Dealing with foreign postal service providers in what constitutes today`s Republic of Türkiye between 1860-1923 was among the top priorities of the Ottoman Empire. Steering an advanced and institutionalized postal service, the Austrian government was the first to run a post office on Ottoman soil in the 1740s, followed by other European states. They progressively made significant gains and had a proper share in the Ottoman postal market.
Cross-country post office networks were good proof and acknowledgment of their service competency. This might also indicate that they felt their service was appreciated. In a market where a state postal service does not exist, such understanding becomes more visible and understandable.
In the beginning, foreign postal services enjoyed great business, special rights, exclusive privileges and advantageous market conditions thanks to the services they offered the Ottomans. They consolidated their operations over time and could not imagine or did not want to think that the Ottoman Empire could emerge as a rival. However, later down the line, they had to contend with an unexpected new competitor – the state-owned postal services provider, the Ottoman Postal Administration.
The establishment of the Ottoman postal service was a turning point in Ottoman Empire's relations with European postal administrations because they came up against the risk of losing their long-standing financial and social influence. It is also possible to state that foreign posts were aware of the fact that the rivalry was not solely about the competition in the Ottoman postal market. By looking at the degree of the conflict that took place between the parties, it was more like a postal uprising aiming to establish a postal monopoly within the Ottoman boundaries.
Although historians have extensively discussed the existence of foreign postal services in the Ottoman Empire and beyond, it still needs to be questioned from a perspective of the postal rights that any country was supposed to possess. How could postal diversification diverge into postal rivalry? Sovereignty rights under international law were on one side and a postal monopoly on the other.
We should remember that the foreign post incident was taking place in a country of endless diversity, which was one of the major motivations for the postal business. Ottoman soil, where we find extensive postal diversification originated from a culture of solidarity and togetherness under Ottoman jurisdiction, set one of the best examples in this regard.
Besides, foreign posts were a fundamental fact of the 19th century's political and financial outlook. The Asian and African continents were the main centers of attraction. Therefore, even though it was nothing specific to the Ottoman Empire, it changed into a big question of contention between European states and the Ottoman Empire by the 1860s. From this date forward, European postal administrations stood against the Ottoman Postal Administration, and this disagreement became a significant hurdle in diplomatic and postal relations until the foundation of the Republic of Türkiye.
As a result, postal services became politically and economically problematic between the parties in the second part of the 19th century. The negotiations through diplomatic channels and the solution-seeking process remained inconclusive.
As a result, the Ottoman Empire brought this issue to the world's attention during the first intergovernmental postal congress convened in Berne, the city and capital of Switzerland. The idea of creating an independent organization that would regulate intergovernmental postal relations made an overwhelming impression around the world. In this sense, one of the Universal Postal Union's (UPU) 22 founding members, the Ottoman Empire was a major contributor and partner to the UPU right from the start. In this respect, the Ottoman Empire's first delegate to the UPU, Yanko Makridi, informed present delegations of postal bias and anomalies happening within Ottoman boundaries on the second day of the Bern Congress on Sept. 16, 1874. He highlighted, in particular at the end of his speech, esprit de corps in making sure the UPU has all member states working toward the same goals, on equal footing. Consequently, the congress was invited to handle the foreign postal services incident.
Following the objections of the European member states, the congress left the Ottoman Empire's appeal unanswered and referred it to diplomatic representatives of the parties. Nonetheless, the Ottoman Empire never gave up on bringing the same issue up during almost every UPU congress until 1923. Despite this perseverance, the formation of the UPU, which was considered by the Ottoman Empire as a turning point to potentially address the issue, didn’t have the desired effect.
Of course, this does raise a number of questions: Since the attempt to bring up the incident to the congress came only from the Ottoman Empire, why did the state parties oppose the inclusion of the issue? If they had reasonable grounds, why did they avoid negotiating it? What would be the drawbacks for them to meet under the UPU roof to solve the issue? How can we explain the fact that postal experts like Heinrich von Stephan did not take the initiative in discussing the foreign post incident? If one of them took the lead and responsibility, what would the outlook of the matter have been? More precisely, could they have taken such a step without the consent and permission of their own governments?
On the other side, as the founding members, could the European states have had dominant influence over the UPU congresses? Why was the congress informed that the issue was off the agenda? Had these kinds of attitudes changed in succeeding congresses? Why did western member states, while objecting to the discussion of their post offices in Ottoman lands, insist on the recognition of post offices in geographies like Africa as union territory? And how can we explain Italy's attempts to make one of its post offices in Ottoman territory part of the UPU? Was it all about postal services, or was it more?
Examining an issue that required an international multilateral agreement can be helpful in solving practical cross-border problems concerning postal development anywhere in the world.
