Abstract:

Since the beginning of the 19th century, relations between the Ottoman Empire and Britain have turned into a mutual need, even if not at an equal level. The threat of collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the face of the imperialist attacks of European states, especially Russia, created the risk of confronting Britain with a strong competitor that would limit its maneuverability in the Eastern Mediterranean, Egypt, India and the Far East market. This situation helped the Ottoman Empire's efforts to preserve its territorial integrity and re-establish its political authority, and the UK's free trade-based economic model in these markets. The paradoxical overlap of the aims of both states is not something that much has taken into account in the current literature on this subject. In this context, the relationship between the Ottoman centralization that gained momentum in the 19th century and the free trade activities on which the economic expansion of England were analysed with reference to both the literature on the subject and the Ottoman archive documents, based on mutual advantage especially in Ottoman Iraq.

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