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Malaya had undermined the market value of Brazil’s rubber exports; the Brazilian government, unable to pay for the new ship, put the unfinished dreadnought up for sale. Turkey stepped forward, and on December 28, 1913,
Rio de Janeiro
became
Sultan Osman I.
Meanwhile, Chile had ordered two new 28,000-ton British-built dreadnoughts, each designed to carry ten 14-inch guns, but in July 1914 both were a year from completion.
    It was on the two Turkish battleships, therefore, that the Admiralty focused its attention. Although a clause in the building contracts permitted the British government to buy back the ships in a national emergency, the Turks were unlikely to sell them willingly. The two vessels had cost the impoverished nation almost £6 million. Some of the money had been borrowed from bankers in Paris and some came from taxes—on sheep and wool, on tobacco, and on bread. In January 1914, all December salaries of civil servants, none yet paid, were diverted to pay for the ships. But still more money was needed. Every Turkish town and village contributed; women sold their hair to raise money; collection boxes were placed on the bridges across the Golden Horn and on ferryboats plying the Bosporus. Purchase of the two dreadnoughts became a unifying national cause.
    Meanwhile, at the Elswick yard, British workers were altering the ship to meet the needs of her new owners. Nameplates in Portuguese carrying instructions and locations were unscrewed and replaced. The admiral’s stateroom and dining room were fitted with seasoned mahogany paneling, Otto-man carpets, silk lampshades, and a pink-tiled bath. Belowdecks, the crew was given more space by eliminating numerous watertight bulkheads. Lavatory arrangements appropriate to European or Brazilian usage were altered as toilet bowls were ripped out and replaced by rows of conical holes in the deck, suitable for the Turkish practice of squatting.
    The Ottoman navy waited anxiously. With Russia constructing a new fleet on the Black Sea and Greece building a dreadnought in Germany and negotiating to buy two predreadnoughts from the United States, Turkey urgently needed a modern navy. Her ships were hopelessly out-of-date; one old battleship mounted wooden guns, which her officers hoped would seem real to a viewer on shore. By July 1914, the Turks were impatient to bring the new ships home and parade them to the nation off the Golden Horn.
Rashadieh
was ready in early July, but the British Admiralty advised that she remain in England until the two ships could sail for Turkey together. Meanwhile, hints from Whitehall to Armstrong and Vickers suggested that there was no need to hurry delivery of the two vessels. Pressure on the Admiralty increased when, on July 27, a shabby Turkish passenger ship, carrying 500 Turkish sailors to man the
Sultan Osman I,
arrived in the Tyne and berthed across the narrow river from the new battleship. The official delivery date was set for August 2. On the morning of August 1, the thirteenth 12-inch gun was hoisted on board and placed in its turret. The final and fourteenth gun was expected later that day. But still no ammunition had been delivered.
    On Friday, July 31, with European war impending, Churchill made his decision. “In view of present circumstances,” the First Lord informed the builders, “the Government cannot permit the ship to be handed over to a Foreign Power.” The following morning, Armstrong, fearing that the Turkish captain and his sailors waiting across the river might try to board the new battleship and hoist the Turkish flag, placed armed guards at the dockyard gates. On August 2, a company of British army Sherwood Foresters with fixed bayonets marched on board. Stunned, the Turks could do nothing.
    Churchill never apologized. “The Turkish battleships were vital to us,” he said later. “With a margin of only seven dreadnoughts we could not afford to do without these two fine ships.” He attempted to patch up the