The Balkan Railways, International Capital and Banking from the End of the Nineteenth Century until the Outbreak of the First World War

During the second half of the nineteenth century, railways, ‘the very symbol of rapid progress’,1 increasingly became one of the vital instruments for the integration of nation states, multinational empires, and colonies throughout the entire world. They served as a strategic tool for the development of hitherto backward areas; they helped to penetrate regions far away from the political and economic centres and to open them up to the achievements of the ‘civilized world’. ‘Because railways can change spatial realities, they have been a favoured tool of empire builders.’2