Built at Vulkan Werft, Stettin, as the Imperial German cruiser Breslau of the Magdeburg class, Midilli began her career as the squadron-mate of the new battlecruiser Goeben in the German Mediterranean Squadron. Under threat of being bottled up for the duration at Pola when war began, the two ships made a daring escape through waters thick with British cruisers. The Brits did not expect their antagonists to run for Constantinople and so deployed their blockaders at the mouth of the Adriatic and west towards Gibraltar to intercept their presumed route. Faces in Whitehall were red when the Goeben and Breslau appeared at the Dardanelles on Aug. 9 asking for a pilot -- and they burned hotter yet when pro-German War Minister Enver Pasha ordered them escorted in.
The two ships were offered for service in the Turkish navy, along with their highly qualified German crews, within a matter of days, and accepted in a matter of weeks. Combined with the burgeoning German influence over the Ottoman army, this foreshadowed bad tidings for the Allies, tidings which were not long in coming. The Young Turk government was unprepared for the war that was engulfing them, and adopted delaying tactics on replying to the Germans' ever more urgent demands that they join the Central Powers. Eventually Adm. Souchon forced the issue (right), taking the Goeben (now renamed Yavuz Sultan Selim), the Midilli (now renamed for the isle of Lesbos), and the Turkish cruiser Hamidiye into the Black Sea where they bombarded Sevastopol, Odessa, and Novorossiisk over two days, sinking a number of Russian barges and sailing craft. This unprovoked act of war soon brought a Russian declaration against Turkey and thus dragged the Turks into the war on the German side. Souchon wrote to his wife, "I have thrown the Turks into the powder keg and kindled war betwen Russia and Turkey."
It appears from the photographs that Midilli was early converted from having side-by-side double 4.1" mounts bow and stern (see schematic) to bearing single centerline mounts. The crews settled into a routine in Turkish service: the officers adopted fezzes along with their Iron Crosses and German uniforms. The shipboard day of worship was changed to Friday, but the Lutheran and Catholic liturgy remained unchanged. Later in 1914, the two ex-German ships encountered stiff resistance from five Russian pre-dreadnoughts at once. Yavuz suffered a casemate fire and had to retreat until her damage was under control on this occasion, known as the Battle of Cape Sarych. Later in the War, the ex-Germans engaged in two long-range artillery duels with the Russian dreadnought Imperatritsa Yekaterina in 1917 -- the Yavuz' only bouts with another dreadnought in a long career. For her practice of seeking cover behind her formidable squadron-mate when the heavy artillery began to speak, Midilli was nicknamed Plaemyannik (the nephew) by the Russian gunners. At this time the Midilli's armament was changed to eight 5.9" (150 mm) guns with shielded single mounts fore and aft replacing the original side-by-side 4" mounts. Her quarterdeck was converted to accommodate up to 120 mines with the tracks necessary to sow them.
Through 1915-16, the Turkish navy engaged in a tireless sequence of missions, convoying troop transports, laying mines, bombarding enemy shore emplacements, and blocking sorties by Russian battleships when possible. In 1916 the fleet was drawn ever more into support for the bloody Caucausus campaign between Turkey and Russia, helping to prevent a long-running defeat from turning into a rout. Their last offensive missions in the Black Sea took place during the first few weeks of November 1917. By the end of 1917, the Russian Black Sea Fleet had melted away as a fighting force, its ships tied up at Sevastopol until further notice. After that, the task of the Turkish Navy was to oversee the disarming of the defeated Russians, to sweep enemy mines from the Bosporus channels, and to re-establish safe navigation (a task that consumed an entire year's effort).
During 1917 little had been expected from the big ships because of a severe coal shortage. Kaiser Wilhelm had visited Istanbul and inspected German and Turkish forces there, awarding Iron Crosses and making speeches. Souchon received a promotion and was summoned to Berlin, and replacements arrived for several of the officers promoted from the Turkish front. Late in January 1918, now that the Russians posed no threat, the new Turkish Navy commander, Vice Adm. Rebeur-Paschwitz, ordered a sortie into the Aegean. The Yavuz and Midilli stood down the Bosporus to attack the British base on the island of Imbros, just off Gallipoli. They did not find the British battleships at Imbros, but they did find and sink two monitors used for offshore bombardment. Yavuz was preparing to go on to Lemnos, where the semi-dreadnought battleship Agamemnon was getting up steam for an old-fashioned shooting-match on the high seas. Allied destroyers and aircraft intervened with a blistering counterattack, and while taking evasive manuevers the ex-Germans stumbled into a minefield. Midilli eventually sank on Jan. 20, 1918 after hitting no fewer than five mines and losing 330 out of 355 crewmen. Also damaged by three mines while attempting to assist her consort, Yavuz beached herself inside the Dardanelles. In repeated bombing runs by Imbros-based aircraft, the British failed to hit the ship as she lay bows-up on a sandbar, undergoing emergency repairs. After a several days' ordeal, Yavuz was towed back to Constantinople under escort by the old ex-German battleship Torgud Reis, and was refitted, continuing in Turkish service until 1950. Fun fact: future Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz served as second lieutenant aboard Midilli in 1914-16, but had transferred to the U-boat fleet before her tragic end.
Midilli was not one of the best cruiser designs of the Great War -- undergunned, known by her crew to be cramped and uncomfortable, and to vibrate hideously at speed -- but she proved durable enough in action, and certainly one of the few modern warships in the Black Sea theatre. While the obsolescence and frequent incompetence of the Ottoman fleet sometimes lent an opera buffa air to Souchon's operations, they were still fairly effective in keeping the Russians off base during the first two years of the War. Naval support was important to keeping the Turks'Caucasian front from crumbling entirely in the bitter land campaign of 1915-16. The Midilli's horrible end, with 93% of her crew lost in the minefield, pointed out the hazards of war; luckily for the Turks, their big ship, the Yavuz, survived the incident and went on to render many decades of service to the new Turkish state, always honored for having risked all in that service. The Midilli's fate underlined just how much had been at stake. Midilli's onetime First Lieutenant, Karl Dönitz, lived to be Adolf Hitler's successor in the final, desperate days of the Third Reich. It is possible the stoicism of his ex-shipmates in the foundering Midilli gave the man nerve as his country was similarly torn apart, and as he sought and signed the surrender in May 1945; although young Dönitz had already transferred into the submarine service at the time of the cruiser's demise.
Specifications for the Magdeburg class:
Dimensions: 455' OA x 41' x 14' Displacement: 3,900 tons standard; 4,550 tons deep laden. Armament: (12) 4.1"/40 cal. guns, (2) 19.7" torpedo tubes. Armament change in Turkish service (Midilli only): (8) 5.9" guns; facilities for 120 mines; (2) 19.7" torpedo tubes. Armor: 2.5" deck; 3"/2.5" belt. Fuel: 750 tons of coal, 130 tons No. 2 bunker oil; maximum 1,200 tons coal. Propulsion: 20 Schulz-Thornycroft boilers (16 coal-fired, 4 oil-fired); 4 shaft AEG-Vulkan (Curtis type) turbines developing 25,000 SHP. Speed: 27.5 knots. Range: 5,820nm @ 12 kts. Crew: 355.
Ships in class: Magdeburg · Straßburg · Stralsund · Breslau
Metric Specifications:
Dimensions: 123.4m OA x 12.5m x 4.3m. Displacement: 3,900 tons standard; 4,550 tons deep laden. Armament: (12) 105 mm/40 cal. guns, (2) 501 mm torpedo tubes. Armament change in Turkish service (Midilli only): (8) 150 mm guns; facilities for 120 mines; (2) 501 mm torpedo tubes. Armor: 63.5 mm deck; 76.2/63.5 mm belt. Fuel: 750 tons of coal, 130 tons No. 2 bunker oil; maximum 1200 tons coal. Propulsion: 20 Schulz-Thornycroft boilers (16 coal-fired, 4 oil-fired); 4 shaft AEG-Vulkan (Curtis type) turbines developing 18,643 kW. Speed: 51 km/hr. Range: 10.779 km @ 22.2 km/hr. Crew: 355.
Stirring view of the Midilli raising steam for a wartime mission with her "big uncle," the Yavuz. Ottoman Steam Navy.
Knocking at the gates of history: firing salutes, Goeben and Breslau enter the Straits, Aug. 10, 1914. Their mere presence at the capital influenced events. Active officers like Adm. Souchon then forced matters some more. Bundesarchiv.
Newly arrived in the Levant, anchored at the Haliç with the Navy Ministry in the background. Her German bow shields are still in place. Bundesarchiv.
Aerial view of the ship, taken from a German zeppelin in 1916. Bow and stern guns have been replaced by 6" single mounts. Seaplane taxiing at right.
Oil storage tanks at Novorossiisk flame uncontrollably after bomardment by Midilli, October 29, 1914: "I have thrown the Turks into the powder keg and kindled war betwen Russia and Turkey."
Those that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind. Midilli loaded with dozens of mines destined for the Danube delta, June 24, 1917. Five mines like these were sufficient to sink the tough little cruiser the following year, with a horrific cost in lives lost. Ottoman Steam Navy.
Pertinent Weblinks
- The Yavuz Sultan Selim (ex-Goeben) - Turkish Flagship 1914 - 1950
- Nice Model of the Midilli - From Turkey-Wrecks.Com
- Visit our Marine Mining Operations HQ
- Russian Dreadnoughts in the Black Sea: The Imperatritsa Class
- German Light Cruisers, 1898 - 1913
- The Imperial German Navy, 1869 - 1918
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