Sailing through modernity: Journey of mirror of victory to portsmouth and connected history of the Ottoman naval modernisation

In 1850, Mirror of Victory (Mir'āt-ı Zafer) and Stamp of the Sea (Sürāğ-ı Bahrī) went on a journey to Portsmouth and stayed at the harbour for six months for naval purposes. The harbour was the naval base and was amongst the modernising industrial towns of Britain. The journey of the Ottoman ships was an example of how the Ottoman navy was reformed in contact with Britain. During their stay in Portsmouth, both the deck of the ships and the harbour set the conditions for cultural interaction between the Ottoman marines and British locals. The locals visited the ships daily and communicated with the crew. The opinion-based articles of the journalists during and after the visits show that their interaction was not bounded to East-West dichotomy and Eurocentrism. Accordingly, the transmission of naval science and technology revealed after the interaction was an example of reciprocal transfer rather than imitation of Europe. The Ottoman naval officers who were trained at the harbour brought British style guns to on their return to Istanbul. A report written by Captain Mustafa Bey on the journey and logbook of the Mirror of Victory present valuable information about naval reforms. Going beyond the Westernisation/Europeanisation perspective, this thesis discusses Ottoman modernisation on the axis of interaction and transfer of technology. To overcome the problematic nature on the debates over modernisation, a connected modernisation approach is presented through the exemplary case of Mirror of Victory.