Postal History from another World

By Janus Clausen

23. Sep. 2009

The Ottoman Empire 1683-1923

It was no easy task to send letters in the Ottoman Empire. Even after 1840 when the empire had established its own postal service, traders and officials often had to use foreign postal services based in Istanbul. 

In 1683, the Ottoman Empire was at its highest. It stretched from Vienna in the north to the Persian Gulf in the south, controlled the entire African Mediterranean coast in the west and large parts of the Black Sea coast in the east. The giant empire numbered 40 million inhabitants and contained lots of nations which during the period up to the end of World War I gradually broke away from the empire, displaced it from the African continent, and reduced the country to a small corner between Europe and Asia.   

Print featuring two mounted Turkish post riders. Year unknown. 

Foreign Postal Services

The large Ottoman Empire was totally dependent on communication between its centre in Istanbul and its many provinces. Practically all the mail was official or from traders as only very few private persons could afford or were able to write letters.

Only in 1840 did the empire have an official postal service - more than 200 years after the establishment of the Danish postal service. Until then, the traders' mail had been delivered through foreign royal postal services operating in the country. The state had only had one route from Istanbul to Adrianopel - but it did not deliver private letters, only official mail.

As a centre of communication and trade between Europe, Asia, and Africa it was therefore necessary for many European countries to secure regular postal connection to Istanbul. From 1721, both Austria and Russia had courier routes from Istanbul and shortly afterwards both countries established proper post offices in the city. Now it became possible for private citizens to send letters by the reliable, royal, European postal services. Senders chose which postal service to use on basis of its frequency of departures, prices, and especially its respect for the secrecy of the mails. Dependent on which countries the letter would be passing through on its way to Europe it might be an advantage to send the letter via a certain country to avoid espionage or censorship or to use one or more middlemen along the way to hide the destination of the letter. Only around the middle of the 19th century did the European postal services trust each other sufficiently so enable most letters to be sent directly from sender to recipient. 

After the establishment of Austrian and Russian post offices in Istanbul, other countries arrived on the scene: France in 1812, Great Britain in 1832, Greece in 1834, Egypt in 1866, Prussia in 1870, Italy in 1873, and Poland as late as in 1919. As the Ottoman Empire had to give up land, the big foreign postal services moved in and established safe postal communication between their own countries and the empire that connected Africa, Asia, and Europe.  

Drawing of ”An Arabian Caravan Station”. The camels are carrying mail to and from e.g. Khartoum in Sudan and Cairo and Alexandria in Egypt. Year unknown.  

Own Postal Service

With the foundation of the official Ottoman postal service in 1840 post offices were established in the most important provincial towns. All mail routes went from Istanbul to the individual post office, never between the post offices. This meant that all though the Ottoman Empire had got a public postal service, it was still impossible for many regions to have letters delivered by the postal service. Instead they public servants travelling in the region would take the letters with them and the recipients would then have to pay for this.  

Mail to and from Istanbul were sent alternately to the European and Asian provinces at a week's interval. Consequently, it often took long for letters to reach their destination and the foreign postal services continued their independent activities instead of cooperating wit the new postal service. Moreover, the establishment of new post offices was slow - when the postage stamp was introduced in 1863, there were only 58 post offices in the Ottoman Empire.

The Ottoman Empire had few railways and the landscape varied a lot from province to province. The main conveyance of mail therefore took place by means of horses and camels. In comparison, Denmark had as many as 237 post offices in 1860 where the population could deliver and collect mail - an expansion which had become possible due to the introduction of railway services and steamship routes in the 1840's.

Despite the few routes the Ottoman Empire made a virtue of conveying mail and passengers quickly. In 1853, a reporter at the Illustrated London News could relate that he had been travelling by mail coach from Istanbul to Aleppo in present-day Syria (a distance of approx. 880 km as the crow flies or as far as the distance Copenhagen-Helsinki) and that it had been very fast. From the post office in Istanbul the journey went at a gallop through the city with five horses hitched and with the coachman shouting and whipping in front. After 3½ hours at full speed the horses were changed and there was only a five minute break - the time it took to move the mail and harness to the new horses. The journey took 9 ½ days and the stops along the way lasted half an hour at the most when it was time to eat, and two hours at the most when the coachman had to sleep. In comparison the same journey took 45 days by a caravan!

Post & Tele Museum is exhibiting Turkish stamps from the period 1863-2002 in the stamp cabinet until 31st December 2009.

Read more about Turkish postal history here:

http://www.sariucak.com/
http://www.turkishpostalhistory.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postage_stamps_and_postal_history_of_Turkey
  

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