Introduction

This chapter introduces the themes and arguments of the book. In particular, it explains the benefits of adopting a holistic approach to the history of the river basin that acknowledges its cultural, physical, and biological unity. Treating the Tigris and Euphrates as a continuous whole brings to light the magnitude and significance of river flow that fostered contacts between upstream and downstream regions. Beyond facilitating communication, the twin rivers formed the backbone of the early modern Ottoman economy in the region by supporting complementary subsistence strategies, such as irrigation agriculture, animal husbandry, and wetland exploitation. In addition to the themes and arguments, this chapter offers a brief introduction to the history of the Ottoman Empire and the ecology of the Tigris-Euphrates basin.

Arable Lands

This chapter reconstructs Ottoman irrigation policies in the Tigris-Euphrates alluvial plain. Numerous considerations shaped the Ottoman management of irrigation agriculture in the region. The state’s active support for agricultural development, for instance, was tied to Ottoman concepts of upholding precedent and justice. On the other hand, the ecology and location of the Tigris and Euphrates within the empire restrained whatever agricultural investment the Ottoman state desired to make in the region. Istanbul balanced those cultural, political, and environmental considerations to maintain a hybrid irrigation landscape, largely small in scale and local in character, but with a few giant canals that were administered directly by Ottoman imperial authorities.

Shipyards

This chapter provides a history of the Ottoman naval fleet in the Tigris-Euphrates basin, referred to as the Shatt River Fleet in Ottoman bureaucratic parlance. In the sixteenth century, the Ottomans established two shipyards at the two ends of the river basin—Birecik in the north and Basra in the south. Both shipyards became the administrative centers for the Ottoman navy operating on the Tigris and Euphrates. Boats of the Shatt River Fleet were fitted with light cannon pieces and played a combat and support role in Ottoman military operations. They cooperated with land forces based in the fortresses to strengthen the Ottoman presence along the eastern frontier. While the literature on naval warfare in the early modern Military Revolution has largely focused on developments taking place at sea, this chapter shows how the Ottoman Empire adapted the latest naval technologies to a fluvial landscape.

Havoc

This chapter recounts a dramatic turning point in the Ottoman Empire’s relationship to the Tigris and Euphrates. In the late seventeenth century, a prolonged drought event and a botched canal project triggered an abrupt shift in the Euphrates’ channel southwest of Baghdad. Beset by plague outbreaks and rural uprisings, the Ottoman provincial administration could not mount an effective response to deal with the chaos unleashed by the channel shift. The Ottoman imperial center, on the other hand, was preoccupied with a prolonged war on its western front. An engineering expedition dispatched from Istanbul in late 1701 came too late to restore the Euphrates to its original bed. The Ottoman Empire had to come to terms with the new fluvial landscape.

After the Flood

This chapter documents the long-term consequences of the Euphrates’ channel shift that occurred in the late seventeenth century. The rural order established by the Ottoman administration from the sixteenth century unraveled. The herders’ associations sponsored by the state disintegrated and gave way to assertive tribal confederations that regularly clashed with Ottoman authorities. To restore order, Istanbul empowered the governor of Baghdad Hasan Pasha, who fulfilled his mandate while pursuing his own personal agenda. He established a household that transformed into a provincial dynasty called the Pashalik of Baghdad, in control of the most important positions in the Ottoman provincial government. By the end of the eighteenth century, this trend toward provincial autonomy would place the most critical stretches of the Tigris and Euphrates under the command of Baghdad, which made the most important decisions related to navigation and irrigation.

Grasslands

This chapter details Ottoman policies to regulate the exploitation of grasslands in the Tigris-Euphrates alluvial plain. The flow regime of the Tigris and Euphrates created extensive pastures that made the alluvium a major destination for pastoral groups, particularly during the harsh summer season. The Ottoman state regulated this lucrative pastoral economy by establishing herders’ associations, such as the Ahşamat, the Qara Ulus, and Qara’ul. This policy of social aggregation facilitated the monitoring, counting, and taxation of a mobile population that was difficult to control. The chapter demonstrates that mobile pastoralism was instrumental in Ottoman economic and political expansion into the challenging, peripheral environment of Iraq.

Wetlands

This chapter focuses on Ottoman policies to manage the exploitation of wetlands in the Tigris-Euphrates alluvial plain. In the early modern period, ever-more powerful empires engaged in ambitious wetland drainage projects in the name of improvement. This chapter offers a counterexample of an empire that used its bureaucratic and financial capabilities to benefit from the exploitation of wetland resources. The Ottoman administration paid particular attention to the cultivation of rice and the husbandry of water buffalo. Both productive activities became major sources of revenue for the state, and their sustenance depended on the ecological integrity of the Tigris-Euphrates marshes.

Conclusion

This chapter summarizes the Ottoman experience in the Tigris-Euphrates basin during the early modern period and what has happened ever since. After deposing the Pashalik of Baghdad in 1831, the Ottoman state pursued ambitious projects to improve navigation and irrigation along the Tigris and Euphrates. This centralizing era ended before achieving all its goals due to the outbreak of World War I. The collapse of the Ottoman Empire gave rise to three nation-states in the Tigris-Euphrates basin—Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. The political divisions of the river basin have incentivized competition in the exploitation of water resources, to the detriment of the river system as a whole. The early modern experience of the Tigris and Euphrates, therefore, is instructive. Coordination in the management of river systems, the Ottoman Empire showed, can bring about a more efficient and sustainable use of resources.

Fortresses

This chapter examines the role of river transportation in Ottoman state-building in Iraq. From the sixteenth century, the Ottoman state organized a steady supply of grains and arms to be shipped from Aleppo, Diyarbakır, and Mosul to the downstream fortresses of Baghdad and Basra. The Ottoman state, as a result, could deploy in Iraq sizable garrisons capable of stabilizing its authority in a volatile frontier region. In addition, Istanbul improved the communication infrastructure of the drainage basin by investing in seaports, docks, rafts, and bridges, which smoothed the movement of men and provisions between the Mediterranean Sea and the Persian Gulf. The janissary and artillery corps deployed from the capital profited greatly from the imperial patronage of provincial religious foundations and their cadre, which buttressed the legitimacy of Ottoman hard power in the region.