1/2 Livre

The Banque Impériale Ottomane had its notes printed in Leipzig by Giesecke & Devrient because wartime conditions had severed the usual arrangements with French and British security printers — an Ottoman bank with a Franco-British board of directors finding itself at war with both founding nations was an administrative absurdity the 1915 issues quietly reflect. German presses filled the gap.

The half-livre denomination was a practical concession to a population dealing with severe small-change shortages as metal coinage disappeared from circulation almost immediately after hostilities began.