The Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel: Turkey Battle Cruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim

Laid down on December 7, 1909, launched on March 28, 1911 and commissioned on July 2, 1912, Yavz Sultan Selim carried a main armament of ten 11 inch main guns mounted two per turret; one centerline forward, two superfiring centerline aft and one wing turret on each side that could fire to both sides and forward and aft. These were new 11 inch guns of an improved 50-caliber length with a higher muzzle velocity than those found on earlier German capital ships. Goeben was half of the two ship German Moltke battle cruiser class and the ships had coal-fired turbine engines. The Moltke class ships were as tough as any of the notably rugged German battle cruisers and, during the Great War and the Goeben had need for all of her staying power. Goeben was named after General August von Goeben (1816–1880), a hero of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. Stationed in the Mediterranean from 1912, on the outbreak of war, the Goeben, accompanied by the light cruiser Breslau, began her long and adventurous career as the target of every Allied warship in that sea. Before making a dash for the Turkish-controlled Dardanelles, she threatened French troop convoys from North Africa, bombarded Philippeville and traded shots with the British light cruiser Gloucester and reached Istanbul on August 16, 1914. The ship was turned over to Turkey (the transfer was not permanent until 1918) and renamed Yavuz Sultan Selim, although most of the German crew remained to work and fight the ship. Sultan Selim I (1470 - 1520, reigned 1512–1520), the father of Suleiman the Magnificent, the greatest of all the Ottoman rulers, was the ship’s namesake. "Yavuz," meaning "Grim," was Selim’s epithet. Since Russia was slow to build any dreadnoughts on the Black Sea, Turkey had been frantically trying to acquire at least one to control that body of water. The acquisition of this ship was a deciding factor in bringing Turkey into World War One on the side of the Central Powers. Entering the Black Sea, she bombarded Sevastopol on October 29, 1914 and sank the Russian minelayer Prut. On November 18, 1914, during another raid on the Crimea, she brushed with elements of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, taking one hit while damaging the Russian pre-dreadnought battleship Svjatoj-Evstafij. On December 26, 1914, the Yavuz Sultan Selim struck two mines and shipped 600 tons of water. As no dock was available, only makeshift repairs were possible and these still took months. On April 1, 1915, she returned to the Black Sea, sank two Russian merchantmen and repulsed an attack by Russian destroyers. In a later sortie, on May 10, 1915, she ran into five Russian pre-dreadnought battleships and received two hits while damaging one of the Russians. On January 7, 1916, she fought an inconclusive battle with the Russian dreadnought battleship Imperatriza Ekaterina. On January 20, 1918, the busy Yavuz Sultan Selim sailed from the Dardanelles into the Mediterranean to attack shipping between Salonika and Palestine and struck several mines while attacking the island of Imbros and sinking the British monitors Raglan and M-28. She ran aground while returning and was attacked by British aircraft, re-floating only on January 26, 1918. This proved to be her last cruise at war. The ship’s name was shortened to just Yavuz in 1936. The powerful ship remained in the Turkish Navy, although she never again put to sea after 1950, gradually turned into a relic and was finally put up for sale in 1963. When there were no buyers, the ship was placed on display until 1972 and then the last of the Kaiser Bill’s capital ships was scrapped.

See other capital ships: Andrea Doria, Queen Elizabeth, Prinz Eugen .