Author: SANGHAMITRA CHAKRABORTY

In January 1919, the Ottoman flag finally came down in Madinah. Behind it lay a broken empire, and a railway that had become one of its last lifelines. The trains had once carried soldiers, supplies and pilgrims across the desert. By the end, the railway was battered, vulnerable and increasingly cut off. The Ottoman garrison was exhausted. The empire around it had collapsed. The flag came down. The railway’s imperial purpose was finished. And the Ottomans were gone from the Hejaz. Or so it seemed. More than a century later, in August 2026, the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and…