SMS was the second of two s of the Imperial German Navy, launched in 1911 and named after the German Franco-Prussian War veteran General August Karl von Goeben. Along with her sister ship, was similar to the previous German battlecruiser design, , but larger, with increased armor protection and two more main guns in an additional turret. and were significantly larger and better armored than the comparable British .
Several months after her commissioning in 1912, , with the light cruiser , formed the German Mediterranean Division and patrolled there during the Balkan Wars. After the outbreak of World War I on 28 July 1914, and bombarded French positions in North Africa and then evaded British naval forces in the Mediterranean and reached Constantinople. The two ships were transferred to the Ottoman Empire on 16 August 1914, and became the flagship of the Ottoman Navy as , usually shortened to . By bombarding Russian facilities in the Black Sea, she brought Turkey into World War I on the German side. The ship operated primarily against Russian forces in the Black Sea during the war, including several inconclusive engagements with Russian battleships. She made a sortie into the Aegean in January 1918 that resulted in the Battle of Imbros, where sank a pair of British monitors but was herself badly damaged by mines.
In 1936, was officially renamed TCG ("Ship of the Turkish Republic "); she carried the remains of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk from Istanbul to İzmit in 1938. remained the flagship of the Turkish Navy until she was decommissioned in 1950. She was scrapped in 1973, after the West German government declined an invitation to buy her back from Turkey. She was the last surviving ship built by the Imperial German Navy, and the longest-serving dreadnought-type ship in any navy.
Design
As the German (Imperial Navy) continued in its arms race with the British Royal Navy in 1907, the (Imperial Navy Office) considered plans for the battlecruiser that was to be built for the following year. An increase in the budget raised the possibility of increasing the caliber of the main battery from the guns used in the previous battlecruiser, , to , but Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the State Secretary of the Navy, opposed the increase, preferring to add a pair of 28 cm guns instead. The Construction Department supported the change, and ultimately two ships were authorized for the 1908 and 1909 building years; was the first, followed by .
Characteristics
was long overall, with a beam of and a draft of fully loaded. The ship displaced normally, and at full load. She had a long forecastle deck that extended for most of the ship, stepping down to the main deck at the rearmost 27 cm gun turrets. The ship's superstructure consisted of a pair of conning towers, a larger one forward as the primary position, and a smaller, secondary position aft. She was fitted with a pair of pole masts for signaling and spotting purposes. Her crew consisted of 43 officers and 1,010 enlisted men.
was powered by four Parsons steam turbines that drove four screw propellers, with steam provided by twenty-four Schulz-Thornycroft coal-fired water-tube boilers. The boilers were vented through a pair of widely spaced funnels. The propulsion system was rated at and a top speed of , though she exceeded this speed significantly on her trials. At , the ship had a range of .
The ship was armed with a main battery of ten SK L/50 guns mounted in five twin-gun turrets; of these, one was placed forward, two were placed amidships in an en echelon arrangement, and the other two were in a superfiring pair aft. Her secondary armament consisted of twelve SK L/45 guns placed in individual casemates in the central portion of the ship. For defense against torpedo boats, she carried twelve SK L/45 guns, also in individual mounts in the bow, the stern, and around the forward conning tower. She was also equipped with four submerged torpedo tubes, one in the bow, one in the stern, and one on each broadside.
The ship's armor consisted of Krupp cemented steel. The belt was thick in the citadel where it covered the ship's ammunition magazines and propulsion machinery spaces. The belt tapered down to on either end. The deck was thick, sloping downward at the side to connect to the bottom edge of the belt. The main battery gun turrets had faces, and they sat atop barbettes that were equally thick.
Service history
The Imperial Navy ordered , the third German battlecruiser, on 8 April 1909 under the provisional name "H" from the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, under construction number 201. Her keel was laid on 12 August; the hull was completed and the ship was launched on 28 March 1911. At the launching ceremony, the ship was christened Goeben after August Karl von Goeben, who had commanded VIII Corps during the Franco-Prussian War; the current commander of VIII Corps, General Paul von Ploetz, performed the christening. Fitting-out work followed, and she was ready to begin acceptance trials in June 1912. These were completed by the end of the month, and Goeben was commissioned into active service on 2 July under the command of (KzS—Captain at Sea) Otto Philipp. She thereafter began sea trials, but these were interrupted on 29 August by the start of the annual fleet training exercises, during which Goeben was assigned to the temporarily created II Scouting Group. On 24 September, Goeben returned to trials.
Mediterranean Division 1912–1913 When the First Balkan War broke out between the Balkan League and the Ottoman Empire in October 1912, the German General Staff determined that a naval Mediterranean Division () was needed to project German power in the Mediterranean, and thus dispatched and the light cruiser to Constantinople. The two ships left Kiel on 4 November and arrived on 15 November 1912; the unit also included the unprotected cruiser , the old station ship , and the training cruisers and . served as the flagship of the unit, commanded by (KAdm—Rear Admiral) Konrad Trummler. At the time, the major European powers—German, Britain, France, Russia, and Austria-Hungary—all had interests in the region; they pressured the warring states to agree to an armistice in December, but fighting quickly resumed in February 1913. Greece captured Salonika from the Ottomans in March, and during a visit there, the Greek king, George I was assassinated. led an international fleet that escorted the Greek state yacht Amphitrite, which carried the body back to Piraeus.
Trummler detached and to return home in February 1913. Beginning in April 1913, visited many Mediterranean ports including Venice, Pola, and Naples, while Trummler sent to the Albanian coast during the Siege of Scutari. The European powers had decided at the London Conference that Scutari would be awarded to the newly created Principality of Albania, but Montenegro and Serbia both claimed it for themselves and had laid siege to the city. An international fleet was assembled there to pressure Montenegro and Serbia to abandon the siege. joined the fleet off Scutari on 6 August, by which time the Mediterranean Division had been reinforced in the meantime by the cruisers and . Following this trip, returned to Pola and remained there from 21 August to 16 October for maintenance. Soon thereafter, the First Balkan War came to an end on 3 December.
On 23 June 1913, Trummler met with Admiral Anton Haus, the commander of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, to sign an agreement for coordinated war plans in the event of a conflict with the Triple Entente (which comprised Britain, France, and Russia). The plan called for the Mediterranean Division to operate with Austro-Hungarian and Italian light forces to intercept French troop convoys bringing soldiers from French North Africa. On 29 June, the Second Balkan War broke out and the Mediterranean Division was retained in the area, though another armistice was soon signed on 30 August. The war was formally ended on 10 September with the signing of the Treaty of Bucharest, though the European powers assumed the peace was temporary. Nevertheless, and were sent home, though the squadron was not seriously weakened, as by that time the training cruisers and had arrived in the Mediterranean, and could be employed if the fighting resumed. On 23 October 1913, (Rear Admiral) Wilhelm Souchon assumed command of the squadron. In December, the ship sailed to Italy for Souchon to meet with Italian naval leadership to ratify their agreements to the plans Trummler had concluded with Haus. then sailed back to Greek waters, cruising primarily in the Aegean Sea. ended the year anchored at Smyrna in the Ottoman Empire.
1914
The ship embarked on a tour of Italy on 2 January 1914, and during this time, Souchon to traveled to Rome to meet with the naval minister. Part of the purpose of the trip was to familiarize the Germans with the main Italian ports in the event of a war with the Triple Entente. In March, made another stop in Pola for a conference between Souchon and Haus. Later that month, on the 27th, the ship rendezvoused with the imperial yacht during Kaiser Wilhelm II's visit to the island of Corfu. In April, KzS Richard Ackermann arrived to take command of the ship. The two ships then sailed north to Genoa, Italy, on 4 May. Five days later, met the cruiser in Naples, which was passing through the Mediterranean. The battlecruiser then sailed to Constantinople to deliver a message to the sultan, where on 24 May, a contingent of 300 men from went ashore to help suppress a major fire in the city. Three crewmen were killed in the effort. departed on 5 June to sail to Alexandria, Egypt, in company with .
The navy made plans to replace with her sister so that the former could be returned for a major overhaul in mid-1914. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, Bosnia, on 28 June 1914 and the subsequent rise in tensions between the Great Powers made the transfer impossible. After the assassination, Souchon assessed that war was imminent between the Central Powers and the Triple Entente, and ordered his ships to make for Pola for repairs. By that time, the two training cruisers had returned home, leaving just , , and in the region. arrived in Pola on 10 July, and work on her boilers began immediately. Engineers came from Germany to work on the ship. had 4,460 boiler tubes replaced, among other repairs. Upon completion of the work, the ship departed for Messina; she met off Brindisi on 1 August. While underway on the night of 2 August, both vessels received their mobilization orders.
World War I Pursuit of Goeben and Breslau