century, the Mediterranean entered into a process of restructuration, which could be identified in three dimensions. The first dimension is the industrial revolution. Shipbuilding technology changed

97 On this subject see: Kamil Koçak: ”Mısır’ın Fransızlar Tarafından İşgali ve Tahliyesi (1798-1801)”, SAÜ Fen ve Edebiyat Dergisi, 2008-II, pp. 141-183.

98 For more detailed information see: Norman E. Saul: Russia and the Mediterranean 1797-1807, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970.

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dramatically. Iron/steel slabs replaced timber and steam engines replaced sails. Transport in the Mediterranean was becoming cheaper and safer, the time-dis-tance matrix in the Mediterranean was changing. In other words, the Medi-terranean was becoming smaller in terms of time.99 New forms of transport and trade imposed by industrial society required the restructuring of the port cities, not only for the ports in the industrialized countries but also for those ports which were engaged in commercial transactions with these countries. Large scale engineering projects had also become feasible with the industrial revolution, in parallel with developments in engineering knowledge and in-dustrial machinery. This developing capacity led to the opening of two major canals in the Mediterranean: the Suez Canal, the construction of which lasted a decade between 1859 to 1869, and the Corinth Canal which was constructed between 1881 and 1893. The Suez Canal was of strategic importance. Its open-ing meant a second approach to the world oceans after Gibraltar. Although this project was not economically profitable, it was very important in terms of the creation of a world colonial empire. India became directly accessible for England.

Secondly, the French Revolution led to the popularization of the idea of national sovereignty and the nation state was born. This development would reveal itself in two ways in the political restructuring of the Mediterranean area of the 19 th Century. The first was the states that emerged through the end of the city-states leading to the formation of unified nations. The city states that formed the innovative environment of the Mediterranean in the 15th and 16th centuries, had begun to lose their function in the 17 th and 18 th centuries and were occupied during the Napoleonic wars. The Congress of Vienna ruled in favour of the return of these states to the former kingdoms of the pre-French occupation era. However, this was no longer a sustainable solution after the French Revolution. The process led by the Piemonte prime minister Count Ca-vour and inspired by the Austrian intervention, was completed in 1871, leading to a unified Italy as a kingdom. The only important port that Austria kept after the Italian unity was Trieste. It was Austria’s base for access to the Mediterra-nean. With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, its significance as a transit port increased.

The second implication of the popularization of the idea of national sover-eignty was the emergence of national identity based state formation processes within the disintegrating empires that belonged to the pre-industrial age. There

99 For the consequences of this, see. Stanlet D.Brun&Thomas R.Leinbach (editors): Collapsing Space and Times, Harper Collins Academic, London, 1991.

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were two empires to which this condition applied: the Austrian Empire and the Ottoman Empire. Italian unification was completed through a break from the Austrian Empire. Breaking from the Ottoman Empire commenced with the recognition of Greece as an independent kingdom. An insurgency began in Mora in 1821. In the development of Greek nationalism, the success of Otto-man Greeks in commerce played an important role. The rising Greek mercantile bourgeoisie facilitated changes in the Orthodox Church to improve their say. The Greek community of traders in Odessa functioned as a focus for the devel-opment of Greek nationalism in the Ottoman Empire. After the hegemony of the merchants over the church, the church also began to play an effective role in the spread of Greek nationalism. 100 When the Ottomans were defeated in the recommenced Turco-Russian war in 1828-1829, they conceded Greece’s indepen-dence by the terms of the Edirne Treaty of 1829.

.It was still early for the north African territories that made up the south-ern shore of the Mediterranean to come under the influence of nationalist ide-ology. These lands were invaded by industrialized countries to be included into their colonial territories after seizing them from the Ottoman Empire. Here, a structure that emerged from the internal dynamics of Mediterranean coun-tries was not the case. This restructuring was imposed by the external dynam-ics of political forces from outside the Mediterranean. In the late 18th Century, the Americans began to enter into Mediterranean trade. They established re-lations with the Maghreb countries, through several commercial agreements. The real leader of Mediterranean trade of this time was the French. For the Brit-ish, the Mediterranean trade was now of secondary importance. The position that the Americans obtained in the Maghreb troubled the French. After failing to colonize Egypt, the French seized Ottoman Algeria, which was governed by Deys, in July 1830.

The 1830s became a major milestone in the opening up of the Black Sea to the great powers. The developments in the wake of the 1828-1829 Turco-Russian War began to draw British and French attention towards the Black Sea. When the British selected Trabzon as the base of their trade with Iran, the French immediately reopened their Trabzon consulate in 1830. 101 This interest grew with the Ottoman-British free trade agreement of 1838. Foreign traders would be able to enter directly into the domestic market without having to deal with protected native merchants. Trade pratices, which had been liberalized initial-

100 On this subject see: Herkül Milas: Yunan Ulusunun Doğuşu, İletişim Yayınları, İstanbul 1994.

101 Özgür Yılmaz:”Victor Fantainer’in Trabzon Konsolosluğu”, OTAM, Sayı.35, Bahar 2014, pp.153-195.

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ly for the British would be liberalized also for the French, Austrians, etc. The British began to open consulates in the important Black Sea ports. The Samsun consulate was opened in 1840. The British example was followed in the later years by Austria, Russia and France, whose companies began to operate ships and open consulates along the Black Sea.102

The Ottoman Empire, which had lost its military might by the second half of the 19th Century became a place of curiosity rather than a power to be feared. The first steps were taken towards a trend which would later be called Orien-talism. During this time, the East and the West were not perceived as being in irreconcilable opposition. The West was an exemplary model for the East. The Ottoman Sultan Mahmut II and the Governor of Egypt Muhammed Ali Pasha were trying to follow France and Britain’s lead. They saw themselves as part of the community of monarchs in Europe and the Mediterranean.

Following Napoleon’s withdrawal from Egypt, the Egypt Khedivate was es-tablished by Mohamed Ali Pasha in 1805. This was a government which was sovereign in domestic affairs but dependent in foreign affairs on the Ottoman Empire. It would be governed by the Kavalalı dynasty. Mohamed Ali Pasha implemented a comprehensive modernization program under the guidance of the Saint Simonians from France. He created a powerful army and launched an industrialization program by monopolizing trade, utilizing the cotton trade and improving state resources. He implemented educational reforms and pub-lished the first official gazette. Mohamed Ali’s modernization program influ-enced Mahmoud II, who also launched a similar program.

Mohamad Ali’s modernization continued after him. Projects for the construction of a canal to link the Mediterranean with the Red Sea were being worked on for some time. Ferdinand de Lessep, a Saint Simonian, obtained privileges in 1854 and 1856 for the construction of the Suez Canal. This French success troubled the British. In 1858, ‘The Compagnie Universelle du Canal Mar-itime de Suez’ was established to finance the project. French capital was mobi-lized by selling shares. A portion of the shares would be owned by the Egyptian government. Construction began in 1859 and the canal was opened to shipping after 11 years of construction. While the construction was continuing, Ismail Pasha was appointed as the governor of Egypt in 1863. In 1867, he assumed the title Khedive. Ismail Pasha assembled a parliament of representatives in 1866.

102 Özgür Yılmaz: “20 Yüzyılın Başlarında Samsun Limanı:Fransız Konsolosu H.de Cortanze’nin Raporlarına Göre”, Osman Köse (Editör),Tarih Boyunca Karadeniz Ticareti ve Canik, Canik Belediyesi, Kültür Yayınları, No.5, Mayıs,2013, pp. 963-972.

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During this time, an Egyptian Renaissance was being talked about to lead to the construction of an Egyptian identity.103

Khedive Ismail Pasha’s ambitious modernization program had become very costly. The Foreign debt of the Egypt Khedivate increased dramatically. Ismail Pasha was forced to sell the Egyptian shares to the British in 1875. 44 per cent of the company’s shares had thus passed to the British, while the majority of the shares were still owned by the French. Despite these measures, Egypt fell to a position of not being able to pay back its debt in 1876. Thereupon, UK and France established a debt administration (Ottoman Public Debt Administra-tion) to allocate half of Egypt’s revenue to the payment of debts. When Ismail Pasha resisted some of the practices of this administration, he was dismissed from his post by Sultan Abdulhamid II. The British would seize Egypt in 1882 following the Urabe uprising.

After the second half of the 19th Century, the determining mechanism of the imperialist powers’ control of the Mediterranean states and acquisition of new colonies had been capital relations rather than the relations of foreign trade. European countries located at the Atlantic coast began to give credits to Mediterranean governments, in order to maintain the profitibility of the ac-cumulated capital and to finance war and governance through infrastructural investments. When the debts became unreturnable in this process, opportuni-ties to seize the financial administration, and in some cases the lands of these states emerged. Crises in this order were experienced in Egypt (1876), Tunis (1869-1870), Turkey (1881), Serbia (1895), Greece (1898) and Morocco (1903).104

In 1878, the Ottomans left the administration of Cyprus to the British. When they entered the war, the British annexed the island. Greek independence was causing unrest in Crete like it was in Cyprus. The Greeks’ deployment of troops to the island in 1897 evolved into a Greek-Ottoman war, which Greece lost. But by the terms of the Istanbul treaty, which the great powers imposed, Crete was declared an autonomous state and hence went out of Ottoman control.105 France sent troops to Tunis after ensuring British approval in 1878. In 1883, the Emir of Tunis accepted the French protectorate. In the 1900’s Italian settlers began to go to Tunis. The late industrilized countries had a demand for new colonies. The French and the British recognized Libya as a region of influence in 1902.

103 For more details see: Hayrettin Pınar: Tanzimat Döneminde İktidarın Sınırları Babıali ve Hıdiv İsmail, Kitap yayınevi, İstanbul, 2012.

104 On this subject see: Frederico Sturzeneger, Jeromin Zettlemeyer:” Debt Defaults and Lessons from a Decede of Crises” MIT Press, Cambridge, 2006.

105 Ayşe Nükhet Adıyeke Nuri Adıyeke: Op.Cit. pp. 219-230.

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Germans began investments in Libya. In 1911, The Italians sent 60,000 troops to invade Libya. During the consequent Ottoman-Italian war, Italy seized the Decodonese islands and Rhodes.106 In the 1912 treaty after the Balkan war, a large part of Macedonia with Thessaloniki, Kahalkidike, Kavala, South Epirus, Crete, Samos and Chios, and Lesbos and Limni were taken by Greece. When the World War I broke out, the early and late imperialist Powers had split North Africa between them. The western Aegean Sea and the islands had been seized by a newly emerging nation-state.

A power struggle was going on among the Great Powers at the beginning of the 20th Century. European states like Germany and Italy, who had lagged behind the others in accomplishing national unity and industrialization, were asking for a share in the distribution of colonies. This tension eventually evolved into the outbreak of World War I in 1914. The Mediterranean was not one of the major scenes of this war. The Entente forces of Britain and France had total dominance over the Mediterranean. The things that the Central Pow-ers could do in these circumstances were very limited. The only thing the Ger-mans could do was to conduct attacks with their U-boats (submarines). The most effective sea battle in the World War I took place in the Dardanelles. The Entente forces’ navy failed to cross the Straits to deliver aid to Russia. As a con-sequence, the October Revolution took place in Russia in 1917, which led Lenin to withdraw from the war with the Brest-Litsvok treaty. When World War I end-ed in November 1918, four major empires of the pre-war era, German, Russian, Austria-Hungary and the Ottman Empire, had collapsed. Three nation-states and a socialist state emerged on the lands that they had been on.

As new frontiers were being shaped in the aftermath of the World War I, post-war promises were made. The US President Wilson’s proposal to approach the peace treaties not from a perspective of punishment, but to establish the future peace had failed. Such treaties were laying the ground of new wars rather than bringing about peace. In fact, the southern coasts of the Medi-terranean had already been shared among the victors of World War I. In the post-war period, these countries would benefit from the disintegration of both the Austria-Hungary empire and of the Ottoman Empire. Italy’s gains from the disintegration of the Austria-Hungary Empire were Trieste, Trento and Bolzano. The real focus of the share out was the Ottman Empire. The interesting aspect of this disintegration was the presence of rich oil resources in the Middle Eastern

106 For a detailed study on this subject see: Ali Fuat Örenç: Yakındönem Tarihimizde Rodos ve Oniki Ada, Doğu Kütüphanesi, İstanbul.2006.

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lands previously under Ottman control. The English had done their research in this field. The Project of the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire was the Trea-ty of Sérves. The Empire’s lands were shared among Britain, France and Italy. In this division, East Anatolia was given to the Armenians and the Aegean region was given to Greece, which had taken much of the Dedecanese islands in the post-Balkan war period. This Project was challenged by the Turks through a na-tional liberation war which inflicted heavy losse on the Greek forces. In the end, the Republic of Turkey was born as a nation-state in the 1923 Lausanne Treaty.

In the new Mediterranean order that emerged after the World War I, Italy assumed an agressive role. Benito Mussolini, who was appointed as prime min-ister by the King in 1922, formed a fascist dictatorship. He declared the Mediter-ranean ‘Mare Nostrum’ in an attempt to revive the Roman Empire. He colonized Libya in 1930, which had already been left to Italy. In 1935 he initiated an unsuc-cesful campaign against Ethiopia. In 1936, Mussolini’s Italy invaded Majorca. Mussolini took an active role in support of the fascists in the Spanish Civil War.

The Sixth Period: The Formation of the Mediterranean of the Na-tion-States following the End of Colonialism in the aftermath of World War II and the Division of the Mediterranean of Nation-States into two by the European Union

When World War II began, the presence of Mussolini’s Italy among the Axis countries dragged the Mediterranean into the war. Italy invaded Albania, declared war against Greece and threatened the British presence in Egypt by landing troops in Libya, in parallel with its intentions declared prior to the war. When Italy’s ambitious offensives failed, the Germans invaded Serbia and Greece and put the Aegean Sea under control by means of the airborne invasion of Crete before launching the Barbarossa invasion. The Italian failure in Libya forced the Germans to land armored troops in North Africa under Rommel’s command. During the Second World War, the fact that Malta was under British rule was very important in terms of the threat that was posed to the supply routes of the Germans’ North Africa campaign. But the British had chosen Al-exandria as their base and built their headquarters in Cairo for their battles in the Mediterranean and North Africa.

In the new world order that emerged after the Second World War, the end of colonialism began with the outbreak of national liberation wars. The newly established United Nations system became a platform for recognition of the emerging nation-states. Two essential mechanisms can be observed in the Med-iterranean transition to the post-colonial era. The first was the UN’s granting of independence in 1946 to the ex-Ottoman ruled countries, which in the after-

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math of the World War I had been put under British and French mandates. In 1920, for Syria and Lebanon French mandates were declared, while Iraq, Tran-sjordan (Jordan) and Palestine became countries to be ruled by British man-date. Among these countries, Lebanon won its independence in 1943 and all the others except for Palestine were granted independence in 1946. It should not be thought that France and Britain willingly recognized these countries’ indepen-dence. These decisions were forced upon the colonial powers as consequences of the development of Arab nationalist movements under their mandates, after their emergence at the turn of the 19th Century.

The transition from these mandate administrations to independent nation states became a problem in Palestine, leading to the Arab-Israeli conflict as the major post-war conflict of the Middle East. Since 1870, Jews had been buying land in Palestine and settling on farms. The Zionist movement began with the publication of Austria-Hungarian writer Theodor Herzl’s work ‘Der Judensta-at’ (The Country of the Jews) in 1896. While the Jews enthusiastically alligned themselves with the humanist enlightenment view that would bring about equal rights and citizenship to all, antisemitism had also begun as a move-ment against the Jewish presence in Europe. In 1917, the British Government (Lord Balfour) promised an independent Israeli state in Palestine in return for Jewish support for the British in the approaching World War I. Because of this, when the British mandate was declared in Palestine in 1920, the Jews’ had high expectations. They continued to settle in Palestine. In return, the Arabs attacked the settlers in 1921 and 1929. In 1933, when Hitler who took power in Germany, intensified his antisemitic policies, Jewish migration to Palestine in-creased, leading to an Arabic insurrection between 1936 and 1939. The British, who did not want to deal with a local uprising in the approaching World War II, took the initiative and formed two separate regions, giving the administra-tion to a commission under British control. In 1939, they restricted the annual migration numbers and in 1940, Jewish possession of land in 95% of Palestine was prohibited. After the war, the British handed their responsibility on these issues over to the UN. In 1947, the UN proposed the establishment of two states in Palestine, one Arab and one Jewish. In 1948, Ben Gurion declared the estab-lishment of the State of Israel based on this decision. Immediately after the proclamation of Israel, the states of the Arab Union, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq, declared war. Israel’s success in the war led to an increase in its share in the division plan from 56% to 78%. Following this war, Israel received large number of immigrants from the surrounding countries. With the creation of Israel in Palestine, the essential contradiction that would determine the politi-cal developments of the Middle East for a long time was also created.

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The second road to the birth of nation states emerged through the results of the national liberation wars that were waged against the colonial powers in the countries of North Africa. Strong political movements developed against the British rule in the most politically enlightened of these counties, Egypt. On 28 February 1922, Egypt had been unilaterally declared a monarchy and the Khedive family became the rulers. However, this did not mean the removal of the British from Egypt. A conflict between the Wafd Party, which wanted to overthrow the king and seize domestic power, and the kingdom was ongoing. In 1936, the British agreed to withdraw from Egypt on the condition that con-trol of the Suez would remain with them. But the beginning of the World War II prevented the British from keeping this promise. Instead, they sent troops to Egypt and made it one of the command headquarters of the war. After the war, Britain did not take any steps towards leaving Egypt. It was very difficult for the developing Arab nationalism to accept the inclusion of Egypt in the countries that had lost the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. Consequently, the ‘Free Offi-cers’ movement under Colonel Gamal Abdul Nasser’s lead began to flourish in opposition to the British presence in Egypt. King Farouk was overthrown in a military coup by the Free Officers held on 23 July 1952 under General Necip’s leadership. However, the real power was in the hands of the ‘Revolutionary Command Council’ controlled by Nasser. First, the political parties were out-lawed. In June 1953, Egypt was proclaimed a republic. The Republic signed an agreement with the British for the latter’s withdrawal from the Suez Canal. A constitution based on single party rule was put into effect in January 1956 and Gamal Abdel Nasser was elected President. 107

After the World War II, a world peace could not be achieved within the UN system. Instead, a cold war commenced in 1947 between the US led Western Bloc and the Soviet Union led Socialist Bloc. In this context, NATO became the military power of the Western Bloc. In 1952, Greece and Turkey joined this organization. The American 6th fleet emerged as the dominant power of the Mediterranean.

Countries that remained out of both these camps began to form the Non-Al-liance Movement. Indian Prime Minister Nehru, Yugoslavian President Tito and Egyptian leader Gamal Abdul Nasser came to the fore in this movement when they declared their intention to play a role in world politics in the Band-ung Conference of 1955. The fact that two leaders of the Non-Allignment Move-ment were from the Mediterranean could be seen as indication of the scale of

107 For this story see. M.Hasaneyn Heykel: Kahire Dosyası.

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the tension that the Mediterranean was under during the cold war. Nasser was trying to pursue a balanced policy by being on good terms with the US in or-der to strengthen his army against Israel. Nasser believed, like other military leaders of his time, that an authoritarian leadership was capable of mobilizing popular masses towards Arab social values as opposed to Islamic norms in a secular/nationalist program aiming modernization and industrialization.108 He viewed the construction of the Aswan Dam in his country as the most im-portant aspect of his program. He could not receive the support that he ex-pected from the US and the UK for this project and upon this he decided to nationalize the Suez Canal on July 26, 1956. British, French and Israeli forces commenced a joint operation against this decision. On October 29, 1956, the Israeli army began the invasion of the Sinai Peninsula in a preemptive strike. Britain and France proposed to send troops to the region to prevent war. Nasser refused this proposal which led to British and French paratroopers landing on the Canal. But both the US and the USSR opposed this military operation and the British, French and Israeli forces had to withdraw from Egypt. This affair exposed the limits of the former colonial powers Britain and France. Although he lost the war on the ground, the political success that Egypt achieved in the aftermath led to the rise of Nasser’s prestige throughout the Middle East, rais-ing him to the position of a pan-Arab leader.

Border skirmishes that commenced in 1967 with Israelis’ plowing up unused agricultural areas on the Golan Heights escalated with Egypt’s blockade of the Tiran Straits in the Red Sea to prevent shipments of strategic materials to Is-rael. In the end, the third Arab-Israel war commenced with Israel’s offensive on June 5, 1967 and lasted for six days. Egypt, Syria and Jordan were directly involved in the war. Israel initially destroyed the Egyptian Air Force with an air raid and then took the Golan Heights from Syria, invaded the Gaza strip and West Bank of Palestine and occupied East Jerusalem declaring that Jeru-salem would be Israel’s capital for eternity. Egypt, on the other side, managed to invade theSinai peninsula and after the war, while withdrawing from Sinai, they declared the annexation of other territories. Defeat in this war caused an important loss of respect for Nasser. He would not be able to repair this loss even with the completion of Aswan Dam with Soviet Union aid in 1968.

Despite Italy’s defeat in World War II, Libya did not immediately gain in-dependence, but was brought under joint British and French rule in 1945. The UN decided in 1949 that Libya should be independent and recognized it as an

108 On this subject see: Robert Mabro: The Egyptian Economy 1952-1972, Clarendon Press. Oxford, 1974.

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independent kingdom in 1951. In 1969, young officers influenced by Nasser and led by Colonel Muammer Gaddafi overthrew King Idris in 1969. At the time, socialism had an important place in Nasser’s ideology. Gaddafi was trying to build a kind of utopic society along the thought lines of socialism and Islam. The increase in the Libyan oil income from 1959 onwards and the small popu-lation of the country provided suitable grounds for Gaddafi to put his ‘Green Revolution’ utopia in practice. Relying on the realization of such a utopia was laying the grounds for the legitimization of his authoritarian one man rule and for a challenge to the United States’ claims of world domination.

The course of events in Egypt provided a virtual blueprint for the other North African colonies’ transition to independence. Tunisia had been invaded by France in 1881. World War I did not bring about any change in Tunisia’s status. Tunisian intellectuals educated in France also took the idea of indepen-dence back to Tunisia. Habib Bourguiba was one of them. He was imprisoned by the French in 1934, after forming a party advocating independence. He escaped from prison and settled in North Africa. Upon the intensification of nationalist violence in 1952, the French made a deal with Habib Burgiba and recognized the in-dependence of Tunisia in 1956. Habib Burgiba was elected as the President in 1957.

The toughest of the national liberation struggles in North Africa took place in Algeria. Algeria’s economy, which came under French rule in 1830, was very much integrated into the French economy. Many French people settled in French Algeria and consequently, Algerian independence after World War II was a painful process. Algerian troops, like other colonies’ soldiers, had fought in various battles during World War II. The end of the war celebrations turned into a huge massacre. When it became clear that France would not give up Algeria, various independence movements began to develop. In the night of October 31, 1954 a widespread insurrection commenced. French outposts and barracks were burned. At the same time, the launch of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) was proclaimed. This front also had a national liberation army. Algerian workers employed in France provided this movement with financial support and the French left supported them. The French government, on the other hand, declared that Algeria was part of France, it could not be separated from France and that they would fight for this. France had a large 1,700,000 strong army in Algeria. They engaged in systematic torture to stop the insurgents. The head of the French Intelligence in Algeria audaciously stated, in an interview with Le Monde, his pride about torture that he personally inflicted on members of the FLN leadership. The French imprisoned 2.5 million Algerians in concentration camps and destroyed 8,000 insurgent villages. The number of Algerian deaths in this conflict between 1954 and 1962 was estimated to be one million. The

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French military in Algeria and French settlers (blacklegs) seized power on May 13, 1958. To get France out of this mess, De Gaulle was elected as Prime Minister on June 1, 1958. Following negotiations with the FLN an agreement was reached on March 18, 1962 and after a referendum held on July 1, 1962, Algeria achieved its independence.

By this time, two islands remained in the Mediterranean waiting for the end of colonialism. The first of these was Malta, which was granted partial inde-pendence with a constitution adopted in 1947. It would be sovereign in internal affairs and dependent on the British government in international affairs. Fol-lowing the London Conference of 1963, Malta was granted independence within the British Commonwealth on September 21, 1964. In 1965, it became a member of the European Council and then became a republic on December 13, 1974. However, the Maltese began to consider themselves truly independent only af-ter the final closure of the British bases on March 31, 1979.

The road to the liberation of Cyprus from British colonial rule took place in a more complex process. With the Lausanne Treaty, Turkey had recognized the Brit-ish decision to unilaterally annex Cyprus. After 1925, Cyprus had the status of a colony of the British throne. Cyprus managed to stay out of the battles of the World War II. Despite the post-war British governor-general’s suggestions to increase the participation of the local population in government in 1947, the Greeks of the is-land did not collaborate. They demanded Enosis. Greece controlled almost all of the Aegean islands. After World War II, the islands of Rhodes and the Dodecanese had passed from Italian to Greek rule. Greece wanted to include Cyprus in this ex-pansionist strategy. In 1955 Colonel Grivas from Greece came to the island to form the National Organization of Cypriot Struggle (EOKA) and launched a campaign of violence. The British did not want to leave this island of high strategic importance to the Greeks. In 1956, the British began to champion the thesis of division by ar-guing that the right to self-determination could not be experienced unilaterally by the Greek population because the Turkish population also had the right to self de-termination. Dr. Fazil Kucuk was organizing the Turkish part of the island around the notion of division. Parallel to this was the creation of greater awareness of this issue in Turkey. ‘Either Division or Death’ demonstrations were held. Between 1955 and 1958, Turks moved out of 33 mixed villages. In a sense, de facto division had begun to happen. When it became clear that Greece would fail to achieve uni-lateral self determination, the Zurich agreement was signed between Turkey and Greece. This agreement was based on the principles of Cyprus’ independence, the partnership of the two communities, autonomy in the social sphere and putting the agreement reached under the guarantorship of Turkey, Greece and Britain. Fol-lowing the participation of Britain and community leaders in London Conference, the

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State of Cyprus the State was officially declared on 16 August 1960. With the London Agreement, Britain secured protection for its bases in Akotiri and Dhekelia.

Cyprus ceased to be a colony but the ‘Enosis’ aspirations of the Greek side had not disappeared. Clashes continued against fait accompli moves made in this regard. In 1964 Nicosia was divided into two by a ceasefire line. The UN sent a peacekeeping force to the island. 103 Turkish villages were evacuated and the Turkish rural population was trapped in some enclaves that made up 3 percent of the island. The junta regime that was established with the military coup in Greece in 1967 became engaged in more active attempts to achieve Eno-sis. Finally, a coup was carried out on July 15, 1974 that aimed to join the island with Greece and thus achieve Enosis. Upon this, Turkey, relying on its powers as a guarantor state, carried out a military intervention on the island on July 20, 1974. After this date, the island was divided into two as a Turkish Cypriot side and a Greek Cypriot side. When the negotiations to draft a new Cyprus constitution failed, the Turkish side declared the establishment of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus on November 15, 1983.

In 1974, when Turkey intervened in Cyprus, was also the year when the first global oil crisis erupted. In the 20th Century, when oil started to be used in internal combustion engines, the demand for oil dramatically increased, new oil resources were discovered, oil production steadily increased with the introduction of new refineries and contest over the control of oil resources was heightened. The fragile balance was broken with the fourth Arab-Israeli War in 1973. Egypt, Syria and Jordan, who had been defeated in the 1967 war, after fail-ing to obtain compensation through international negotiations, decided to take up arms. They strengthened their armies by improving their relations with Russia. Egypt and Syria planned a concerted attack on Israel and started the war on 6 October 1973. Lebanon and Jordan decided not to get involved in this war. Israel initially assembled their forces on the Syrian front, and after win-ning the war on this front, Israeli forces gathered in Egypt. When two Israeli divisions crossed the Suez Canal, the UN stepped in and achieved a ceasefire on 26 October 1973. US support played an important role in Israel’s success in this war. Against this collaboration, the Organization of Oil Producing Arab Coun-tries declared on 17 October 1973 that they would not export oil to countries that supported Israel. This resolution had another effect. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) decided to increase oil prices. Oil prices saw a four-fold increase. On March 17, 1974, the Arab countries except Libya lifted the embargo. The stock market crisis ended in December. This increase led to very important long term consequences. Oil producing countries on and around the Mediterranean coast undertook ambitious development plans and

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infrastructural investments, due to their increasing oil incomes. Increasing petroleum prices made the use of resources in the Soviet Union economically feasible and the Soviet Union became an oil exporting country. New technol-ogies and energy saving plans were launched. One of the first examples of this was the introduction of the new Italian designed Volkswagen Golf in 1974. OPEC countries imposed an oil price rise of 150 per cent in 1979. The increase of oil income flowing into the Middle East initially caused optimism in these coun-tries. Large projects were launched and an economic recovery was experienced. However, the dictatorships in these countries led to the diversion of this money to arms and irredentist projects. At the end of the day, increasing resources resulted in war rather than welfare in the hands of dictators. Following the second petroleum shock, Saddam Hussein started the Iraq-Iran war which last-ed from 1980 to 1988. When Iraq suffered heavy losses and became burdened with a huge foreign debt, Saddam invaded Kuwait on 2 August 1990, in order to escape from this bottleneck. This invasion marked the beginning of two succes-sive Gulf Wars. Iraq came out of these wars almost completely destroyed. This story is an interesting example of how a huge oil income could lead to disasters in the hands of dictatorships.

While on the southern coast of the Mediterranean and on its islands, the emer-gence of post-colonial nation-states was being experienced, countries on its northern coast were involved in processes of transcending nation-states. Following the World War II that caused 60 million deaths, European leaders started thinking about how to establish a peaceful world. Nation-state ideology was provoking war. Germany and France had been engaged in three great wars between 1870 and 1945. The solution seemed to be the formation of a United States of Europe. The first step taken towards this end was the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 by six countries. Starting from there, the political unification of Europe was intended. In 1953, a project was introduced to bring about this political union. In 1954, it was understood that this plan would not be approved by some countries’ parliaments and a gradual road to unity was adapted. Initially, an economic common market would be formed to evolve in time into a political union by improving trust among the partici-pants. On March 27, 1957 the European Economic Community was launched with the signing of the Treaty of Rome. Belgium, the Federal Republic of Germany, France, It-aly, Luxemburg and the Netherlands became the common market on January 1, 1958. In 1959, Greece and Turkey also applied for membership of the EEC.109

109 On this subject see: İlhan Tekeli Selim ilkin: Türkiye ve Avrupa Topluluğu I, Ümit Yayıncılık, Ankara, 1993; and İlhan Tekeli Selim İlkin: Türkiye ve Avrupa Topluluğu II, Ümit Yayıncılık, Ankara, 1993.

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The basic strategy of the EEC towards a political unity could be observed as creating pressure for deepening cooperation through enlargement. Upon the success of the EEC, UK, Ireland and Denmark applied for membership. Despite the British application’s refusal twice by France’s veto, these three countries be-came EEC members in 1973. At the outset the EEC included two countries from the north of Mediterranean. In the second enlargement during the 1980s, more Mediterranean countries were included in the list: Greece in 1981, Portugal and Spain in 1986. Then, a slowdown in the functioning of the system occurred and in order to increase the efficiency of the system, the Single European Act was signed on 17 February 1986. This Act led to arrangements to improve the inte-gration of 12 EEC countries. The achievement of the quality of political unity took place with the Maastrict Treaty of 1 Novemeber 1993. This treaty opened up the road to monetary union to be completed by 1999, the development of European citizenship, a common foreign policy, and developing common pol-icies of cooperation regarding security, justice and internal affairs. With the third enlargement of 1995, Austria, Finland and Sweden joined the EEC. On 1 January 2002, the Euro was introduced as the common currency of 12 member countries.

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989-1990 created a domino effect in the com-munist regimes of Eastern Europe. With the disintegration of the Socialist Bloc, the European Union admitted ten new countries (Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia) in 2004 as if fulfilling a duty. The number of EU member countries has reached to 28 with the inclusion of Bulgaria and Romania in 2007 and Croatia in 2013. Nine of the member countries are Mediterranean countries. The admission of most of the countries of the northern Mediterranean into the EU accelerat-ed the diversification of the southern Mediterranean countries. The Barcelona process which determined the European policies on this subject proved to be ineffective for tackling this issue. The migration that this inequality has been creating from the south to the north of the Mediterranean has been systemati-cally blocked by harsh measures taken by the EU. The positioning of the north-ern shore of the Mediterranean inside the EU secures the institutionalization of democracy in these countries and stabilizes their prosperity, thus prevent-ing political adventures.

As the Mediterranean becomes politically divided and differentiated, the only activity that provides new grounds of unity seems to be the development of tourism and the global expansion of the Mediterranean cuisine in parallel with this development. Tourism and its organizational structures were closely linked to the industrial revolution and its development began in the second half

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of the 19th Century. The first travel company was Thomas Cook. The British con-nection was evident in the names of early touristic sites such as Promenade des Anglais, Hotel Bristol, Hotel London, etc. The Mediterranean has always attracted touristic activities and sets the first examples of cruise ship management. But it is after the World War II that the Mediterranean basin made a leap forward in tourism activities. In this development many factors played important roles, such as increasing welfare, the institutionalization of paid vacation times, the expansion of TV, improvements in air transport, particularly with the inven-tion of more efficient aircraft from 1960 onwards, the expansion of the use of travelers checks and plastic cards, which facilitate payments, and so on. These developments facilitated the transition to mass tourism. Tour organizations and package holiday offers made tourist services cheaper and more accessible, which led to more participation by the world’s population in tourist traffic. The 19th Century travels, which were essentially an elite activity was replaced by mass tourism, which appeals to middle classes and even lower income levels.

The Mediterranean, as expected, benefited from this worldwide tourism boom, given its suitable climate and sea, proximity to industrialized countries and its rich historical experience as outlined throughout this work. All coun-ties of the Mediterranean benefit from tourism although the countries of its northern shore have obtained a greater share. With these tourism activities, the Mediterranean cuisine with its olive oil-based dishes has also made a global breakthrough. Italian cuisine has taken the lead in this context through its success in spreading throughout the world.110 In this expansion, the realiza-tion of the medical benefits of olive oil in a healthy diet has been as effective as the worldwide popularization of ethnic cuisines.

IV. CONCLUSION

I have come to the end of this article. We have seen how the Mediterranean in its 10,000-year history has played a central role in the development of world civilization and how it has faded away, to reiterate Faruk Tabak’s metaphor. In this fading away, the shift outside of the focus of development from the Med-iterranean has been important. The said focus of development had originally been generated by the Mediterranean itself. Contemporarily, the Mediterra-nean has been in a stage of its history, when it unprecedentedly lags behind in the global civilization contest. In the determination of the Mediterranean’s future orientation, a development originating from its indigenous dynamics

110 On this subject, see: Özlem Sert : Aktif ve Demokratik Bir Yerel Yönetim Olarak İzmir İçin Bir Kimlik Politikası,İzmir Büyükşehir Belediyesi için yapılmış bir çalışma, 2011.

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should not be expected to play a decisive role in our contemporary globalized world. The main hope of generating development for the Mediterranean is the world’s transformation from a unipolar to a multipolar structure, in the con-temporary age of transition from an industrial society to an information so-ciety. It is impossible for the Mediterranean to reclaim its historical position of being the world’s sole focus of development. However, it could be seen as a realistic goal for the Mediterranean to become one of these foci in the new multi-focused world. In this sense, its natural orientation, climate, the high degree of its accessibility, etc. gives it many advantages. The main reason for the Mediterranean’s inability to provide a performance sufficient to initiate such a dynamic is the fragmentation of sovereignty into nation-states. I believe that the preconditions for the Mediterranean countries to improve their perfor-mance in this regard will not occur unless the world reaches the phase of the establishment of a cosmopolitan world order.

hıstory, culture and polıtıcs ın the medıterranean

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