Reşadiye-class battleship

The German battleship Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm, purchased in 1910 and renamed Barbaros Hayreddin

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. Efforts to modernize the fleet had occurred in fits and starts during the period, including the failed attempt to build the pre-dreadnought Abdül Kadir in the 1890s, and a major reconstruction program launched in the aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, which had highlighted the poor condition of the fleet.[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. As a stopgap measure, two German Brandenburg-class battleships, Barbaros Hayreddin and Turgut Reis, were purchased in 1910.[2]

The Ottoman government then began looking for newer vessels to buy in late 1911, and first contacted Armstrong Whitworth about the possibility of acquiring the dreadnought Rio de Janeiro, then under construction for the Brazilian Navy, along with Minas Geraes, which had been commissioned into the Brazilian fleet in 1910. These deals fell through, so the Ottomans contacted Vickers to order two new battleships. 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.[3] A second ship, to be named Fatih Sultan Mehmed, was ordered in April 1914.[4]

Ordering the Reşadiye class started a significant naval arms race between the Ottoman Empire and Greece. The Greek Navy ordered the battleship Salamis in 1912 in response,[5] which prompted the Ottomans to resume their bid for Rio de Janeiro. The contract to purchase the ship, to be renamed Sultân Osmân-ı Evvel, was signed in January 1914. This in turn provoked the Greeks to order a second battleship, Vasilefs Konstantinos, which required a third Ottoman battleship to be ordered; this was the second Reşadiye-class ship, Fatih Sultan Mehmed.[6]

Line-drawing of the British Iron Duke class; Reşadiye was very similar to this design

The design for the Reşadiye was based on the contemporary British King George V class, with some improvements that had been incorporated into the subsequent Iron Duke class then under construction. 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. They also carried a heavier secondary battery, composed of 6 in (150 mm) guns instead of the 4 in (100 mm) weapons in the King George V class. 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.[7]

Reşadiye at her launching

The first ship of the class, Reşadiye, was ordered on 8 June 1911. Work stopped in 1912 following the start of the First Balkan War due to the probability that the Ottoman government would run out of funds. Work resumed in May 1913 following the conclusion of the conflict. The second ship, Fatih Sultan Mehmed, was ordered on 29 April 1914 in response to the Greek order for Vasilefs Konstantinos in early 1914. 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.[4][8][9]

There is some confusion over the number and name of ships that were part of the Reşadiye class. Some sources report Reşadiye and Mehmed Reşad V as having been different ships;[8] these were in fact the same vessel, ordered originally under the latter name.[3] Similarly, Fatih Sultan Mehmed is sometimes listed as Fatik[8] or Fatih.[10] Another ship, Reshad-i Hammiss, is sometimes reported to have been ordered in 1911 and cancelled in 1912,[7] though according to Bernd Langensiepen and Ahmet Güleryüz in their authoritative The Ottoman Steam Navy, the Ottomans initially only had ordered one vessel.[3]

HMS Erin in 1918

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. A transport ship carrying crews for the two battleships departed Constantinople on 4 August, only to be recalled on 7 August after the Ottoman government was informed that the dreadnoughts would not be delivered.[11] The First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, ordered the Royal Navy to detain the two ships on 29 July and prevent Ottoman naval personnel from boarding them; two days later, British sailors boarded the ships and formally seized them. Since Britain was not yet at war, these actions were illegal; the British government nevertheless determined to present the Ottomans with a fait accompli. On 3 August, the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire informed the government that Britain had seized the ships.[12]

Reşadiye and Sultan Osman-ı Evvel were then pressed into British service. Reşadiye was completed that month and commissioned as HMS Erin, with Sultan Osman-ı Evvel entering service as HMS Agincourt. In September, Erin joined the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Grand Fleet, where she served for the duration of the conflict. She took part in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May & 1 June 1916.[7] There, she was the fourth ship in the British line of battle, along with her three surviving King George V-class half-sisters.[13] She did not fire her main battery during the battle, the only British capital ship not to do so during the engagement;[14] her secondary battery fired only six shells.[15]

In 1917, fire control directors were installed, and she received flying off platforms atop her forward superfiring and amidships turrets. After the end of the war, Erin was assigned to the Nore Reserve and served as its flagship. Her postwar career was cut short by the Washington Naval Treaty, signed in February 1922, which mandated significant draw downs in naval strength for the signatories.[7] The Royal Navy had originally intended to keep Erin as a training ship under the terms of the treaty, but a change of plans led to HMS Thunderer taking her place as the training ship, which meant that Erin had to be scrapped. The ship was sold for scrap in December 1922, and subsequently broken up by the ship breaking firm Cox and Daniels, which finished scrapping Reşadiye in 1923.[16]

• Burt, R. A. British Battleships of World War One. London: Arms and Armour Press. ISBN 0-85368-771-4.
• Campbell, John (1998). Jutland: An Analysis of the Fighting. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 1-55821-759-2.
• Fromkin, David (1989). A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East. New York: H. Holt. ISBN 0-8050-0857-8.
• Gardiner, Robert, ed. (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships: 1860–1905. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-133-5.
• Gardiner, Robert & Gray, Randal, eds. (1985). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships: 1906–1921. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-85177-245-5.
• Langensiepen, Bernd & Güleryüz, Ahmet (1995). The Ottoman Steam Navy 1828–1923. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 978-0-85177-610-1.
• Sondhaus, Lawrence (2001). Naval Warfare, 1815–1914. New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-21478-0.
• Willmott, H. P., ed. (2009). The Last Century of Sea Power (Volume 1, From Port Arthur to Chanak, 1894–1922). Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 9780253352149.