Read The Dandarnelles Disaster for Free Online Page B
Authors: Dan Van der Vat
the cost. She was renamed Sultan Osman I. Both ships were to be ready for delivery in July 1914. The contracts, which ran to a total of £6 million, were funded by nationwide public subscription and special taxes in Turkey and by Ottoman government bonds issued in London, supported by international bank loans. The Turks wanted the ships to shore up their flagging prestige â and quite possibly to recover the Aegean islands they had lost to Greece and Italy in recent years.
But as war with Germany looked imminent it was their friend Churchill who decided to take over both ships as a last-minute, instant reinforcement for the British Grand Fleet in the North Sea. Some 500 Turkish sailors had arrived in a steamer at Newcastle upon Tyne to man the ships and take them home. Under the contracts Britain was actually entitled to commandeer them (with full financial compensation) in a national emergency. Churchill made his decision to do so on 28 July 1914 â the day before the Grand Fleet was sent in a body to Scapa Flow after a naval review at Portland on the south coast of England. This strategic move had a decisive effect on the outcome of the war because it meant that the planned naval blockade of Germany could begin without delay. Regardless of subsequent errors by himself and others, this was Churchillâs most important contribution by far to ultimate victory. The Cabinet approved the seizure of the Turkish dreadnoughts on 31 July and British sailors backed by troops took them over on 1 August. The move raised the number of dreadnoughts in the Grand Fleet to 22 (with 13 building), compared with Germanyâs 13 (10 on the stocks): Reshadieh became HMS Erin while Rio de Janeiro, after only a few days as Sultan Osman I, was born again as HMS Agincourt . The instant expansion of the Grand Fleetâs big-gun strength by 10 per cent understandably caused universal outrage in Turkey, swinging political and public opinion decisively towards Germany at the critical moment.
Unbeknown to the British and most of the rest of the world, the timing could not have been worse.
CHAPTER 2
The German Answer
Germany offered Russia a free run in 1875 to pursue her enduring ambition to dominate the route from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean by achieving control of Constantinople, preferably by occupying it. This was a startling departure from the usually unspoken consensus among the European powers that Russia should never be allowed unfettered access to the Mediterranean. In exchange Bismarck, intent as ever on constraining France, asked the Tsar for a free hand in western Europe. The Russians could not fail to be tempted but, no doubt anticipating trouble with Britain and other powers over such a unilateral settlement of the âeastern questionâ, turned it down. This prompted an expansionist Second Reich to look eastward to extend its political power and economic interests.
From 1875 the Emperor Wilhelm I and his Chancellor, Bismarck, set out to woo the Ottoman Empire. Germany turned two blind eyes towards the brutal internal repression of Sultan Abdul Hamid which had aroused widespread protests in Britain and western Europe. When British and French banks turned down Turkish requests for loans, Germany would provide. Even though the Congress of Berlin, chaired by Bismarck, effectively dismantled Turkish rule in the Balkans in 1878, the Germans continued with some success to increase their influence in Constantinople. The German military mission was revived and extended. In 1882 Colonel Kochler was appointed deputy chief of staff of the Turkish Army, succeeded on his death in 1883 by von der Goltz; in the same year the railway route from Berlin to Constantinople was opened, with work continuing on the extension to Baghdad. The state visit of Kaiser Wilhelm II, more crudely ambitious for Germany than his father, in 1898, underpinned German domination into the twentieth century.
Enverâs reward for his part in
But as war with Germany looked imminent it was their friend Churchill who decided to take over both ships as a last-minute, instant reinforcement for the British Grand Fleet in the North Sea. Some 500 Turkish sailors had arrived in a steamer at Newcastle upon Tyne to man the ships and take them home. Under the contracts Britain was actually entitled to commandeer them (with full financial compensation) in a national emergency. Churchill made his decision to do so on 28 July 1914 â the day before the Grand Fleet was sent in a body to Scapa Flow after a naval review at Portland on the south coast of England. This strategic move had a decisive effect on the outcome of the war because it meant that the planned naval blockade of Germany could begin without delay. Regardless of subsequent errors by himself and others, this was Churchillâs most important contribution by far to ultimate victory. The Cabinet approved the seizure of the Turkish dreadnoughts on 31 July and British sailors backed by troops took them over on 1 August. The move raised the number of dreadnoughts in the Grand Fleet to 22 (with 13 building), compared with Germanyâs 13 (10 on the stocks): Reshadieh became HMS Erin while Rio de Janeiro, after only a few days as Sultan Osman I, was born again as HMS Agincourt . The instant expansion of the Grand Fleetâs big-gun strength by 10 per cent understandably caused universal outrage in Turkey, swinging political and public opinion decisively towards Germany at the critical moment.
Unbeknown to the British and most of the rest of the world, the timing could not have been worse.
CHAPTER 2
The German Answer
Germany offered Russia a free run in 1875 to pursue her enduring ambition to dominate the route from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean by achieving control of Constantinople, preferably by occupying it. This was a startling departure from the usually unspoken consensus among the European powers that Russia should never be allowed unfettered access to the Mediterranean. In exchange Bismarck, intent as ever on constraining France, asked the Tsar for a free hand in western Europe. The Russians could not fail to be tempted but, no doubt anticipating trouble with Britain and other powers over such a unilateral settlement of the âeastern questionâ, turned it down. This prompted an expansionist Second Reich to look eastward to extend its political power and economic interests.
From 1875 the Emperor Wilhelm I and his Chancellor, Bismarck, set out to woo the Ottoman Empire. Germany turned two blind eyes towards the brutal internal repression of Sultan Abdul Hamid which had aroused widespread protests in Britain and western Europe. When British and French banks turned down Turkish requests for loans, Germany would provide. Even though the Congress of Berlin, chaired by Bismarck, effectively dismantled Turkish rule in the Balkans in 1878, the Germans continued with some success to increase their influence in Constantinople. The German military mission was revived and extended. In 1882 Colonel Kochler was appointed deputy chief of staff of the Turkish Army, succeeded on his death in 1883 by von der Goltz; in the same year the railway route from Berlin to Constantinople was opened, with work continuing on the extension to Baghdad. The state visit of Kaiser Wilhelm II, more crudely ambitious for Germany than his father, in 1898, underpinned German domination into the twentieth century.
Enverâs reward for his part in