High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In the early 20th century, the Greek Navy embarked on an expansion program to counter a strengthening of Greece`s traditional rival, the Ottoman Empire. The Ottomans ordered a new dreadnought battleship, Reshadieh; in response, Greece ordered the dreadnought Salamis from a German shipyard. The Ottomans acquired the ex-Brazilian Rio de Janeiro and renamed her Sultan Osman I. Greece responded with a second battleship ordered in France, Vasilefs Konstantinos, built to the same design as the French Bretagne class. As the Ottomans had a significant head start in battleship construction, the Greek Navy purchased two obsolete American pre-dreadnoughts—USS Mississippi and Idaho—as a stop-gap measure in June 1914. The ships were renamed Kilkis and Lemnos, respectively.