Abstract

The seizure of the newly-built Ottoman dreadnought Reşadiye by First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill on 31 July 1914 is widely held to have spurred the Young Turk regime in Istanbul to contract an alliance with Germany and enter the Great War at its side. This owing to widespread belief (still held by historians today) that it and a second seized dreadnought had been fully paid for by donations to the Ottoman Navy League collected from across the Ottoman Empire and beyond. Drawing on the archives of banks and of Vickers, who constructed the Reşadiye, this article demonstrates that the warships were in fact paid for by funds lent by British, French and German banks—as well as by Vickers itself. Drawing on Ottoman newspapers of the time, it explains how the Navy League myth developed, constraining Ottoman room for manoeuvre in the crucial months of summer 1914.

摘要

1914 年 7 月 31 日，海军部第一勋爵温斯顿·丘吉尔夺取了新建的奥斯曼无畏舰Reşa​​diye，人们普遍认为这促使伊斯坦布尔的青年土耳其人政权与德国结盟并加入了大战。这是因为人们普遍认为（今天仍然被历史学家持有）认为，它和第二艘缴获的无畏舰已经完全通过从奥斯曼帝国和其他地区收集到的对奥斯曼海军联盟的捐款来支付。借鉴银行档案和建造Reşa​​diye的维克斯的档案，这篇文章表明，这些军舰实际上是由英国、法国和德国的银行以及维克斯自己借出的资金支付的。它借鉴了当时的奥斯曼报纸，解释了海军同盟神话是如何发展的，从而限制了奥斯曼帝国在 1914 年夏季关键月份的回旋余地。