The Diplomats’ Debts: International Financial Disputes between the Ottoman Empire and Prussia at the end of the Eighteenth Century

Abstract

As part of the increased contact between the Ottoman Empire in the European state system, the Ottoman Empire dispatched two envoys, one ambassador and four chargés d’affaires to Prussia between 1763 and 1806. At first, the hosts had funded the diplomats’ stays in Berlin including their travel expenses, housing, provisions and daily allowances, but following the sending of the first permanent Ottoman ambassador to Berlin in 1797, the Prussians rejected financial responsibility for the diplomats. This resulted in the intensified encounters between diplomats and governments and eventually in the growing professionalization of Ottoman diplomacy. As a consequence of changing funding practices, Ottoman diplomats had to find new channels to receive their salaries and organize their stays capitals being now compelled to greater participation in the daily life of in the foreign capital. Using both Ottoman and Prussian sources this article is able to reconstruct funding international practices and networks in a period before the establishment of official institutions such as international banks.