Wikipedia:Today's featured list/August 8, 2011
In the aftermath of the Young Turk Revolution in 1908, the Ottoman Empire began to draw up plans for the development of a stronger Ottoman Navy. Earlier Ottoman attempts to construct battleships, such as the Abdul Kadir, had ended in failure. As a result, the Ottoman Navy Foundation was established to purchase new ships rather than building them locally. However, the fleet's inability to respond to naval threats was still evident in its defeat by the Greek Navy in the battles of Elli and Lemnos in the First Balkan War. At the start of the First World War, half of the battleships owned by the Ottoman Empire were still under construction in the UK, and were either scrapped or seized by the British in the early days of the conflict. The Ottomans turned to assistance from Germany, and it was the donation of German-built ships that paved the way for a military alliance with that country and the eventual Ottoman entry into the war. (Full list...)