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Turkey's Toy BoatTurks make the best of WW1 dreadnought feud with Churchill |
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1908. The chaps at the British Foreign Office had a slight problem. It seems the Ottoman Empire, the babbling, doddering old uncle Europe wished would just go away, was on the verge of political breakdown. Three young Turks at the head of a party known as, well, the Young Turks, had just forced their Sultan to abdicate. In an eye-crossingly bizarre display of deduction, the British Foreign office decided that this must be the work of a worldwide cabal of magic, Oriental, Freemason Jews. Most Londoners, however, contented themselves with wondering whether the bowler hat would ever go out of fashion. The Turks shifted their fezzes uncomfortably. Drachma-tic IronyNevertheless, if there was something Britain loved more than hating Jews, it was commerce, and if there was something that the Young Turks hated more than meddling Europeans, it was the damn Greeks. In this the British and the Turks could find some common ground. Still smarting from an embarrassing loss to the Greeks in 1897, the Young Turks were eager to modernize their empire and their navy. As an added bonus, a maritime force would let the Turks whup those pesky Greeks but good. To this end, they asked the British, who had made quite a name building big navies, to come help out. Starting 1909 and ending on the eve of The Great War, the British sent three naval missions to help the Young Turks to do just that, with the implicit assumption that British arms dealers would make a tidy sum along the way. Problem was, it wasn't clear anyone could fix the Turkish navy, even those famously stern and efficient English seamen. The previous Sultan, you see, had decided that keyed-up sailors might provide a revolutionary threat, and so in one of history's great nose-to-spite-the-face maneuvers, disbanded the navy and left its ships to rust in the harbor. The result: In 1908, with 7200 kilometers of coastline, Turkey had 30 seaworthy ships, 24 rotting in the harbor, and sailors enough for only a handful. Turkey's two steam-powered submarines were a perfect case in point. Turkish officers deemed the boats (an English model built in Sweden) unsuitable for action upon seeing demonstrations in 1885, however, when Greece bought one nine months later, Turkey had to have two. These pathetic subs didn't work underwater (!) and were left to rust in 1910.[1] The first tea-swilling naval missionary, Admiral Douglas Gamble, was understandably daunted by the task. Upon his arrival to Turkey in February 1909, a concerned British Ambassador to Turkey reported back to his superiors that "Gamble is quite horrified at the indescribable mess he finds here and the empty coffers are not encouraging for his work" Gamble's own correspondence after a year on the job wasn't much more encouraging: "This is such heartbreaking work... I am sick of the whole business and I feel very seedy."[2]
Playing both Ends Against the MiddleUnless Gamble was just referring to the Turkish bath houses, he had reason indeed to feel seedy. Gamble was in constant competition with the Greeks, and nervously aware they were busy building their own navy. This would all be on the up and up, except that the chap in charge of the Greek naval effort was one Admiral Mark Kerr. If you guessed that "Kerr" sounds suspiciously unlike a proper Greek sailor and more like a fat British upper-class fop, you'd be quite right. The British Foreign Office was helping both mortal enemies build modern navies. The ones who came out ahead in all this were, naturally, the owners of British shipyards, which continued to churn out the world's finest warships, for sale to the highest bidder. The most famous of these ships started construction in late 1910, just as Gamble's successor, Admiral Hugh Williams, was arranging his desk pad and paperweights. The Rio de Janeiro, the world's biggest battleship, was being built on the River Tyne by the famous shipbuilders of Armstrong Whitworth. Built for Brazil (whose local arms race with Argentina was eerily similar to Turkey's with Greece), it was the largest warship by tonnage, length and number of guns. As the winds of war started to stir across the world, the Young Turks began to wonder if they, too, might need a battleship. The Situation Heats UpOver the next few years, the Young Turks' suspicions were confirmed. Everyone wanted a slice of the Ottoman pie. Using some lame excuse, the wily Italians declared war on the Turks in 1911, seizing Libya and the Dodecanese islands (of which, interestingly, there are approximately 165). This otherwise uninspired war between two third-rate powers has the distinction of being the first in which airplanes[3] were used in combat. Daring Italians strapped themselves into sporty little planes[4] and gamely lobbed hand grenades at Ottoman troops, who, confused and a bit miffed, complained to war courts that this aerial bombardment was illegal.[5] In response to all of this, the Turks asked Britain for an alliance in 1911. A young whippersnapper by the name of Winston Churchill was very much in favor, figuring Britain would end up fighting Italy sooner or later and could really use the straits of Bosporus. Unfortunately, the Foreign Office was still chasing Jewish phantoms and put the kibosh on the idea. Emboldened by the number Italy pulled on Turkey, several upstart Balkan states picked fights in 1912 and 1913 -- the famous Balkan wars -- and beat the crap out of the poor Young Turks. The Balkan Wars really steamed up the Turks by exposing their complete inability to protect their coastline or patrol their holdings in the Mediterranean and North Africa. The crowning moment came when American President Woodrow Wilson (whose remarkable ability to muck things up may only have been exceeded by Neville Chamberlain's) agreed in June of 1913 to sell Greece some of America's old battleships. Like the rest of the world's leaders, President Wilson figured that arming these feuding neighbors to the teeth would help keep peace in the Mediterranean.[6] The French Blow It, AgainPissed as hell, the Young Turks decided to do something about it: they'd buy a battleship, and they'd buy it fast.
It was now December 1913, and we return to the absurdly large Rio de Janeiro. By now she has been renamed the HMS Rust by the lads back in England, where work had stopped on her for some months. What happened? The price of coffee had taken a dive, and Brazil could no longer afford the hulking boat, so they put it up for sale to the highest bidder.[7] Anticipating war, the nations of Europe were as nervous as the proverbial long-tailed cat that winter. Everyone wanted that battleship. A bidding war ensued between the Three Stooges of the Mediterranean: Turkey, Greece and Italy. Greece asked France to buy the ship for them. The Frenchies believed they had the deal sewn up for the Greeks on December 13 when the Brazilians cryptically declared that the ship had been sold, but that "the Brazilian Government also do not know to what Power."[8] When Brazil found out it was Turkey that had wired them the required down payment, they let everyone know what had happened: in a stroke of genius that served the French right, the Turks borrowed money from a French bank and had their battleship in time for the New Year. A popular burst of enthusiasm in the Ottoman Empire had grandmothers selling jewelry and kids giving away their lunch money to fund payments on the burly boat. To celebrate, the Young Turks gave out medals and took over the whole damn government on January 4, 1914. The supremely crafty ringleader, Enver Pasha, married the Sultan's niece, moved into the palace and took over the War Ministry: there would be no more messing about in the Ottoman Empire. A Maritime, yes a Mari-Old-TimeWith renewed enthusiasm, work resumed on the Rio de Janeiro, now renamed the Sultan Osman I. The Turks, eager to stomp on Greece, and with world war looming ever closer, wanted their warship pronto. Apparently no one relayed this sense of urgency to the Turks overseeing the boat's construction. According to Geoffrey Miller, a British naval historian: The Turkish officials on the Tyne had, by all accounts, followed a leisurely routine since arriving at the beginning of the year. From their pleasant lodgings at the Manor House Hotel... they would deign to reach the shipyard office at ten in the morning, then have an agreeable lunch in Newcastle, before departing for the hotel at 3 p.m. They restricted themselves to ensuring that Sultan Osman I suited their personal requirements in every respect: 'the delegation could give their mind to the choice of wood to complete the panelling, the style of the three piece electric lamp fittings, armchairs, desks and tables for the wardroom, and the furnishings for the admiral's quarters.' So comprehensive was this aesthetic remit that [Young Turk leader] Djemal was eventually forced to request that [the officials] desist 'from demanding further changes... every day'.[9] The rest of the ship was far from immune to petty vanities and the arrogance of her officers. In order to handle the weight of so many guns, the ship was extremely lightly armored. The officers of both Brazil and Turkey insisted on large and luxurious cabins -- achieved by eliminating the watertight bulkheads designed to contain flooding. A good solid whack with so much as a champagne bottle could sink the Sultan Osman in a matter of minutes. Her builders christened her "The Gin Palace" and announced that if all her guns fired at once, she might break in two. Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!Things started moving fast in the summer of 1914. On June 28th, a drunken group of assassins managed to off Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. For reasons that have filled entire libraries, this set off a string of events that all the Great Powers saw would lead to a world-wide conflagration. On July 22nd, Turkey, whose army could barely fend off a handful of cross raccoons, asked the Germans for assurance of military protection. Germany was unwilling to tangle with Russia (the bully most likely to give the Ottomans the wedgie they had coming) and turned our hero Enver Pasha out on his ear believing, quite rightly, that he had nothing to offer. On July 25th Serbia threw the bird back at Austria, ordering its army to mobilize, making war inevitable.[10] Everyone started having second thoughts about this pesky battleship. The leading minds expected a short war, with no time to build new battleships, so a brand-new boat with that many guns couldn't be allowed to fall into the wrong hands. The Turks realized this, too, and sent a man right away to fetch the Osman. The improbably named Admiral Limpus set sail on July 27th. As his ship steamed through the Dardanelles, the Turks planned a "Navy Week" to culminate in a massive kegger to celebrate "Anglo-Ottoman" friendship. Meanwhile, the Germans were getting friendly, issuing commands to the also-improbably named Commander Hans von Wangenheim, German Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, to re-open alliance discussions with the Turks. He was to enter into a pact only if they had something serious to offer. If Young Turks Talaat, Enver and Djavid knew anything, it was that their careers might well depend on that ostentatious boat sitting idly on the Tyne, some 2700 kilometers away. Austria declared war on Serbia just before lunchtime on the 28th. The Greeks announced that if Turkey took delivery of the Osman, they would attack the ship with their US-bought battleships as it passed through the Straits of Gibraltar. The next morning, the Foreign Office in the United Kingdom was notified that the Sultan Osman was taking on fuel and preparing to get the hell out of Dodge. With or without Admiral Limpus.
Churchill Pops in for a WordBack in sunny Albion, things had taken a decidedly strange turn. Armstrong Whitworth workers making last minute changes to the Osman were opening boxes of new brass instruction and direction plates. These were to be labeled in Turkish to replace the original Portuguese plates from the ship's days as the Rio de Janeiro. But something seemed a bit odd: all the plates had English translations on the back. The same day Austria declared war, the British Sea Lords[11] received a letter inquiring about the legality of simply seizing the Osman. Puzzled, the Lords asked the Attorney General, who responded that there was no precedent for it, it was illegal, and if the person who wrote the letter really wanted the ship, he would have to buy it from the Ottomans. Behind these maneuverings was our good friend Winston Churchill. While Germany had to negotiate for the use of the Sultan Osman, Churchill realized the coveted boat was in his very backyard. Another day's discussions ensued, and on July 30th, the Foreign Office opined that "we must let the Admiralty deal with this question as they consider necessary and afterwards make such defence of our action to Turkey as we can"[12] The European situation darkened that afternoon when Russia, Turkey's most likely enemy, mobilized her armies. Bright and early the next morning (July 31st), Churchill secretly told Armstrong Whitworth not to hand over the ship. He added "there was no reason why the money due [£800,000] should not be accepted." The fact that Churchill was going to steal the battleship didn't mean he would balk at accepting the Turks' final payment!. At 2:30 pm, dinner time in Turkey, word came that the money had been deposited in a British bank. Minutes later, British sailors boarded the ship and shooed the Turkish nationals off. No one in Turkey was told. Back in Turkey, von Wangenheim was still negotiating with the Turks: it was becoming clear this war would not be contained to the Balkans. Everyone was invited to the party. On midnight of July 31st, the Turkish could see the wolves circling with nary a friend in sight. By the next day they wouldn't even have the Osman. The Quick and the DeadInstead, by suppertime of August 1st, Enver Pasha held in his hands a secret treaty enjoining Germany "by force of arms if need be, to defend Ottoman territory." What happened? From no friends and no boats to allied with the most powerful nation in Europe? No one kept records of the negotiations that hot summer day. Historians of the time widely assumed that Churchill's posturing on the battleship, coupled with the Foreign Office's mistrust of the Ottomans had driven the Turks straight into the Germans arms. No one ever guessed that under the most dire straits, in the most severe of circumstances, the Turks actually played their cards perfectly. Aware that the Germans were not going to defend Turkey unless they got something hefty in return, Enver Pasha must have thought about offering the Sultan Osman, the most powerful battleship in the world. The newly dejewelled grandmothers and hungry schoolchildren of Turkey would have hung him from the Hagia Sophia for even thinking it. The only way he could promise the boat, probably the only prize that would convince von Wangenheim to enter a treaty, is if he didn't have to actually follow through. One of history's tireless grad students[13] uncovered evidence in the 1960s that Enver Pasha knew Churchill was thinking about seizing the battleships before August 1st, possibly as early as July 28th. Betting that Churchill would take the ship no matter what happened, Enver may well have played the biggest bluff in Turkish history: promising a ship that wasn't his to give. The Germans would be none the wiser -- assuming the Turks really did mean to give them the Osman, they would find out with the rest of the world on August 4th when Churchill sent an official cable to Constantinople. One wonders just how dry the ink was on the treaty when word filtered into Constantinople that for the low, low cost of one over-decorated, highly sinkable battleship, the Turks had cleverly secured the alliance that had eluded them for so many years. Just When you Thought it Was Safe to Get in the WaterIf anyone asks you why World War I started, we hope this tidy tale of nautical one-upsmanship can set things straight: the world at that time was completely out to lunch. We have a sneaky suspicion not much has changed: the twentieth century closed with a nuclear version of the same machine-gun, battleships, and barbed-wire doctrine of mutually assured destruction that started it off. The weapons have been upgraded, but have international relations? Surely, it's hard to imagine things could have got any worse than the pig's breakfast the British managed to make of things.[14] But we are not holding our breath. Footnotes
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 ©1996-2006 History House Inc.All Rights Reserved. |
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