Military of The Ottoman Empire - Ottoman Navy

Ottoman Navy

The conquest of İmralı Island in the Sea of Marmara in 1308 marked the first Ottoman naval victory. In 1321 the Ottoman fleet made its first landings on Thrace in southeastern Europe, and vastly contributed to the expansion of the Empire's territories on the European continent. The Ottoman navy was one of the first to use cannons, and the Battle of Zonchio in 1499 went down in history as the first naval battle where cannons were used on ships. It was also the Ottoman navy which initiated the conquest of North Africa, with the addition of Algeria and Egypt to the Ottoman Empire in 1517. The Battle of Preveza in 1538 and the Battle of Djerba in 1560 marked the apex of Ottoman naval domination in the Mediterranean Sea. The Ottomans also confronted the Portuguese forces based in Goa at the Indian Ocean in numerous battles between 1538 and 1566. In 1553, the Ottoman admiral Salih Reis conquered Morocco and the lands of North Africa beyond the Strait of Gibraltar, extending Ottoman territory into the Atlantic Ocean. In 1566 the Sultan of Aceh asked for support against the Portuguese and declared allegiance to the Ottoman Empire, which sent its Indian Ocean fleet under Kurtoğlu Hızır Reis to Sumatra. The fleet landed at Aceh in 1569, and the event marked the easternmost Ottoman territorial expansion. In 1585 the Ottoman admiral Murat Reis captured Lanzarote of the Canary Islands. In 1617 the Ottoman fleet captured Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean, before raiding Sussex, Plymouth, Devon, Hartland Point, Cornwall and the other counties of western England in August 1625. In 1627 Ottoman naval ships, accompanied by corsairs from the Barbary Coast, raided the Shetland Islands, Faroe Islands, Denmark, Norway and Iceland. Between 1627 and 1631 the same Ottoman force also raided the coasts of Ireland and Sweden. In 1627 a force of ships under the Ottoman flag captured the Isle of Lundy in the Bristol Channel, which served as the main base for Ottoman naval and privateering operations in the North Atlantic until 1632. Ottoman ships later appeared off the eastern coasts of North America, particularly being sighted at the British colonies like Newfoundland and Virginia. The overseas territorial acquisitions of the Ottoman Navy further expanded the extent of the Ottoman sphere of influence on distant lands in both the Indian and Atlantic oceans, such as the addition of Aceh (1569) as a vassal state to the Ottoman Empire, and temporary occupations like those of Lanzarote (1585), Madeira (1617), Vestmannaeyjar (1627) and Lundy (1627–1632).

Following defeat against the combined British-French-Russian navies at the Battle of Navarino in 1827, and the subsequent loss of Algeria (1830) and Greece (1832), Ottoman naval power, and control over the Empire's distant overseas territories declined. Sultan Abdülaziz (reigned 1861–1876) attempted to reestablish a strong Ottoman navy, building the world's third largest fleet in that period after those of Britain and France, with 21 battleships and 173 other types of warships. The shipyard at Barrow, United Kingdom built its first submarine in 1886 for the Ottoman Empire. The submarine Abdul Hamid achieved fame as the world’s first to fire a torpedo underwater. But the collapsing Ottoman economy could not sustain the fleet strength. Sultan Abdülhamid II (reigned 1876–1908) distrusted the navy, when the admirals supported the reformist Midhat Pasha and the First Ottoman Parliament of 1876. Claiming that the large and expensive navy was of no use against the Russians during the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), he locked most of the fleet inside the Golden Horn, where the ships decayed for the next 30 years.

Following the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, the Committee of Union and Progress which effectively took control of the country sought to develop a strong Ottoman naval force. The poor condition of the fleet was highlighted during the Ottoman Naval Parade of 1910, and as a consequence the Ottoman Navy Foundation was established in order to purchase new ships through public donations. Those who made donations received different types of medals according to the size of their contributions. With this public money, the Ottoman government purchased large battleships from the United Kingdom, naming them Sultan Osman I and Reşadiye. However despite the payment for both ships, the United Kingdom confiscated them at the outbreak of World War I and renamed them as HMS Agincourt and HMS Erin. The battleships had cost £4 million pounds but the British government refused to refund the payments. This caused some ill-feeling towards Britain among the Ottoman public, and the German Empire took advantage of the situation by sending the battlecruiser SMS Goeben and light cruiser SMS Breslau which entered service in the Ottoman fleet as Yavuz Sultan Selim and the Midilli, respectively. Prior to the confiscation of the battleships, the Ottoman public opinion was largely divided between the pro-Britain stance of the Ottoman Navy and the pro-Germany stance of the Ottoman Army. This event significantly contributed to the decision to support and side with Germany in the First World War.

The mine layer Nusret (Nusrat) and the frigate Hamidiye (Commanding Officer: Rauf Orbay) are two of the more famous ships of Ottoman Navy in the period of Balkan Wars and World War I. In the Gallipoli Campaign of the first World War, the Nusret, commanded by Lieutenant Tophaneli Hakki (Guverte Kidemli Yuzbasi Tophaneli Ibrahim oglu Hakki) laid 26 mines in the Dardanelles Strait. These mines led to the sinking of the British pre-dreadnought battleships HMS Irresistible and HMS Ocean and the French battleship Bouvet, and badly damaging the British battle cruiser HMS Inflexible.

The first aircraft carrier sunk in the world was the HMS Ben-my-Chree. She was sunk on 11 January 1917 by shore-based Turkish artillery fire commanded by Mustafa Ertuğrul.