Mesudiye in near-original fit, laid up with the rest of the Ottoman fleet at the Haliç in 1896. The sills of her hull embrasures, allowing axial fire, are clearly visible forward of the small-boat and behind the floating barrel. The box between the two was the heavily armored battery. Conical roofs atop the chimneys indicate the boilers have been cold for quite a while.
The Mesudiye was one of the original generation of ironclads ordered by Sultan Abdülazizin the late 1860s for the Osmanli Navy. Designed by Edward J. Reed, the pre-eminent designer of ironclads of that age and former DNC of the Royal Navy, she was built at Thames Iron Works, as were the majority of these Ottoman capital ships, and had a hull of iron, a single-screw propelled by a direct-acting steam engine of the builders' own devising, and carried originally a dozen 10" muzzle-loading rifles and three 7". She had twin retractable funnels (see top photo), another common feature of the day; rectangular boilers and a 7,000-hp horizontal direct-acting engine, standard in many British warships of the time.
Like all her sisters, she was of the central battery type with her guns mounted partly in broadside and partly in a well-armored gunhouse amidships, provision being made for axial fire by making cutouts in the hull before and abaft this redoubt. The ship was constructed with two armored conning towers, a relatively new feature at the time. All of these ships had differences in design, however, and could not be said to constitute a homogeneous class. Mesudiye and Hamidiye were chronologically the two last battleships ordered in this spate of building; but Hamidiye, built in Istanbul to the same plans, did not complete until 1891. Both these ships came equipped with auxiliary sail in a 3-mast ship rig -- a given in 1870, but an anachronism by 1891. Mesudiye was delivered to the sultan's Naval Ministry in 1875.
Mesudiye had a remarkably long life, even by Turkish standards. She saw action in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877 and World War I, as well as several conflicts in between. In the First Balkan War, she sailed with the battleships on the Lemnos raid and took a serious hit from one of the Greek battleships. Because of her longevity, and because she had good handling qualities and was well liked, she became iconic in the Ottoman navy and Empire. This status was not diminished by her startling sudden end. Yet -- as our narrative history illustrates -- her artillery may have had the last laugh in the campaign in which their ship was lost.
Specifications for the Mesudiye:
Dimensions (as built - 1873): 336' x 58'9" x 25'10" Displacement: 8,938 tons. Armament (1873): (12) 10" MLR, (3) 7" MLR; 1891 - (6) 3" QF and (6) 1" added; 1903 - (2) 9.2"/40 BLR, (12) 6"/45 QF, (14) 3" QF, (2) 47 mm (1.85") QF, and (10) 57 mm (2.25") QF guns. 1914: 9.2" and 57 mm removed in rebuilding. Armor: Wrought-iron type. Belt: 6.2"/½", turrets 10", conning tower 12", barbettes and bulkheads 8", secondary battery and casemates 6", deck 3"/1½". Fuel capacity: 600 tons of coal. Propulsion: 8 rectangular Thames IW boilers; 1903 rebuilt with 16 Niclausse water-tube boilers. Original engine: Single 2-cyl Thames IW simple expansion engine developing 7,341 ihp, shafted to single screw. Sail plan: Ship rig. Speed: 13.7 kts trials, 10 kts (1884), 17 kts after 1903 rebuild. In 1903, orig. engine replaced by (2) 4-cyl Ansaldo vertical inverted triple-expansion engines developing 11,135 ihp, shafted to twin screw.* Maximum speed: 18.2 kts forced draft; 17 kts normal. Crew: 1200 (1873), 800 (1903), 665 (1914).
Ships in class: Mesudiye · Mahmudiye
Metric specifications:
Dimensions (as built - 1873): 102.4m x 17.9m x 7.9m Displacement: 8,938 tons. Armament (1873): (12) 254 mm MLR, (3) 178 mm MLR; 1891 - (6) 76 mm QF and (6) 25.4 mm added; 1903 - (2) 234 mm/40 BLR, (12) 152 mm/45 QF, (14) 76 mm QF, (2) 47 mm QF, and (10) 57 mm QF guns. 1914: 234 mm and 57 mm removed in rebuilding. Armor: Wrought-iron type. Belt: 157/51 mm, turrets 280 mm, conning tower 305 mm, barbettes and bulkheads 203 mm, secondary battery and casemates 152 mm, deck 76/38 mm. Fuel capacity: 600 tons of coal. Propulsion: 8 rectangular Thames IW boilers; 1903 rebuilt with 16 Niclausse water-tube boilers. Original engine: Single 2-cyl Thames IW simple expansion engine developing 5,474 kW, shafted to single screw. Speed: 25.4 km/hr trials, 18.5 km/hr (1884), 31.5 km/hr after 1903 rebuild. In 1903 replaced by (2) 4-cyl Ansaldo vertical inverted triple-expansion engines developing 8,303.4 kW, shafted to twin screw.* Maximum speed: 33.7 km/hr forced draft. Crew: 1200 (1873), 800 (1903), 665 (1914).
*Because of the nearness of the shafts, the two screws were offset slightly fore-and-aft, with the starboard screw some 1.8 m further forward than the port one. Despite the close clearance, this system worked.
As originally constructed, the Mesudiye was one of a number of armoured warships ordered by Sultan Abdülaziz from Britain, Austria-Hungary and France. She was ordered from the Thames Iron Works in 1871, laid down in 1872, and launched in 1874. Designed by Edward Reed, she was the largest casement warship ever constructed and had wrought-iron belt and battery armour up to 12" (300 mm) thick. She was commissioned in December 1875 following completion of her trials, and at the time was considered one of the most powerful warships in the world. She saw service in the Black Sea during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-8, but shortly afterwards was affected by the edict of Sultan Abdülhamid prohibiting the fleet from sailing beyond the sheltered waters of their base. She accordingly spent the next 20 years at anchor in the Haliç, in the center of Istanbul.
Winds of change blew through the calcified corridors of the Navy Ministry following the embarrassing performance of the navy in 1897. Many of the ships of her generation were relegated to stationary duties around base, but in 1903 Mesudiye was sent to the Ansaldo shipyards in Genoa, Italy, for a complete rebuild. Her three masts were replaced with a single mast aft, the sail rig was removed entirely, and two turrets armed with 9.2" Armstrong guns were fitted. A deckhouse fitted with 3" guns was erected over the midships battery, and prominent obliquely-angled bulkheads with 8" armoring were installed fore and aft of this structure. Below decks, Mesudiye received new boilers and triple-expansion engines. She was changed from a single screw to a twin screw configuration. It proved impossible to place the shafts so the screws could rotate next to each other, so one shaft was made slightly shorter than the other to make room. Though unusual, the setup worked fine in practice. Following the rebuild, the 28-year-old ship initially was 3 knots faster than when she had been new.
In the First Balkan War, Mesudiye participated in both naval battles with the Royal Hellenic Navy, at Elli on 16 December 1912 and at Lemnos on 18 January 1913. In the first engagement, the Ottoman fleet was unable to break the Greek naval blockade of the Dardanelles; in the second it failed to take the Greeks by surprise. Mesudiye was not harmed in the first encounter, but was damaged in the second, receiving a 10.8" hit in the central battery that destroyed three of her 6" (152 mm) mounts and caused 61 casualties. She was released from the action and despatched to seek repairs.
At the beginning of World War I Mesudiye was ordered to anchor just south of the Dardanelles Narrows at Çanak, in Sarisiglar Bay, as a floating battery to protect the minefields. Both the ship's captain, Beshiktashli Arif Nebi, and several officers protested this order, but their German naval advisors insisted.
On December 13, 1914 the British submarine B-11 entered the Dardanelles. At high noon B-11 torpedoed the Mesudiye from a range of 867 yds (800 m), just as the ship's company gathered below decks for lunch. Lookouts sighted the torpedo coming and the sub's periscope and sounded the alarm. The Mesudiyes guns began to fire towards the point where the submarine had been sighted. The impact of the first torpedo caused the Mesudiye to heel severely. She capsized in 10 minutes, trapping most of her crew; however, as she was lying in shoal water, much of the hull remained above the surface, so most of her crew were rescued by cutting through the hull. Thirty-seven men were killed in all, 10 officers and 27 men, out of a complement of 665, for an 18% casualty rate.
The Mesudiyes guns were salvaged and mounted in a shore battery bearing her name at Çanak Bair. A few months later, they caused substantial damage to the French battleship Bouvet in the Allied assault on the Narrows, March 18, 1915. Holed in several places and with her bow 12" turret knocked out, Bouvet shortly afterward hit a mine and sank with the loss of her captain and 639 crew (66 were saved). The shock of this sudden calamity was a leading factor in the Allied commanders' decision to halt the naval offensive, although -- had they known it -- they were within an ace of victory.
This article contains lightly edited material from Wikipedia.en Photos are from OSN.
Mesudiye reconceived as an 1890s pre-dreadnought -- bow 3/4 view. The original hull cutouts fit perfectly with the makeover. The bulking up of the superstructure is striking compared with the original conception. She was a tender ship with all that topweight, but was not expected to spend much time at sea.
Bows-on view, showing handsome but restrained bow crest installed at Ansaldo. This replaced the more lavish original scrollwork from Thames Iron Works.
Quarter view of the Mesudiye at anchor. Ansaldo provided matching scrollwork for the vessel's massive stern.
Interior of the midship battery, photographed during her refit at Ansaldo-Armstrongs. The pedestal mounts for the 6" guns can be made out. This was the area of the ship devastated by a 10.8" hit from one of the Hydra class battleships at the Battle of Lemnos.
The two tubes in the foreground are cargo booms rigged to the single mast. Quarterdeck, looking aft over the 9.2" gun . . .
A broadside view of the ship taken at the Fleet Demonstration at Selanik, May 1911. With her ponderous midships structure, she offered an excellent target for the submarine that sank her. This photo makes an instructive comparison with the picture at the top of the page.
A more flattering stern quarter view of the ship at the Fleet Demonstration at Selanik. Note rope ladder over the stern. The funnels and stern of Hamidiye are visible behind Mesudiye's quarterdeck awning; on land, the sultan's palace gleams beyond her bow.
The Mesudiye was sunk by the British submarine B-11 on Dec. 13, 1914. The sub's commander, Lt. Norman D. Holbrook, became a national hero for this sortie, being awarded the Victoria Cross and having a town in Australia named after him. This splendid watercolor of the action is presented courtesy of the Bridgeman Art Library. Enlarge
