HMS Agincourt was a dreadnought battleship built in the United
Kingdom in the early 1910s. Originally part of Brazil's role in a
South American naval arms race, she held the distinction of
mounting more heavy guns (fourteen) and more turrets (seven) than
any other dreadnought battleship constructed, in keeping with the
Brazilians' requirement for an especially impressive design.
Brazil ordered the ship as Rio de Janeiro from the British
Armstrong Whitworth shipyard, but the collapse of the rubber boom
and a warming in relations with the country's chief rival,
Argentina, led to the ship's sale while under construction to the
Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans renamed her Sultan Osman I, after the
empire's founder. The ship was nearly complete when World War I
broke out, and British Admiralty fears of a German–Ottoman alliance
led to her seizure for use by the Royal Navy. This act was a major
contributor to the decision of the Ottoman Empire to support
Germany in the war. Renamed Agincourt by the British, she joined
the Grand Fleet in the North Sea. The ship spent the bulk of her
time during the war on patrols and exercises, although she did
participate in the Battle of Jutland in 1916. Agincourt was put
into reserve in 1919 and sold for scrap in 1922 to meet the terms
of the Washington Naval Treaty.
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