Birecik, Turkey Tourism

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and foothills of the Taurus, the river also becomes navigable. In the last century a Colonel Chesney planned a steamship company to ply the Euphrates and provide a useful transport link between Europe and India. The scheme however came to nothing, in part because the water was too shallow and the volume irregular. Today a 720m/2363ft-long bridge constructed in 1956 spans the river west of the town.

History

The name of this once walled town derives from the Arabic "bira" or Armenian "birtha" (fort) and so means "little fort". The Romans knew it as Birtha and the Crusaders as Bile. Captured in 1089 by Baldwin of Bouillon, Crusader Count of Edessa, in 1150 it was sold together with five other fortresses to Byzantium. Ownership changed a number of times in subsequent centuries. In the 1830s the German H. v. Moltke, military adviser to the Sultan, visited Birecik on several occasions, describing the fortifications as the most astonishing structure he had ever seen. In 1838 he himself was required to draw up plans for the defense of the town. These were never acted upon however and on August seventh 1839 at Nizip he witnessed the Turkish defeat at the hands of the Egyptians under Ibrahim Pasa.