Successful failure: American naval engineers at the Imperial Arsenal in Constantinople 1831-1842

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Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00263206.2023.2207462

The esteemed naval engineer Henry Eckford and later his foreman Foster Rhodes served at the Imperial Arsenal between 1831 and 1839. Although their efforts to construct modernized war vessels, improve the technical infrastructure of the Arsenal, and educate Ottoman youth to become future naval engineers were admirable, due to the international and domestic problems that the Ottoman Empire faced, they could not accomplish naval modernization in the manner that both they and Sultan Mahmud II dreamed of. While they failed at this phase, they succeeded in establishing strong grounds for their countrymen by supporting them financially, mentally, and diplomatically. They extended their help towards American missionaries, who quickly expanded their activities in the educational field to include non-Muslim, as well as Muslim communities. They increased the prestige of American representatives, providing them with a high level of respect, and they supported American travelers who visited these engineers and recorded the honors showered upon them by the Ottomans in their travel narratives. This support successfully helped to construct future cooperation between the United States and the Ottoman Empire, and thus enabled many Americans from different fields to expand their industries and at the same time allowed the Ottoman Empire to benefit in return.