Story of the exploitation of Bosnia’s forest wealth and the development of a railway into Dalmatia.

Otto Steinbeis was an entrepreneur in the classic 19 th – century mould who made his name in the German timber industry. A man of great energy and vision, much of his success derived from his ready embraceof the latest technology, in particular, electricity. Hesigned his first contracts to exploit large forests innorthwest Bosnia in 1893. Forestry railways lay at the heart of Steinbeis’ expansion of his new empirein Bosnia. By 1918 these had grown in length toabout 560km and the 760mm gauge Steinbeisbahn
was the largest system of forestry railways under a single management in Europe.
This wide-ranging book, over two decades in the making and based largely on original archival material, is the first to describe in any detail Steinbeis’ railways both in Bosnia and Bavaria (where he operated the world’s first standard gauge electric locomotive). It explores how the bitter and destructive rivalries between Vienna and Budapest in the decades before the Great War negatively impacted on the construction of railways in Dalmatia and throughout the
Balkans, as well as the role of the Steinbeisbahn in offering a back door through this impasse.
It traces the development of forestry railways in Central Europe, with a particular focus on
Bosnia, which had by far the greatest concentration), as well as the challenges of establishing
a large modern enterprise in a remote corner of a province largely untouched by 19 th -century
ideas of modernity. It is also a close study of an industrial railway operating under the extremes of wartime conditions.
The 424-page book is illustrated with nearly 500 photographs, drawings and specially prepared maps. There are full locomotive and stock lists.