8 - Foreign Policies for Selling Arms to the Ottoman Empire/Turkey

Summary

Over the century considered here there were two overriding problems for Armstrongs and Vickers in doing business with the Ottoman Empire. First, the Empire’s constant indebtedness; they always needed loans to buy weaponry and had a habit of falling behind in payments. Second, the British Government followed its own diktats and would annoy the Ottoman rulers. Therefore Armstrongs– and later Vickers– despite pursuing independent policies, were often disadvantaged by being seen as British firms, showing the limitations of the firms’ independent diplomacy and marketing. Armstrongs through its alliance with Ansaldo– accidentally– discovered a route around the problem of guilt by association, and for a short time profited handsomely from that strategy. Having battled with Germany to secure plum contracts, on the eve of the Great War the British Government thwarted Turkey by commandeering the Sultan Osman I and the Reshadieh dreadnoughts built by Armstrongs and Vickers. This affected relations with Turkey until she joined the Allies in World War Two, after which she got British Export Credits. Postwar Turkey was granted American military aid, closing the market to Vickers-Armstrongs.