Navalist blues: a short history of Turkey’s unorthodox navy leagues (1909–2021)

Mustafa Serdar Karakaya

Defense & Security Analysis, 2025, vol. 41, issue 1, 125-144

Abstract: This study tracks the shifts in Turkish pro-navalism by writing a short history of the Ottoman and Turkish navy leagues from 1909 to 2021. By studying the continuities and differences between these organisations, this paper makes two key arguments. Firstly, although the Ottoman and later Turkish navy leagues were similar to the ones found elsewhere, they differed with their primary focus being raising funds for naval rearmament projects. Secondly, the appearance of these navy leagues in the Turkish context coincides with periods of increased hostility in between Greece and the Ottoman Empire/Turkey. Periods of “thaw,” however, precluded a Turkish navy league of any sort. This suggests that Turkish pro-navalism and thus state tolerance for openly navalist organisations ebbed and flowed based on the country’s relationship with its Western neighbour. Aside from the scholarship at hand, this study uses documents from both Turkish and American governmental archives to make its case.

Date: 2025
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DOI: 10.1080/14751798.2024.2413247

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