On 20 January 1918 the battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim and the light cruiser Midilli, two German-built ships serving in the Ottoman navy, came out of the Dardanelles and attacked British ships off the island of Imbros, today Gökçeada. In a short action they sank the British monitors Raglan and M28. On the way back they steamed into a British minefield. Midilli sank with most of her crew, and Yavuz, damaged by mines, ran aground inside the straits, where she lay under air attack for days.
Two German ships under the Ottoman flag
The two ships began the war as the German battlecruiser Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau. In August 1914 they escaped from the Mediterranean to Constantinople, and the International Encyclopedia of the First World War notes that their arrival contributed significantly to the Ottoman decision to join the Central Powers. They were taken into the Ottoman navy as Yavuz Sultan Selim and Midilli, and in 1918 the fleet they belonged to was still under a German admiral.1
For most of the war they operated in the Black Sea against the Russian fleet. After the Russian Revolution, the same encyclopedia notes, they became available for operations in the eastern Mediterranean. In January 1918 Vice-Admiral Hubert von Rebeur-Paschwitz, who had replaced Wilhelm Souchon in September 1917, decided to strike at the British ships guarding the mouth of the Dardanelles, the straits where the Allies had fought the failed campaign described in our article on Gallipoli.2
The raid on Kusu Bay
The moment was well chosen. Of the two British pre-dreadnought battleships that were supposed to cover the area, Lord Nelson was away, and Agamemnon, anchored at Mudros, was much slower than Yavuz. Off Imbros lay only the monitors Raglan and M28, slow gun platforms built for shore bombardment, and the destroyers Lizard and Tigress.3
Yavuz struck a mine on the way out, but the damage was light. Early in the morning she shelled the British signal station at Kephalo Point and then turned on the monitors anchored in Kusu Bay. The destroyers could not get close enough to use their torpedoes. Raglan lost her main armament when a shell pierced its casemate, and a later hit reached her magazine; she sank. M28 was set on fire and blew up when her own magazine exploded. Naval Encyclopedia describes the whole action against the monitors as lasting about half an hour.4
The minefield
While withdrawing, the squadron ran into a British minefield. Midilli struck a mine and then several more as she tried to get clear. Navypedia counts five British mines and says she sank about thirty minutes after the first explosion; it adds that about two thirds of her crew of 370 were lost. Yavuz, trying to help, hit another mine, and the International Encyclopedia of the First World War says she suffered three mine hits in all.5
Heading back into the straits, Yavuz ran aground on a sandbank off Nagara Point. British seaplanes attacked her there repeatedly, but Naval Encyclopedia notes that their 65-pound bombs were only a pinprick against her heavily armored decks. On 26 January the old battleship Turgut Reis towed her off, and she reached Constantinople by 27 January.6
Losses and aftermath
The British lost both monitors. On 27 January the British submarine E14 left Mudros with orders to force the Narrows and attack Yavuz, but she had already gone, and E14 turned back. On the morning of 28 January E14 was crippled when one of her own torpedoes exploded prematurely, and she was lost under fire from the forts. Her commander, Lieutenant-Commander Geoffrey Saxton White, was killed and was awarded a posthumous Victoria Cross.7
Yavuz was repaired and survived the war, but with Midilli sunk and the battlecruiser damaged, the raid ended the Ottoman navy's ability to threaten the Aegean. The ship that had once helped bring the Ottoman Empire into the war was finally scrapped in Turkey between 1973 and 1976. For the wider war, see our guide to the greatest battles of the First World War.8
Also on this day
- 1839: Battle of Yungay. A Chilean-led army with Peruvian dissidents under General Manuel Bulnes attacked the Peru-Bolivian Confederation forces of Andrés de Santa Cruz near Yungay in northern Peru.
