The Battle of Cape Sarych was a naval engagement fought off the coast of Cape Sarych during the First World War. In November 1914, two modern Ottoman

Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...

 warships, a light cruiser and a battlecruiser, under the German

German Empire

The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...

 Admiral

Admiral

Admiral is the rank, or part of the name of the ranks, of the highest naval officers. It is usually considered a full admiral and above vice admiral and below admiral of the fleet . It is usually abbreviated to "Adm" or "ADM"...

 Wilhelm Souchon

Wilhelm Souchon

Wilhelm Anton Souchon was a German and Ottoman admiral in World War I who commanded the Kaiserliche Marine's Mediterranean squadron in the early days of the war...

 engaged a Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

n fleet including 5 obsolescent pre-dreadnought battleships in a short action.

Battle

On November 18, around 12:00 am, the Ottoman battlecruiser

Battlecruiser

Battlecruisers were large capital ships built in the first half of the 20th century. They were developed in the first decade of the century as the successor to the armoured cruiser, but their evolution was more closely linked to that of the dreadnought battleship...

 Yavuz Sultan Selim

SMS Goeben

SMS Goeben was the second of two Moltke-class battlecruisers of the Imperial German Navy, launched in 1911 and named after the German Franco-Prussian War veteran General August Karl von Goeben...

 under Souchon and the light cruiser

Light cruiser

A light cruiser is a type of small- or medium-sized warship. The term is a shortening of the phrase "light armored cruiser", describing a small ship that carried armor in the same way as an armored cruiser: a protective belt and deck...

 Midilli

SMS Breslau

SMS Breslau was a Magdeburg-class light cruiser of the German Kaiserliche Marine , built in the early 1910s. Following her commissioning, Breslau and the battlecruiser were assigned to the Mittelmeerdivision in response to the Balkan Wars...

 sighted the Russian fleet off Cape Sarych. Both of these vessels had a crew of Germans and Ottomans. The Russian ships were steaming in line with the Evstafi

Russian battleship Evstafi

Evstafi was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the Imperial Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet. She was built before World War I and her completion was greatly delayed by changes made to reflect the lessons of the Russo-Japanese War of 1905...

 as Vice Admiral

Vice Admiral

Vice admiral is a senior naval rank of a three-star flag officer, which is equivalent to lieutenant general in the other uniformed services. A vice admiral is typically senior to a rear admiral and junior to an admiral...

 Andrei Eberhardt

Andrei Eberhardt

Andrei Augostovich Eberhardt - was an Admiral in the Imperial Russian Navy of Swedish ancestry.Eberhardt graduated from the Marine Cadet Corps in 1878. From 1882 to 1884 he served in the Pacific Fleet as a signals officer...

's flagship

Flagship

A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...

. Russian naval forces had began a bombing campaign against the Ottoman coast in November 1914, forcing Admiral Souchon to sortie from Bosporus

Bosporus

The Bosphorus or Bosporus , also known as the Istanbul Strait , is a strait that forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with the Dardanelles...

. The four other Russian vessels were the Ioann Zlatoust

Russian battleship Ioann Zlatoust

Ioann Zlatoust was an pre-dreadnought battleship of the Imperial Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet. She was built before World War I and her completion was greatly delayed by changes made to reflect the lessons of the Russo-Japanese War of 1905...

, the Panteleimon, the Tri Sviatitelya and the Rostislav.
A few Russian cruisers and twelve destroyers were with the fleet but they were out of the range of Ottoman fire and did not engage in battle. When the Yavuz Sultan Selim came within range of Evstafi, the two opened fire on each other and for fourteen minutes the duel lasted. Evstafis first shot was a hit which struck one of the Ottoman battlecruiser's 11-inch guns at a range of about 4,000 yards (3,700 m). The 11-incher blew up and killed the crew, the only Ottoman casualties of the battle. When the Ioann Zlatoust came into effective range she fired six shells with her bow gun as it was the only weapon capable of bearing on the battlecruiser, none of these shots met their target. The Ottomans and their German allies hit the Evstafi twice, one shell hit the portside of her hull and another hit just next to one of the 12-inch turrets. Outnumbered, Souchon'c ships withdrew and a heavy fog set in so the two navies disengaged and steamed back to friendly waters. Eleven Germans and one Turk were killed or wounded in the action.

See also

• Mediterranean naval engagements during World War I
  Mediterranean naval engagements during World War I
  There was sporadic naval warfare in the Mediterranean during World War I between the Central Powers' navies of Austria-Hungary, Germany and the Ottoman Empire and the Allied navies of Italy, France, Greece, Japan, America and the British Empire....
  
  
• Naval warfare of World War I
  Naval warfare of World War I
  Naval warfare in World War I was mainly characterized by the efforts of the Allied Powers, with their larger fleets and surrounding position, to blockade the Central Powers by sea, and the efforts of the Central Powers to break that blockade or to establish an effective blockade of the United...