The first ship, Reşadiye, was laid down in 1911 and completed in August 1914, shortly after the outbreak of World War I; she was seized by the British Royal Navy and commissioned as HMS Erin.

The second ship, Fatih Sultan Mehmed, had only been ordered in April 1914 and little work had been done by the start of the war, so she was quickly broken up for scrap.

The Ottoman Navy had languished since the 1870s, the result of decades of little funding for new ships, poor maintenance of existing vessels, and no serious training regimen.

[1] Starting in 1909, the Ottoman government began to seriously look for warships to purchase from foreign shipbuilders to counter the growing strength of the Greek Navy, particularly the armored cruiser Georgios Averof.

Douglas Gamble, who had previously served as a naval adviser to the Ottoman government, prepared two designs, the first of which was ordered as Mehmed Reşad V; during construction, this ship was renamed Reşadiye.

The Greek Navy ordered the battleship Salamis in 1912 in response,[5] which prompted the Ottomans to resume their bid for Rio de Janeiro.

Compared to the British ships, the Reşadiyes carried their amidships main battery turret one deck higher, which improved its ability to be fired in heavier seas.

The hull was shorter and wider than the British ships, which improved her turning radius, but the lower displacement forced compromises in armor protection and coal capacity.

Erin was completed with a single tripod mast atop the conning tower, fitted with a spotting top to aid in gun-laying.

The British government ordered work to stop in late July 1914, as a result of the growing tensions that culminated in the outbreak of World War I on the 28th; what material that had been assembled was dismantled on the slipway in August.

[12] By 21 July 1914, the British had postponed delivery of Reşadiye and Sultan Osman-ı Evvel as tensions flared in Europe following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June.

This action prompted a protest by Djemal Pasha, the Ottoman naval minister, via France, in the hopes of securing the ships' delivery.

Since Britain was not yet at war, these actions were illegal; the British government nevertheless determined to present the Ottomans with a fait accompli.

[17] In 1917, fire control directors were installed, and she received flying off platforms atop her forward superfiring and amidships turrets.