In today’s video, we are going to do something
different: rather than looking at a point in space, we will look at a line -- more precisely,
a railway line -- and the train that rolled over it.
I am talking about one of the most celebrated train journeys of the 19th and 20th Century,
the Orient Express. Literature and cinema have made of this train a cultural icon, almost
a character with a soul of its own – perhaps even more of an idea than a solid means of
transport you could reach out and touch. In fiction, the Orient Express was the setting
for murder mysteries, vanishing ladies, and fighting spies. But what about reality?
Welcome to Geographics. In today’s ride, we will explore the history of the Orient
Express. What was it like to travel in one of its luxury cars, and where was the train’s
final destination? Leaving the Station
The very first train service -- called ‘Express d’Orient,’ and later, the Orient Express
-- left Paris on October 4, 1883. The journey to the Express was not a simple
one. For upper class travellers to enjoy a luxury, non-stop train ride across seven nations,
it would take the dream of a lovesick Belgian engineer, with his rather interesting supporting
cast: an American industrialist, the inventor of US tabloid journalism, the Prince of Wales,
and one of the most prolific mass murderers of the 19th and 20th Centuries.
Have I made that confusing enough? Good. Let me explain.
The Belgian engineer was one Georges Nagelmackers, the son of a prominent banker with some investments
in European railroads. Of the two family activities, the only one that piqued Georges’ interest
was trains. And so, he declined the option to study … whatever bankers studied at that
time. Was it top hat balancing? Popular monocle fashion? Whatever it was, he opted instead
for civil engineering. In 1869, at age 24, Georges needed some time
to recover from a failed romance with a cousin. Which begs the question: how are you going
to get over it if you are going to see her anyways at Christmas? Georges’ parents’
solution was to put an ocean in between the two, and the budding engineer travelled across
the Atlantic to America. It was during this trip that Georges was struck
by another coup de foudre, this time not with a lady but with a train. And not just any
train: it was the super-luxurious “sleeper car,” invented by industrialist George Pullman.
Pullman’s train cars were on another level compared to even the best wagons seen in Europe.
They were luxurious, comfortable, clean, staffed by friendly personnel and conceived for long-distance
travel. In other words, they had beds! Nagelmackers thought the idea was a winner,
so why not export it to Europe? He approached Pullman with the proposal to expand his company
to the Old Continent. The American, though, refused. Nagelmackers was not easily beaten
off the idea and took a different approach: he would simply copy the concept of the sleeper
car and replicate it in Europe. The Belgian found an ally for his new enterprise
in William d’Alton Mann, an entrepreneur with a colourful background. As a Union cavalry
officer, d’Alton Mann had been one of the victors at Gettysburg, but had retired from
the army before the end of the Civil War to become an inventor and businessman. Later
in life, he would found the newspaper Town Topics, which is now considered to be the
first Scandal Sheet in American Journalism. With funding from William and other investors,
Georges founded the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits in Paris, in 1876. In the
subsequent years, Georges developed his concept. He worked on signing complex deals with national
railway companies, where they supplied the locomotives and railroads, in return for the
Wagons-Lits company’s sleeper and dining cars. These were conceived to be more than
just a hotel on tracks; they had to be a five-star hotel on tracks, combined with a gourmet restaurant
travelling through the day and night, without having to stop at borders.
This last point was a key element of success in Nagelmackers’ plans, but he needed some
pretty substantial political muscle to obtain this type of permission. Georges was clearly
good at drumming up support, because he got two Royals interested in the project, both
of whom were railroad enthusiasts: the Prince of Wales and King Leopold II of Belgium. The
incredibly wealthy and ruthless Belgian monarch was responsible for the mutilation and death
of millions in the Congo. But he was also instrumental in the success of the Wagons-Lits
Company by ensuring that their trains could travel undisturbed across the European frontiers.
It seems like despotic rule and timely train services go hand in hand!
In 1878 Wagons-Lits launched their first sleeper train service, from Vienna to Ostrava, in
modern day Czechia. In October 1882, Nagelmackers made the next step: the first luxury non-stop
service From Paris to Vienna called the Train Éclair: it covered a distance of 1350km - or
839 miles - in exactly 27 hours and 53 minutes. Finally, the Orient Express made its debut
on the 5th of June, 1883, leaving Paris twice a week to reach its Eastern destination, Istanbul.
The King of Trains What is it that made the Orient Express so
special? To put it simply, the train was a living, rolling embodiment of the values of
the Belle Epoque, that idyllic period steeped in luxury, culture, and art that preceded
the carnage of World War I. It was the best hotel money could buy - on wheels! It departed
from the capital of the Belle Epoque, Paris, and traveled to Istanbul, one of the most
exotic destinations rich Europeans could imagine -- the gateway between Europe and Asia.
The Orient Express was kitted with sleeping, restaurant, and salon cars. It had smoking
compartments for the gentlemen and drawing rooms for the ladies. Its compartments were
decorated with Persian rugs, velvet draperies, mahogany paneling, and plush armchairs covered
in soft Spanish leather. Each sleeping car had 10 wood-panelled compartments,
with either one or two beds, one above the other, plus a washbasin. The sleeper compartments
could be converted for daytime use into a compact, carpeted sitting room with a sofa
and a small table. Passengers traveling alone normally had to share a compartment with another
stranger - rigorously of the same sex - but wealthy travelers could pay a premium for
the sole occupancy of a double compartment. Even without the premium, ticket prices were
quite steep: in today’s money, a standard fare came at $1,954 USD. To put this into
context: one ticket cost one quarter of the average annual wages of a French citizen by
the end of the 19th Century. Surely, all that money was put to good use.
During the inaugural journey Bohemian journalist Henri Opper de Blowitz was impressed by the
dining car: “The bright-white tablecloths and napkins,
artistically and coquettishly folded by the sommeliers, the glittering glasses, the ruby
red and topaz white wine, the crystal-clear water decanters and the silver capsules of
the champagne bottles — they blind the eyes of the public both inside and outside … the
menus vie with each other in variety and sophistication — even if they are prepared in the microscopic
galley at one end of the dining car.” Nagelmackers’ chefs in fact could dish out
very complex menus from their tiny kitchens. Here is an example, served on the 17th of
April 1884: Starters: soup of the day and ‘Pearls of
Japan’, which is basically tapioca. Followed by fish, in French it was ‘Poissons’,
with an ‘s’, so: many types of fish. Then, it gets interesting: roast AND filet AND chicken
with cress sauce, all served with many sides: mixed vegetables, cauliflower cheese, roasted
potatoes. If you still can move your jaws, then it’s time for a chocolate mousse AND
a selection of other desserts. I wonder if the wheels were modified to accommodate the
extra weight of the passengers? The Train of Kings
After the first months of activity, Nagelmackers organised a special trip for the press, as
a promotional tactic to increase ticket sales. This took place on the 4th of October 1883.
The engineer had a streak of showmanship and arranged for some old and decaying Pullman
cars to stand on the tracks next to his beauty of a train -- a clever stunt to enhance the
marvel of his creation, and maybe also a subtle stab at George Pullman, who never wanted to
become his investment partner. Aboard the train, the delighted journalists
felt as though they had entered one of Europe's finest hotels. The comfort was needed, as
the journey from Paris to Istanbul lasted a little over 80 hours, and it still required
several stops and changes. After leaving Paris, the next stop was Strasbourg
in Alsace, then Munich. The Orient Express then traversed both capitals of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, Vienna and Budapest. Next: Romania. After a stop in Bucharest, the train left
its passengers in Giurgiu, on the Danube. From there, travellers would be ferried to
Ruse, in Bulgaria, where they boarded a second train headed to Varna, a port on the Black
Sea. The final stretch to Istanbul was conducted by steamer and took 14 hours. The same trip
by car today would take 35 hours. Nagelmackers’ baby was so successful that
only two years later, it became a daily service, the Vienna-bound portion became a daily service.
In 1889, the Wagons-Lits company was finally able to offer a direct service to Istanbul,
without all that faff with steamers and ferries. From then on, the rise of its popularity would
become unstoppable, attracting the interest of the crowned heads of Europe.
Some of them infamously exhibited very odd behavior. Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria, for
example, spent most of the time onboard locked in the bathroom, as he was scared to death
of assassins. But when the train entered his Country, the Tsar insisted he drive it himself.
Ferdinand was an amateur engineer and technically, he could drive … but he did so at breakneck
speed, terrifying all the other passengers. Leopold II of Belgium, having contributed
to the launch and success of the Wagons-Lits company, surely had to ride the train sooner
or later … but when he finally did, it wasn’t for an official state visit. According to
rumours of the day, he travelled to Istanbul after making elaborate arrangements to infiltrate
a Turkish man's harem. It was thanks to this VIP passengers that
the Orient Express earned its reputation as ‘The Train of Kings,’ but it was also
the ‘Train of Presidents’ in one infamous case, causing the resignation of one such
President. Paul Deschanel, President of the French Republic,
had a reputation for odd behaviour. Only seven months into office, he had been known for
climbing trees in the park or meeting the British Ambassador completely nude, except
for a strategically positioned Tricolour sash. One night, while travelling on the Orient
Express with his cabinet, Deschanel leaned out of his window a tad too far. Being under
the influence of sleeping pills, he lost his balance and fell off the car, which luckily
was travelling at only 30 km/h, roughly 20 miles per hour. He was found wandering at
night, bruised and confused, mistaken for a drunkard or a madman, until his identity
was confirmed. The ridicule caused by the accident eventually prompted him to resign.
A Train at War The long journey in time of the Orient Express
was not all fun and games. In 1891, the train was assaulted by a band of brigands who took
five hostages and extorted 120,000 Pounds from the other passengers. That’s almost
$20 million USD in today’s money. The Orient Express could not catch a break it seems,
and the following year passengers had to be quarantined on board due to a cholera epidemic.
As tensions escalated between the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance, the train became
a favourite method of transportation for spies. One of the most remarkable of them was British
agent Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement. In his travels he posed
as a lepidopterist collecting samples of butterflies in the Balkans. He drew intricate sketches
of the forms and colors of butterfly wings he could observe - but these were actually
coded representations of the Austro-Hungarian fortifications he spotted along the Dalmatian
Coast. These served as great intel to the British and Italian navies during World War
I. In 1913, the outbreak of the Balkan Wars prevented
the Orient Express from travelling farther than Belgrade. And the following year, a much
larger-scale war halted the service altogether. As much of the Orient Express journey took
place within the borders of the Central Powers, many of its cars were requisitioned by the
German Empire. In 1916 the Germans created their own version
of the Compagnie Internationale de Wagons-Lits, called ‘Mitropa’, after the ideal of Mitteleuropa
- a conceptual sphere of influence of Central European states allied to Berlin. And Mitropa
recreated their own version of the Orient Express, called the ‘Balkanzug’ - which
means, very simply, ‘Train of the Balkans’. The Balkanzug ran a service twice a week and
was almost exclusively reserved for high-ranking government officials, military officers, and
diplomats. In October 1917, Kaiser Wilhelm II boarded the Balkan train for his third
official visit to Istanbul, joining a long list of crowned heads who travelled on the
Wagon-Lits cars. Exactly one year later, Bulgaria was knocked out of the war by the Entente,
and the Balkanzug service had to be discontinued. A few weeks later, on the 11th of November
1918, the German Empire capitulated. The armistice was signed near the French town of Compiègne
in Marshal Foch’s mobile office … a luxurious Wagon-Lits dining car previously belonging
to the Orient Express! The Golden Age
The inter-war years are considered to be the Golden Age of the Orient Express, as the services
and routes offered by the Wagons-Lits company boomed before war was reignited. From 1919
to 1921, four additional itineraries were added to the original Paris-Istanbul run:
the Arlberg-Orient-Express, from Calais to Athens, was eventually connected to London
via ferry; The Ostende-Vienna-Orient-Express, linking Belgium to Turkey; the Taurus-Orient-Express,
which actually was operated by Mitropa and connected Berlin with Istanbul.
And finally the Simplon-Orient-Express. This route also left Paris to arrive in Istanbul,
but instead of rolling through Germany, it cut southwards via Lausanne, Switzerland,
and then into Northern Italy, stopping at Milan and Venice before crossing the border
with Yugoslavia. This last itinerary eventually became the
most popular, and arguably the ‘classic’ Orient Express experience. What may have contributed
to its success, was international politics. In January 1923, French troops occupied the
Ruhr Valley in Germany, to forcefully impose its de-militarisation. In protest, the government
of the Weimar Republic forbade all Orient Express trains from travelling on German territory.
In 1930, the Orient Express finally extended its services deeper into Asia and the Middle
East, thanks to a cooperation between Wagons-Lits and Mitropa. Now, a new connection in Istanbul
allowed passengers to hop off the ‘Simplon’ and climb on the ‘Taurus’, continuing
on tooward a final destination of Baghdad or Bassora, via Palestine.
Only one year later, one of the Orient Express trains suffered the worst disaster in the
history of the service. On September 13th, a bomb detonated on the viaduct of Biatorbay,
in Hungary, derailing the convoy and plunging one car into the water. Twenty-two people
died, 120 were wounded. Famous singer, dancer and actress Josephine Baker was on board and
helped tend to the wounded. The perpetrator was captured and later executed. His name
was Sylvester Matuschka, and during the trial, he described himself as a ‘professional
derailer’ who acted to fulfill God’s will. It has been suggested that Matuschka experienced
sexual pleasure in causing and witnessing disasters.
Despite this disaster, the Orient Express in all its routes continued to thrive and
was celebrated by both literature and cinema in the 1930s, as we will see later. The Golden
Age, though, could not go on forever, as very soon Europe would be divided again.
As you may guess, after September 1939 and the start of WWII, international travel via
train, from France and then straight into Axis territory … well, it wasn’t quite
as successful as before! When France surrendered to Germany in June
1940, Berlin propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels arranged for an effective stunt: he located
the Wagon-Lits car in which Marshal Foch had forced the German envoys to sign the 1918
armistice .... and made sure that it was the French who would sign their own capitulation
in the very same wagon. The Mitropa company also requisitioned some
Wagon-Lits cars and resurrected the Balkanzug, as a means of transport for Wehrmacht officers
into Yugoslavia. But in 1942, they realised that Tito’s partisans were having too much
of a field day in blowing it up, so the service was discontinued.
Before we look at the last stretch of the journey, let’s take a detour from the bleak
reality of the 1940s and how the Orient Express was celebrated in fiction, especially for
its thrilling potential. Thrill Ride
Sean Connery must hold a record for the most punches thrown by the same actor aboard the
Orient Express. On one occasion he sustained an intense, relentless and brutal fight to
the death with fellow thespian Robert Shaw. In another incident, he socked French actor
Jean-Pierre Cassel, square on the jaw, before threatening to do the same to acting legend
Albert Finney. I am referring to scenes from the two most famous films set aboard the King
of Trains: From Russia with Love, 1963, by Terence Young,
and Murder on the Orient Express, 1974, by Sidney Lumet.
In the first movie, Connery as James Bond, fights back an assassination attempt by Shaw,
playing a Spectre operative. This scene is present also in the original novel by Ian
Fleming. Fleming, a former secret agent himself and a frequent traveller on the Orient Express.
In the second film, Connery plays Col. Arbuthnot, one of twelve passengers suspected of murder,
whose temper explodes during a tense interrogation scene with Albert Finney, playing detective
Hercule Poirot. This film is based on the novel of the same
name by mystery fiction genius Agatha Christie, adapted several times for the screen – the
last adaptation by Kenneth Branagh is worth a watch, even though I don’t understand
why he cast a Lorax in the lead. (A real Lorax can be seen here)
I am not going to reveal who the killer is in the novel, but will only mention the two
real-life events that shaped its plot. The first, very well-known event was the kidnap
and murder of Charles Lindbergh’s baby son. The tragedy that struck the famous aviator
in March 1932 made headlines around the World and inspired Agatha Christie for a major element
in the backstory of some of the characters. The second event concerned the Orient Express
directly: In the winter of 1929 the train was trapped for five days by a massive snowfall,
some 150km from Istanbul. The passengers soon ran out of food and had to resort to killing
and eating wolves before they could resume the journey.
Two years before Christie’s Poirot Mystery, Graham Greene had published Stamboul Train,
later retitled simply ‘Orient Express’. The complex plot involves a number of characters
whose lives are interconnected aboard the famous train: a businessman dealing with anti-semitism;
a murderer; a naive dancer; a lesbian couple; and a doomed Yugoslavian communist.
Also good old Alfred Hitchcock saw the potential of the Orient Express for international intrigue.
His 1938 film, The Lady Vanishes deals with the disappearance of an elderly music teacher
aboard the train, while travelling through the Balkans. No spoilers here, but what starts
as a romantic comedy and has some psychological thriller undertones, ends up being a spy caper
reflecting the tensions that would lead to WWII.
Rolling into Station Back to reality, the Orient Express barely
made it through WWII, with many Wagons-Lits carriages having been lost or badly damaged.
But funds from the Marshall Plan helped with the reconstruction of the railways and service
slowly returned to normal … well, almost to normal: much of the tracks now lay beyond
a certain Iron Curtain that had enveloped Eastern Europe.
During the Cold War, the Orient Express suffered many interruptions and certainly a noticeable
decline in class of service, but it remained one of the few links between Eastern and Western
Europe. Eastern Bloc citizens were not allowed to travel freely, but some of them managed
to board the Orient Express and travel to the West as political refugees. Western citizens
on the other hand had more freedom of movement, albeit with strict border controls.
The train was the centre of intrigue once more, when it became the scene of one of the
first American deaths linked to the Cold War. In 1950 Captain E. S. Karpe, US naval attaché
in Bucharest, fell off the train under suspicious circumstances in a tunnel near Salzburg, Austria.
His luggage? A briefcase containing sensitive papers about spy networks in Eastern Europe.
Was Karpe’s fatal fall an accident or deliberate? In 1952, a Romanian student claimed to have
committed the murder for a “foreign organization,” but his confession was not considered credible.
A U.S. investigation lasting 10 years eventually had to admit that the case could not be resolved.
Between 1951 and 1953, the Simplon Orient Express was suspended when Bulgaria completely
blocked its travel, due to conflicts with neighboring countries. When Bulgaria eventually
allowed the train to enter again, the Government had the brilliant idea to deploy art students
to improve the areas surrounding the railway tracks, to make a good impression on Western
travelers. Well, at least one of those students must have done a good job, as he later achieved
fame as Christo, specialised in modifying natural and urban landscapes with giant interventions.
From the 1960s onward, the Orient Express gradually lost its aura of luxury and comfort.
In particular, the original service, now known as ‘Direct Orient Express’, became little
more than a normal sleeper car service, and was used mainly by hippies and migrants, instead
of diplomats, touring artists, or spies. In 1977, nearly 100 years after the first journey,
the last direct train from Paris to Istanbul rolled into station. The name remained attached
to other sleeper services leaving the French capital, but the itinerary was now truncated
to Vienna. The very last Orient Express was discontinued in 2009, after 126 years.
So, I really hope you enjoyed our first video on means of transport. Nowadays, passengers
with a few thousand euros in their pockets can relive the experience of a ‘luxury cruise
on tracks’ by boarding the Venice-Simplon Orient Express, a train that boasts restored
original Wagon-Lits carriages and offers the same luxurious amenities. If you have ever
had the chance to travel on it, let us know in the comments, or maybe you are ‘experienced’
or ‘mature’ enough to have been on the original Orient Express. We’d certainly
want to know about your impressions back when it was running. As usual … thank you for
watching!
