Sultan Mahmud II, facing the decline of the Ottoman navy after defeat in the Battle of Navarino, decided to modernise the Ottoman fleet, introducing a new imposing battleship, the Mahmudiye, built in the Imperial Naval Arsenal on the Golden Horn. From 1828 he introduced steamships into the Ottoman navy.

The European popular imagination was astonished by the new inventions of the 19th century and by the steam engine in particular. Prints and drawings expressed this astonishment, often humourously. It was common to imagine the future as a science fiction novel.

A good example of a design associating the innovation of the steam engine with the interest in “exotic” architecture promoted in Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam, Germany, during the Romantic period.

In 1838 many states existed on Italian territory, such as the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. The relationship of these states with Mediterranean countries was of fundamental importance. Steamships intensified these contacts as the movements of goods and people became easier.

A drawing included in a book published in 1848 shows one of the first steamships used by the UK in the possession of Aden (Yemen). Aden became a British possession in 1839, a market and station for British steamships on the route to India.

Progress was conceived in terms of technical modernisation. Kings, sultans and local rulers were personally involved in the effort to keep their lands up to date with technology and rival the competition among the great powers that involved all the countries on the playing field. Steamships were one symbol of progress.

The steam locomotive, one of the best-known steam devices, soon became a widespread tool and a symbol of the advancements in communication. In Morocco the first railway had been built in 1859 by the Spanish to connect Tetouan and el Marchi river (Rio Martin).

Şirket-i Hayriyye was a joint British–Ottoman steamship company. The new fashion for travelling and the increasing pace of trade were the main reasons for the introduction of steamships crossing the Bosphorus, traditionally a vital economic, cultural and social crossroads.

This postcard shows the inauguration of a railway engine in Libya. A piece of Italian colonial propaganda, it aimed at showing “superior” technology and the “civilisation” brought to the colonised territories, by using technical innovations to build a message of propaganda and legitimate mastery over the colonised country.