;
Mesudiye is the furthest vessel to the left
Mesudiye, meaning "Happiness", was ordered in 1871 and was laid down at the
Thames Ironworks shipyard in London the following year. She was launched on 28 October 1874. On 15 September 1875, she ran aground in the
River Medway as she was being taken to
Chatham, Kent to have her guns fitted. She was refloated and docked.
Mesudiye was commissioned in December 1875 for
sea trials. She had one
sister ship,
Mahmûdiye, which was renamed
Hamidiye while under construction. She was purchased by the
Royal Navy before completion and commissioned as .
Mesudiye and
Superb were the largest casemate ironclads ever built. Early in the ship's career, the Ottoman ironclad fleet was activated every summer for short cruises from the
Golden Horn to the
Bosporus to ensure their propulsion systems were in operable condition. In September 1876,
Mesudiye became the
flagship of the Ottoman
Black Sea Squadron, though she did not see action in the
Russo-Turkish War that broke out in April 1877. After the Ottoman defeat, the fleet was laid up at the Golden Horn and left largely unattended for the following twenty years. The annual summer cruises to the Bosporus ended. By the mid-1880s, the Ottoman ironclad fleet was in poor condition, and
Mesudiye was unable to go to sea. Her engines were unusable, having seized up from rust, and her hull was badly
fouled. The British
naval attache to the Ottoman Empire at the time estimated that the
Imperial Arsenal would take six months to get just five of the ironclads ready to go to sea. Throughout this period, the ship's crew was limited to about one-third the normal figure. During a period of tension with Greece in 1886, the fleet was brought to full crews and the ships were prepared to go to sea, but none actually left the Golden Horn, and they were quickly laid up again. By that time,
Mesudiye was probably capable of little more than , and even that speed would have posed problems for her poorly trained crew over extended periods of time. During this period of inactivity,
Mesudiye received a minor modernization at the
Tersâne-i Âmire shipyard on the Golden Horn. At the start of the
Greco-Turkish War in February 1897,
Mesudiye was found to be unfit for combat, as were most of the other major warships of the fleet. On 15 May
Mesudiye and several other warships attempted to hold a training exercise, which only highlighted the poor state of training of the ships' crews.
Reconstruction Following the end of the war, the government decided to begin a naval reconstruction program. The first stage was to rebuild the older armored warships, including
Mesudiye. Requests for proposals were sent to foreign shipyards, and in October 1898 the
Gio. Ansaldo & C. shipyard in
Genoa requested permission to survey the ship and the ironclad . Both vessels were accordingly sent to Genoa in January 1899, arriving on the 28th, though Ansaldo only received the contract for
Mesudiye.
Mesudiye was rebuilt into a
pre-dreadnought type vessel. The modernization involved radical reconstruction of the hull; the bow and stern were cut down to make room for a pair of
gun turrets, each mounting a single 40-
caliber gun manufactured by
Vickers. The turrets had 230 mm thick armored faces, though they never received their guns; wooden dummy guns were installed in their place. A battery of twelve 45-caliber QF guns was installed in place of the old rifled muzzle-loaders, and sixteen 76 mm QF guns were added in an upper battery.
Mesudiye also received ten guns and a pair of guns. A large superstructure was built amidships, with a new
conning tower, which was given of armor plating. Displacement rose to normally and at full load. The ship's propulsion system was also completely replaced. Two
triple-expansion engines were installed, along with sixteen coal-fired
Niclausse boilers. The two
screw propellers overlapped, so the port side screw was placed slightly ahead of the starboard one. Performance improved to and . Her crew increased to 800 as a result of the modifications. On 15 March 1904,
Mesudiye completed sea trials and thereafter returned to
Constantinople.
Italo-Turkish and Balkan Wars In 1909, she participated in the first fleet maneuver conducted by the
Ottoman Navy in twenty years, part of a reform program initiated by a British naval mission to the Ottoman Empire. Starting in July 1911,
Mesudiye joined the two pre-dreadnoughts and , four
destroyers, and a torpedo boat for a series of exercises that culminated in the routine summer cruise to
Beirut. The fleet was returning to Constantinople when Italy declared war, starting the
Italo-Turkish War on 29 September 1911.
Mesudiye and the rest of the fleet moored at
Nagara Point on 2 October and returned to Constantinople the following day.
Mesudiye was thereafter assigned to the Reserve Division, which also included the rebuilt ironclad
Asar-i Tevfik and the
torpedo cruiser . She did not see action during the conflict, since the Ottoman fleet spent the war in port. This was in part due to the rising tensions in the Balkans that presaged the
Balkan Wars; the Ottomans kept their fleet in port so it could be prepared for the inevitable conflict. In October 1912, the
Balkan League declared war on the Ottomans, a month before the Italo-Turkish War ended. At the time,
Mesudiye was moored off Büyükdere, a neighborhood in Constantinople, with the torpedo boats and , stationed as a guard ship. In December, the Ottoman fleet was reorganized, with
Mesudiye joining the newly formed Battleship Division, under the command of
Ramiz Naman Bey. The division also included
Barbaros Hayreddin,
Turgut Reis, and
Asar-i Tevfik. The ship was moved to
Büyükçekmece on 15 November, where she joined the rest of the fleet. Two days later,
Mesudiye and
Barbaros Hayreddin conducted shore bombardments in support of the Ottoman troops holding the
Çatalca Line; the bombardments did not cause particularly significant material damage to the attacking Bulgarians, but it did boost Ottoman morale.
Battle of Elli The ships took part in the
Battle of Elli, the first Ottoman surface action involving major warships since the Russo-Turkish War, on 16 December 1912. The Ottoman fleet sortied from the Dardanelles at 9:30; the smaller craft remained at the mouth of the straits while the battleships sailed north, hugging the coast. The Greek flotilla, which included the armored cruiser and three s, sailing from the island of
Lemnos, altered course to the northeast to block the advance of the Ottoman battleships. The Ottoman ships opened fire on the Greeks at 9:40, from a range of about . Five minutes later,
Georgios Averof crossed over to the other side of the Ottoman fleet, placing the Ottomans in the unfavorable position of being under fire from both sides. At 9:50 and under heavy pressure from the Greek fleet, the Ottoman ships completed a 16-point turn (180°), which reversed their course, and headed for the safety of the straits. The turn was poorly executed, and the ships fell out of formation, blocking each other's fields of fire.
Barbaros Hayreddin,
Turgut Reis, and
Mesudiye took several hits during the battle, though only
Barbaros Hayreddin was significantly damaged. By 10:17, both sides had ceased firing and the Ottoman fleet withdrew into the Dardanelles. When they approached the straits,
Mesudiye and
Asar-i Tevfik took up positions to cover the withdrawal of the damaged pre-dreadnoughts. The ships reached port by 13:00 and transferred their casualties to the
hospital ship Resit Paşa.
Battle of Lemnos In late December, the Ottomans began a campaign of raids and patrols in the
Aegean Sea against the islands that had been recently conquered by the Greeks. The
Ottoman Army began planning to make a landing on
Tenedos in late December, which had been captured by Greece earlier in the war.
Mesudiye and the rest of the Battleship Division sortied from the Dardanelles on the morning of 4 January 1913, but the operation was called off after the Greek fleet appeared. On 10 January, the fleet embarked on another offensive operation, this time to raid the island of
Imbros. After a brief, inconclusive clash with Greek destroyers, the fleet again withdrew to the safety of the Dardanelles. Eight days later, another fleet operation began, which produced the
Battle of Lemnos, the second major naval engagement of the war. The Ottoman plan was to lure the faster
Georgios Averof away from the Dardanelles. The protected cruiser evaded the Greek blockade and broke out into the Aegean Sea in an attempt to draw the Greek cruiser into pursuit. Despite the threat posed by the cruiser, the Greek commander refused to detach
Georgios Averof. The Ottoman fleet departed the Dardanelles at 8:20 on the morning of 18 January, and sailed toward the island of Lemnos at a speed of .
Barbaros Hayreddin led the line of battleships, with a flotilla of torpedo boats on either side of the formation. A long range artillery duel that lasted for two hours began at around 11:55, when the Ottoman fleet opened fire at a range of . They concentrated their fire on the Greek
Georgios Averof, which returned fire at 12:00. At 12:50, the Greeks attempted to
cross the T of the Ottoman fleet, but
Barbaros Hayreddin turned north to block the Greek maneuver. At around that time,
Mesudiye took a serious hit that disabled three of her 150 mm guns; this damage, coupled with boiler trouble, led the Ottoman commander to detach the ship and send her back to port. On 5 February,
Mesudiye supported operations off
Şarköy in the
Sea of Marmara, bombarding Bulgarian troops that had occupied the town. This was the last wartime operation conducted by the ship; she did not participate in the amphibious assault on Şarköy three days later. The Ottoman fleet then spent the remaining months of the war in port, until the armistice ended the conflict in April.
World War I In late July 1914,
World War I broke out in Europe, though the Ottomans initially remained neutral. On 6 September 1914,
Mesudiye was sent to Nara to protect the minefields guarding the entrance to the Dardanelles. She was supported by the
minelayer and the
tug . Tensions between the Ottomans and a British fleet patrolling the entrance to the Dardanelles increased until 5 November, when Britain and France declared war on the Ottoman Empire. On the morning of 13 December, the British submarine , commanded by Lieutenant
Norman Holbrook, entered the Dardanelles. At around 11:30, she spotted
Mesudiye at anchor and fired a single torpedo from a distance of . The torpedo hit the ship's stern and caused serious damage;
Mesudiyes guns briefly fired at
B11s
periscope before the ship
capsized and sank in shallow water. Casualties were light, with only 10 officers and 27 enlisted men killed in the attack. A salvage effort removed the 150 mm and 76 mm guns, which were used to strengthen the defenses of the Dardanelles. In the meantime,
B11 successfully passed back through the Dardanelles and returned to port; Holbrook was awarded the
Victoria Cross for sinking
Mesudiye.
Mesudiyes salvaged 150 mm guns were installed as "Battery Mesudiye" in the Dardanelles. These guns played a role in the sinking of the French battleship on 18 March 1915, having hit the ship eight times—one of which disabled her forward turret—before she struck a mine and sank with very heavy loss of life. ==Notes==