Battle of Cape Sarych

At noon on 18 November 1914, in fog off the southern coast of the Crimea, the Russian Black Sea Fleet ran into the battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim, formerly the German Goeben, and the cruiser accompanying her, Midilli, formerly Breslau. The brief clash, known as the Battle of Cape Sarych, was the first engagement of the war in which capital ships fought on both sides. It brought no decision, but it showed that the Russians could stand up to the most powerful ship in the Black Sea.

A trap off Sevastopol

Ever since Goeben and Breslau had broken through to the Dardanelles, the Russian admirals had had to reckon with a ship faster and more powerful than any of their battleships. The Black Sea Fleet had five old pre-dreadnoughts, built at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. The fleet commander, Admiral Andrei Eberhardt, knew that none of them could beat Goeben on its own, so he took them to sea only together. Before the war the three newest battleships had practised firing at a single target under the direction of a gunnery officer in the centre ship.

On 15 November Eberhardt set out with the whole fleet for the coast of Anatolia, and two days later he bombarded Trebizond. When news of this reached Constantinople, Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, who three weeks earlier had led the attack on the Russian ports, decided to lie in wait for the Russians on their way back, near Sevastopol. On 17 November Yavuz and Midilli left the Bosporus and headed for the Crimea.

Fourteen minutes

On the morning of 18 November the Russian fleet was approaching the Crimea. Three cruisers sailed ahead, followed in column by the battleships, led by the flagship Evstafi, and then the destroyers. Although it was midday, fog hung over the sea and visibility was no more than a few miles. At about noon, off Cape Sarych, the cruiser Almaz sighted the enemy’s smoke. Both sides turned onto similar courses, and at about 12.20 p.m. Evstafi opened fire at a range of about 7 kilometres.

The Russian plan for concentrated fire failed. On the battleship Ioann Zlatoust, which was to direct the shooting, the range was misjudged in the fog and smoke, and her shells missed. Panteleimon did not see the target at all. Evstafi therefore fired independently, on Eberhardt’s orders. Her very first salvo scored a hit: a 305 mm shell pierced the armour of the casemate of one of Goeben’s secondary guns and set fire to the ammunition ready beside it. Between 12 and 16 sailors were killed, according to different sources. The Russians reported further hits, but German sources confirm only this one.

Goeben replied with accurate fire. Her shells struck Evstafi several times, between three and five times according to different sources, hitting among other things the funnel and the gun casemates. On the Russian ship 33 or 34 men were killed and about 25 wounded. According to some accounts, Evstafi’s shells falling thickly around Goeben gave the impression that the whole Russian line was firing at her. After a dozen or so minutes of exchanging fire, Souchon turned away and, using his superior speed, vanished into the fog. The Russians had no chance of catching him and returned to Sevastopol.

No decision

The clash was short. Goeben suffered slight damage and, thanks to her superior speed, could still decide for herself when to accept battle. The Russians, however, learned that their old ships, acting together, could threaten her. Souchon had failed to destroy the Black Sea Fleet, and Eberhardt could still make sorties to the Turkish coast. The next clash between the main forces of the two fleets came only in May 1915 off the Bosporus. It too brought no decision.