Battleship Tsesarevich (1899/1903)
Tsesarevich under way at Talinn in 1911.
The battleship was built in France by Compagnie des Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée à la Seyne for the Imperial Russian Navy as part of the build-up of the Russian fleet for the conflict with Japan. She was named after the Tsesarevich (czarevich), the hemophiliac only son of the Tsar and heir to the Russian throne. Whereas most previous Russian battleships had roughly followed the British pattern on a small scale, this one was a full-blown exemplar of 1890s French battleship conventions, with a broad hull featuring deep tumble-home, rising to a tall and narrow superstructure. Compared to contemporary French ships, she was considerably larger at almost 13,000 tons, and carried all her main guns and secondary armament in twin turrets of the Canet type, rather than single-gun mountings as in contemporary French battleships. Like the French ships, though, she was top-heavy and lacking in stability, and had a longitudinal watertight bulkhead which made her prone to capsize. After commissioning in 1903, the ship was based in the Russian Far East and fought in the Russo-Japanese War, serving as the flagship of Admiral Wilhelm Vitgeft in the Battle of the Yellow Sea.
There was bad blood between Adm. Witgeft and Viceroy Alexeiev at Port Arthur. Alexeiev "pulled rank" on the Admiral, using his influence with the Tsar to order a sortie intended to unite the remaining Port Arthur flotilla with the smaller Vladivostok squadron. On the morning of August 10, 1904, the First Pacific Squadron left Port Arthur, attempting to break through the Japanese blockade. The Russian squadron consisted of the battleships Tsesarevich (flag), Retvizan, Pobieda, Peresviet, Sevastopol and Poltava, along with four protected cruisers and 14 torpedo-boats. The Japanese fleet, commanded by Admiral Togo, was composed of the battleships Mikasa, Asahi, Fuji, and Shikishima, the armored cruisers Nisshin and Kasuga, plus 8 protected cruisers, 18 destroyers and 30 torpedo-boats.
By midday, the main body of Japanese battleships attempted to block the Russians' exit route from the Port Arthur approaches. Around 1 p.m. the first shots were fired. During an hour-long exchange, the Russians succeeded in breaking out of the harbor. Admiral Togo began a long-range chase of the Russian fleet, gradually overtaking it from the southwest. At 4:20 the action resumed. With heavy smoke clouds drifting over the scene, the two fleets traded artillery fire from ranges of 9,000 to 10,000 yards and both sides took damage. At 6:00, the battle's outcome was decided when Admiral Vitgeft was killed by a shell splinter on the bridge of the Tsesarevich. Just 12 minutes later, further hits on the Tsesarevich killed the captain and all the bridge personnel and locked the ship's wheel into a hard-left turn. With no one in command and her steering crippled, the flagship fell out of the battle line and steamed in a vast circle, followed by the remaining Russian ships, who were unaware of the catastrophe to their commander. Although the Peresviet attempted to assert control, the remaining Russian ships did not follow her signals, and their formation fell into confusion. Fortunately for the Russians Togo was running low on ammunition, and with darkness approaching the Japanese broke off the fight and retired eastward. Night torpedo-boat attacks on the fleeing Russians were unsuccessful.
Most of the Russian fleet (5 battleships, a cruiser and 9 destroyers) succeeded in regaining the safety of Port Arthur before dawn, but the damaged Tsesarevich and her 3 escorting destroyers ran for Qingdao in the German colony of Shandong, on the opposite shore of Bohai Gulf. There they were interned for the duration of hostilities. An excellent series of photos of the ship's battle damage was taken at this time; click here to view. The five-funnel cruiser Askold escaped to Shanghai and was interned there, surviving to fight in WWI. The cruiser Diana also ran for it, reaching Saigon and safety 3 days later. The Russian ships trapped in Port Arthur languished there, rusting, their battle damage unrepaired: a premonition of defeat. As the Japanese siege tightened the besieging army took the high ground around the city and erected large guns there. The Russian vessels in the shallow anchorage were all shelled and sunk, to be salvaged after the fall of the city and mustered into the Imperial Japanese Navy. At right, Tsesarevich after her postwar refit. This shot shows the great girders between the funnels in their true function, as boat davits, here in the swung-out position; they were very high in order to swing boats clear of the ship's bulging flanks to launch, as seen here. Click image to enlarge. Creating a virtual "boat hangar" on the upper deck, served by these huge davits, was a system inherited from the French and dating to the ironclad barbette ship Marceau of 1881.
At the end of the Russo-Japanese war, Tsesarevich returned to the Baltic where she saw action in WWI, fighting German König class dreadnoughts in the Battle of Moon Sound, October 16-17, 1917, together with her near-sister, Slawa, which was scuttled by her crew after sustaining heavy damage. After the springtime Russian Revolution Tsesarevich was renamed Grazhdanin ("Citizen"). She was hulked in 1918 and broken up in 1924 in Germany.
Specifications for the Tsesarevich: Dimensions: 388' x 76' x 28'(401' OA length). Displacement: 12,915 tons. Armament: (4) 12"/40 cal. (2x2), (12) 6"/45 (6x2), and (10) 3" guns; (4) 18" torpedo tubes. Armor: all Krupp Cemented type. Belt: 7.9"/6"; 12" turrets 250 mm (10"); 6" turrets 150 mm (6"); deck 3"/1". Machinery: 20 coal-fired, Belleville water-tube boilers; 16,000-HP 4-cyl triple-expansion steam engines, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 18.5 knots. Crew: 803.
Metric Specifications: Dimensions: 118¼m x 23m x 8.5m (OA length: 122.2m) Displacement: 12,915 tons. Armament: (4) 305 mm/40 (2x2), (12) 6"/45 (6x2), and (10) 3" guns; (4) 18" torpedo tubes. Armor: all Krupp Cemented type. Belt: 200/150 mm; turrets 250 mm ; secondary turrets 150 mm; deck 76/25 mm. Machinery: 20 coal-fired, Belleville water-tube boilers; (2) 4-cyl triple-expansion steam engines developing 12,155 kW, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 34.26 km/hr. Crew: 803.
A TSESAREVICH PICTURE GALLERY
A beautiful watercolor of Tsesarevich from her time in the Far East.
A side view of Tsesarevich, the light modeling her bodacious curves - c. 1910-12.
Tsesarevich riding at anchor in Toulon after completing. Note fighting tops similar to the contemporary French Navy design. The Russian ship did not copy the earlier armored masts with internal elevators as in the Charles Martels. The tops were removed altogether in modernization of the vessel before WWI, leaving her with a clean pair of crosstrees on skyscraping pole masts.
Tsesarevich -- stern view. Those curves would have been the envy of the can-can dancers at the Moulin Rouge! All major warships of the Imperial Russian Navy in this period bore gilt double eagles at bow and stern. This photo appears to be from her time interned in German-held Qingdao. Shot holes pepper both stacks.
Elevation and deck plan of Tsesarevich, 1899.
