HISTORY
Ottoman
ship Mahmudiye
Mahmudiye was a ship of the line of the Ottoman Navy. She was a
three-masted three-decked 128-gunned sailing ship, which could
perhaps be considered to be one of the few completed heavy-first
rate battleships. Mahmudiye, with a roaring lion as the ship's
figurehead, was intended to serve to reconstitute the morale of
the nation after the loss of the fleet at the Battle of Navarino
in 1827. The flagship was for many years the largest warship in
the world.
She was constructed by the naval architect Mehmet Kalfa and the
naval engineer Mehmet Efendi on the order of Mahmud II (reigned
between 1808–1839) at the Imperial Arsenal, on the Golden Horn
in Constantinople.
The 201 × 56 kadem (1 kadem = 37.887 cm) or 76.15 m × 21.22 m
(249.8 ft × 69.6 ft) ship of the line carried 1,280 sailors on
board.
With the introduction of steam power at the end of the 1840s,
the conversion of the pure sail-driven ship into a steamer was
considered. However, the lack of the necessary space for the
steam engine on board meant the idea could not be realized.
Mahmudiye participated in the Siege of Sevastopol (1854–55)
during the Crimean War (1854–56) under the command of Admiral of
the Fleet Kayserili Ahmet Pasha. She was honored with the title
Gazi following her successful mission in Sevastopol.
She was decommissioned in 1874 and broken up at the Imperial
Shipyard. |