List of battleships of the Ottoman Empire

Attempts to construct Ottoman-made battleships such as Abdül Kadir had ended in failure,[2] so the Ottoman Navy Foundation was established with the aim of purchasing new ships through public donations rather than having them built locally.

The United Kingdom confiscated the ships at the outbreak of World War I though only two were nearing completion, Sultân Osmân-ı Evvel and Reşadiye.

[4] The seizure of these battleships by the Royal Navy outraged the Ottoman people, since public donations had been the source of most of the funds for the ships.

Out of all the battleships legally owned by the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the war, half were either scrapped or were seized by the British in the early days of the conflict.

Construction was planned to resume in 1904 but by that time her keel blocks, which were used to prevent hogging and sagging, had shifted and the ship was considered a total loss.

[11] Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm and Weissenburg were sold to the Ottoman Navy in 1910 and renamed Barbaros Hayreddin and Turgut Reis, respectively.

[12] Barbaros Hayreddin and Turgut Reis saw heavy service during the Balkan Wars however, failing in two attempts to break the Greek naval blockade of the Dardanelles in December 1912 and January 1913,[3] and providing artillery support to Ottoman ground forces in Thrace.

[13] On 8 August 1915, during World War I, Barbaros Hayreddin was torpedoed and sunk off the Dardanelles by the British submarine HMS E11, with heavy loss of life.

However, Reşadiye was seized by the Royal Navy at the outbreak of World War I while under construction in Britain, due to fears that she would be used to support the Central Powers; the British renamed her HMS Erin.

[4][18] The seizure caused resentment among the Ottoman people as public donations had been the source of most of the funds for the ships, and her crew had already been formed.

This action by the Royal Navy was a major contributing factor to the participation of the Ottoman Empire on the side of the Central Powers in World War I.

[19] A third ship, Fatih, ordered in 1914 in response to the transfer of the American battleship Mississippi to the Greek Navy, and estimated to be completed in 1917, was to have been slightly larger than Reshad-I-Hammiss and Reşadiye.

She was originally intended for the Brazilian Navy as Rio de Janeiro, and was laid down on 14 September 1911 by Armstrong Whitworth in Newcastle upon Tyne.

At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau attempted to evade the British fleet.

[28] With the assistance of the entire Austro-Hungarian Navy the two ships managed to safely make their way to Constantinople, arriving in the Bosporus on 11 August.

The battlecruiser continued to serve in the Turkish Navy in World War II and had her anti-aircraft battery upgraded in 1941.