World War I naval ships of the Ottoman Empire

A naval race had developed in the Aegean after the end of the Balkan Wars, with the Ottoman government ordering several ships, including two dreadnoughts, in Britain.

In the event, with the outbreak of World War I, one of these ships, including further two scout cruisers and four destroyers, were confiscated and pressed into service with the Royal Navy.

Prior to this occurrence, Sultân Osmân-ı Evvel had been constructed by Armstrong Whitworth for the Brazilian Navy in 1911 under the name Rio de Janeiro due to naval rivalries with Argentina.

After the conflict Brazil turned down its order, but the Armstrong Whitworth company did not scrap the ship as it could be sold to other potential customers, among them the Ottoman Empire.

The two pre-dreadnought battleships, Barbaros Hayreddin and Turgut Reis, both played a major part in the defense of the Dardanelles during the Gallipoli Campaign.

Mesûdiye, the Ottoman Navy’s only coastal defense ship, was torpedoed and sunk by the British submarine HMS B11, commanded by Lt. Norman Holbrook, on 13 December 1914 off Chanak in the Dardanelles.

Mecidiye was sunk in the Black Sea off Odessa while in company with Hamidiye and four torpedo boats from a single Russian mine.