Battleship Imperator Nikolai I (1885/1891)
Above, the Nikolai I showing the flag on a Mediterranean cruise shortly after commissioning. The two ships of the Alexander II class were constructed toward the end of the more relaxed 1880s, when Russian naval competition was more with the Turks than with any first-rate naval Power. Shortly after they commissioned in 1891-5, the pace of building ratcheted up in anticipation of war with Japan. The Alexanders were barely designed with combat in mind. With a retro, sailing-ship look suited to the early 1880s, the ships were outdated before they were read into commission, and obsolete a very few years later. They belonged to an earlier, almost comic-opera era of naval affairs, but tragically survived to fight in a world of rapid technological advance and total war.
Armed with one 12" barbette forward, the ships had a smart-looking military rig resembling a brig sail rig in skeletal form, and a clean, yachtlike superstructure that swept almost unbroken from bridge to fantail. The secondary guns poked from casemates in the sides. Rather than a second 12" turret, the ships made do with four 9" guns in single mounts and four 6" per side. But the guns were of antiquated design. Typically for Russian ships, they were slow: a design speed of 15.3 knots was achieved on trials, but seldom approached in service. Yet they managed to devour unconscionable amounts of coal: they were furnished with 2-cylinder compound engines rather than the more efficient triple-expansion model readily available when the ship's specifications were sent to the yard. But to make up for the antiquated guns and engines, the ships were protected by antiquated compound armor in an age when stronger, lighter weight nickel-steel and Harvey process armor were already au courant.
As originally configured, the ships had a dome-shaped shield over the main guns, of the same model used in the 12 Apostles. Imperator Alexander II, commissioned in 1895, is shown above in her original rig in a 1:700 model by Andrey Zhukov. Below, officers pose with the big guns of the Alexander II in their original mounting. Hinged flaps folded out of the tunnel at the shield's front to allow elevation of the barrels, folded back to protect the interior from weather.
Plans and Specifications
Specifications for the Alexander II class:
Dimensions: 333'6" x 67' x 25'8½" Displacement: 9,500 tons standard. Armament (as built): (2) 12"/40 cal; (4) 9"; (8) 6"; (10) 47mm; (10) 37mm guns; (5) 15" torpedo tubes. Armor: Compound type. Belt: 14"/6"; barbettes & gun shields: 10". Secondary battery: 5". Conning tower: 8". Propulsion: 12 coal-fired cylindrical boilers; (2) vertical compound engines developing 8,500 hp, shafted to twin screw. Maximum speed: 15.3 kts. Crew: 611.
Ships in class: Nikolai I · Alexander II
Metric specifications:
Dimensions: 101.654m x 20.42m x 7.87m Displacement: 9,500 tons standard. Armament (as built): (2) 305 mm/40 cal; (4) 230 mm, (8) 152 mm, (10) 47 mm, and (10) 37 mm guns; (5) 380 mm torpedo tubes. Armor: Compound type. Belt: 356/152 mm; barbettes & gun shields: 254 mm; secondary battery: 125 mm; conning tower: 203 mm. Propulsion: 12 coal-fired cylindrical boilers; (2) vertical compound engines developing 6,338.5 kW, shafted to twin screw. Maximum speed: 28.34 km/hr. Crew: 611.
Ship's History
First into service by two years, the Nikolai I served in the Baltic Fleet. In 1893 she traveled to America for the opening of the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago -- the sepia photo above shows her at Punta Delgado in the Azores on her way out. Then it was back to the Baltic until the call to battle came. She was rearmed with a proper ellipical turret forward in 1902-3 (left -- to enlarge photo click here). At a time when Russia's best fleet units and most able sailors were fighting -- and losing -- in the Far East, the Nikolai had remained at home with the lesser units. Then in late 1904, Tsar Nicholas II ordered her off to join Adm. Rozhdestvensky's armada already en route to Japan to avenge the fall of Port Arthur. The venerable ironclad was chosen as Adm. Nebogatoff's flagship on the second division's journey to the East.
Dubbed the Third Pacific Fleet (as opposed to the First, already lost in battle, and the Second -- the renamed Baltic Fleet under Rozhdestvensky's command), Nebogatoff's command consisted of the cast-offs of the Russian fleet: every serviceable unit was mustered from the reserves, the coast defense forces, the river ironclads. The ill-assorted agglomeration that resulted was contemptuously described by Lt. Semyenov, a war-hardened officer on Rozhdestvensky's staff, as "old flatirons and galoshes." Steaming through the Mediterranean and Suez Canal, they rendezvoused with Rozhdestvensky's more formidable force at Cam Ranh Bay, French Indo-China, on May 9, 1905. However absurd the mission and however limited their fighting power, it was undeniably a moment of high drama that deeply affected the sentimental Russians. In his account of the voyage and battle, The Fleet That Had to Die,* Richard Hough describes it as follows:
One by one the warships were recognized by the crews packed the upper decks, and greetings wer roared out as they passed the fleet in line-ahead formation. At the head of the column was the old Nicholas I, Nebogatoff's flag flying at her masthead and looking ludicrously unfashionable; then the three coast-defence ships . . . which had miraculously survived the storms of the Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean; and, leading the four transports, the hospital and repair ships, the cruiser Monomakh, a tall-hulled survivor from the days of sail.
* Richard Hough, The Fleet That Had to Die (Edinburgh: Birlinn Ltd., 2000), 145.
The dénouement was not long in coming. Fixated on his fuel supplies with the desperation of a monomaniac, Rozhdestvensky decided to run the Straits of Tsushima between Japan and Korea on his way to Vladivostok. The fleet was steaming in two columns -- the first-line ships and the older vessels, respectively --, with a third cruiser division trailing and the auxiliaries bringing up the rear. On board the ships, every corner and cubby was crammed with coal -- flammable coal -- even the gundecks and upper decks. Just as the lead ships left Tsushima Island astern, the Japanese fleet was sighted. Having neglected to impart any form of battle plan to his commanders, Rozhdestvensky abruptly ordered the two columns merged into one. This was courting catastrophe, since his ships had many times been shown to be unhandy at executing maneuvers; the C-in-C compounded the error by changing his mind and countermanding the order when his commanders had already begun to execute it. The Russian formation was thrown into confusion at the very moment when it might have seized an advantage by shooting at the enemy. The Japanese were presenting an easy target as they deployed, all threading through the same point on a loop before redeploying on a course parallel to the Russians, ready to begin battle. But the Russian commanders, scrambling to avoid collisions and get back into station, were too preoccupied to pay attention to battle tactics.
It was a prelude to disaster. Although Nikolai I in the trailing division got off some good shots early in the action, possibly hitting the Japanese flagship Mikasa with her old 12" guns, Nebogatoff's ships soon were unable to see to aim for all the funnel smoke, gunsmoke, and towering flames from burning Russian battleships. Bit by bit all the new Russian battleships were disabled and sunk. Rozhdestvensky was gravely wounded and intermittently unconscious, transferred from his sinking flagship to a tiny destroyer; the command ordinarily would have passed to R. Adm. Felkerzham in Osliabya, but he had died of a stroke on the eve of battle. Nobody had thought to tell third-in-command Adm. Nebogatoff, though: the death had been kept a mortal secret to avoid demoralizing the fleet.
Overnight, beset by Japanese TBs and bereft of its commander, the Russian fleet disintegrated into dozens of fleeing, desperate units. Morning found a core of Russian armor making a determined push for Vladivostok: Nebogatoff in Nikolai I, the damaged and traumatized Orel -- lone survivor of the four new Borodino class battleships that had sailed from Libau with such fanfare the previous October --, the two coast-defense vessels Adm. Senyavin and Adm. Apraksin, and the protected cruiser Izumrud. As the Japanese fleet closed in, ringing the Russians with armor, Izumrud broke out and made a run for it; the plodding coast-defense ships, first to be overhauled by the pursuing Japanese, surrendered without firing a shot; and Nebogatoff weighed his options. The Japanese demanded surrender from a distance within their range but beyond the reach of his older 12" guns; Orel was useless by this time, her petrified crew hiding below decks and praying as they awaited the end. Nebogatoff's officers pointed out the obvious and the admiral reluctantly hauled down his colors -- the blue Cross of Saint Andrew on a field argent -- then re-hoisted them beneath the Rising Sun ensign of Japan. Soon Japanese officers arrived to take his surrender and escort the Russian ships into Sasebo, their men to POW camps. At Sasebo they were reunited with their testy C-in-C, Rozhdestvensky, who had been rescued from a bobbing TB and was now receiving care for his head and leg wounds at the Japanese naval hospital.
Renamed Iki, the Nikolai I mustered into Japanese service and was converted to a gunnery training ship armed with modern 6" QF breech-loaders. Beyond training, she saw coast-defense duty -- all she had really been fit for in the first place. Decommissioned in 1915, she was sunk as a target ship. Iwami (as the Japanese renamed the Orel) followed her down in 1924.
Photo Gallery
Nikolai I at Yokosuka, Japan as a prize of war, 1905.
Alexander II as rebuilt 1902-04: Armament: (2) 12"/40 cal; (5) 8"; (6) 6" QF; (10) 47mm; (10) 37mm guns; (5) 15" torpedo tubes.
The second of the two ships joined the fleet in 1895, four years after her sister, having taken 8 years to build. In 1902-04, Alexander II was rebuilt and somewhat modernized at the La Seyne shipyard in Brest, France. Continuing her service with the Baltic Fleet, she remained one of the units in a shaken and devastated navy after the Russo-Japanese War. She served in WWI, though not in a combat rôle. After the October Revolution, she left her tsarist identity behind and served the Red cause under the name Zarya Svobody ("Dawn of Freedom"). Decommissioned following the civil war's end in 1921, she was consigned to the dustbin of history in 1925.
Alexander II as Completed
