Hasan Rami Pasha

The Ottoman Navy (Turkish: Osmanlı Donanması) or The Imperial Navy (Ottoman Turkish: Donanma-yı Humâyûn), also known as the Ottoman Fleet, was the naval warfare arm of the Ottoman Empire. It was established after the Ottomans first reached the sea in 1323 by capturing Praenetos (later called Karamürsel after the founder of the Ottoman Navy), the site of the first Ottoman naval shipyard and the nucleus of the future navy. During its long existence, the Ottoman Navy was involved in many conflicts and signed a number of maritime treaties. It played a decisive role in the conquest of Constantinople and the subsequent expansion into the Mediterranean and Black Seas. At its height in the 16th century, the Navy extended to the Indian Ocean, sending an expedition to Indonesia in 1565, and by the early 17th century operated as far as the Atlantic. Commensurate with the decline and modernization of the empire in the late 18th century, the Ottoman Navy stagnated, albeit remaining among the largest in the world: with nearly 200 warships, including 21 battleships, it ranked third after the British and French navies. For much of its history, the Navy was led by the Kapudan Pasha (Grand Admiral; literally "Captain Pasha"); this position was abolished in 1867, when it was replaced by the Minister of the Navy (Turkish: Bahriye Nazırı) and a number of Fleet Commanders (Turkish: Donanma Komutanları). Following the defeat against the combined British-French-Russian fleet at the Battle of Navarino in 1827, Sultan Mahmud II gave priority to develop a strong and modern Ottoman naval 

force. The first steam ships of the Ottoman Navy were acquired in 1828. In 1829 the world's largest warship for many years, the 201 x 56 kadem (1 kadem = 37.887 cm[22]) or 76.15 m × 21.22 m (249.8 ft × 69.6 ft) ship of the line Mahmudiye, which had 128 cannons on 3 decks and carried 1,280 sailors on board, was built for the Ottoman Navy at the Imperial Arsenal on the Golden Horn in Constantinople. In the 1830s, about 2.500 Christian sailors (mainly Armenians and Greeks) were recruited in the Ottoman navy. This caused negative reactions from the Christian communities. Many Greeks from Rhodos and Chios fled to the neighboring smaller islands. In 1847, Christian sailors demanded their own priests and chapels on the warships, which was refused on the basis of Sharia. The Great Admiral and the Grand Vizier were in favour of the Christians' demands, but the Sheih ul-Islam declared that Christian services on board were equivalent to the construction of new churches, and thus forbidden by religious law. In 1875, during the reign of Sultan Abdülaziz, the Ottoman Navy had 21 battleships and 173 other types of warships, ranking as the third largest navy in the world after the British and French navies. But the vast size of the navy was too much of a burden for the collapsing Ottoman economy to sustain. Abdülhamid II was aware that the empire needed a navy to shield herself from the ever-growing Russian threat. However, the Ottoman economic crisis of 1875 and the additional financial burden of the disastrous Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) deprived the Ottoman Empire from the financial resources and economic independence to maintain and modernize a large fleet. The second half of the 19th century was a period of breakthroughs in the field of naval engineering. The Ottoman Navy was rapidly becoming obsolete, and needed to replace all her warships once a decade to keep up with the pace in technological progress – which, given the dismal state of the economy, was clearly not an option.