Great Britain and the Iraqi oil industry war, but for production in the civilian economy. Britain had to turn elsewhere to address its growing oil needs. As Kaiser Wilhelm I and the Ottoman sultan struggled to reassert Ottoman dominion over the Sheikhdom of Kuwait, the British viceroy of the colonial government in India entered into an agreement with Sheikh Mubarak Al-Sabah which created a British protectorate in Kuwait. Britain needed a supply of petroleum which was not controlled by contemporary rivals such as Russia, Germany, or the Netherlands. British Admiral John Fisher wanted to replace Britain's coal-burning naval vessels with fuel-burning ships. This shift was crucial for
Transformation of the Ottoman Empire in particular suffered from heavy competition, and its commercial presence declined significantly, particularly after 1645, when the Ottomans and Venetians went to war over Crete. The English were by far the most successful European merchants in the empire during the seventeenth century, and they benefited from friendly relations between the two states. The Ottomans exported raw silk and imported cheap woolen cloth, as well as tin necessary for the production of military armaments. While in 1550 the Ottoman Empire was a patrimonial state in which all power was held exclusively by the sultan, by 1700 it had experienced a political