Two German warships, the battlecruiser Goeben and light cruiser Breslau, were relentlessly pursued by the Royal Navy as they sailed the Mediterranean Sea in the heat of August 1914. Little did anyone know that this escape would change the fate of the Ottoman Empire by dragging it into the chaos of World War I. Goeben’s story, however, continued beyond the Great War. Launched in 1911, this ship remarkably survived both World Wars and ultimately became the only battlecruiser to receive a NATO hull number.

SMS Goeben, a Moltke-class battlecruiser, entered service in 1912. Her crew comprised approximately one thousand men. The warship’s 24 water-tube boilers enabled her to reach 25 knots, and her displacement was 23,580 tonnes. Goeben was equipped with ten 11-inch (28 cm) guns, twelve 5.9-inch (15 cm) guns and twelve 3.5-inch (8.8 cm) guns.

Following her commissioning, accompanied by Breslau light cruiser, she was deployed to the Mediterranean. As World War I began, ships were still in the region. The British Mediterranean Fleet received orders to protect French convoys and pursue German warships, marking the start of the famous pursuit of the Goeben and Breslau. On August 4th, British ships located the German fleet and shadowed it but held their fire, as the British ultimatum to Germany was in effect until midnight that day.

Although it was believed Goeben would join the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the Adriatic, Admiral Souchon, commanding the task force, received orders to sail to Constantinople. The ships’ presence in the city was a challenge for the Ottoman neutrality. The ships’ transfer to the Ottomans, however, solved the issue. German flags were replaced by Ottoman ones on the vessels, while the German crew, now in Ottoman uniforms and fezzes, remained on duty. Admiral Souchon was appointed commander-in-chief of the Ottoman navy. Renamed after an Ottoman sultan, Goeben became Yavuz Sultan Selim (usually just Yavuz).

Yavuz became the flagship of the navy and the empire’s fate was profoundly affected by her initial mission. On October 29, 1914, an Ottoman task force under her command launched a surprise attack on Russian Black Sea coastal installations. Yavuz shelled Sevastopol, while other ships attacked various docks, including Novorossiysk and Odessa. After that, Russia declared war on the Ottomans, thus marking the empire’s entry into World War I.

Regarding Goeben’s escape from the British and arrival in Constantinople, Churchill stated Goeben was “carrying with her for the peoples of the East and Middle East more slaughter, more misery and more ruin than has ever before been borne within the compass of a ship”. Goeben’s crucial role in drawing the Ottoman Empire into World War I expanded the conflict into the Middle East, thus making his perspective understandable.

From then on, Yavuz became the Ottoman Empire’s primary weapon to curb Russian activity in the Black Sea. Despite its power, Yavuz’s effectiveness was hampered by insufficient naval support because of the Ottoman Navy’s weakness. Almost reduced to the role of an escort ship, Yavuz faced considerable danger while protecting coal carriers from Russian destroyers and submarines, a task unsuitable for her design.

Besides escorting convoys, Yavuz also took part in various naval operations, such as coastal bombardments in the Caucasus and several minor Black Sea engagements throughout 1914-1915. She also fought in the Gallipoli Campaign; however, the substantial Allied naval presence constrained her actions.

By 1916, extensive repairs were urgently needed for Yavuz after its deployment in various locations and doing weird tasks; this 23.500-tonne battlecruiser even served as a transport vessel for troops, munitions, and artillery to the Caucasus Front. By 1917, the empire’s coal crisis reached the navy, bringing the Yavuz to a complete standstill. In that same year, British planes attacked Yavuz while she was docked in Constantinople. She was luckily spared when the bombs instead struck the nearby destroyer Yadigar-i Millet, making her the largest vessel lost to aerial bombardment in World War I.

In 1918, Yavuz left the naval base after a lengthy absence. This time, she traveled towards the Mediterranean. Her aim was to assault Imbros, an island near the Dardanelles. With no large warships present, the island was bombarded by the Ottoman task force and two British monitors were sunk. But the operation quickly proved too expensive for so little return. Following the shelling of the island, Midilli struck a mine and sank instantly. Three mines also struck Yavuz, severely crippling her. She beached on the Ottoman coast to survive and endured five days of Allied air and naval bombardment—65 attacks in total—without significant damage. An Ottoman battleship towed her to Constantinople, where she remained under repair until the war’s end. By a twist of fate, her career as the empire’s flagship began and ended near the Turkish Straits.

In 1923, at the birth of the Republic of Turkey, Yavuz was still in poor condition. The ship’s repairs were stalled by a shortage of funds and resources, with extensive damage remaining from mine blasts and previous inadequate repairs. Major repairs to the ship started in 1927, requiring the construction of extensive supporting facilities around it. This eventually led to the establishment of the Gölcük Shipyard, which is now a major Turkish naval base and warship construction center.

Yavuz underwent extensive modifications in the 1930s and 1940s. These changes mainly focused on improving its anti-aircraft defenses and boilers. Yavuz spent this time attending numerous ceremonies and official visits, rather than fighting. For example, in 1938, she transported Ataturk’s remains, and in 1946, she greeted the USS Missouri in Istanbul.

Though decommissioned in 1950, she still served as navy headquarters until 1960. Upon Turkey’s entry into NATO in 1952, Yavuz also received a NATO hull number, B70. She was the only one of her kind in NATO armies and B in her hull number was uniquely used to refer to pre-World War I battleships. After she was removed from naval registers, Turkey offered the ship to West Germany as a museum ship in 1963, but the offer was declined. Finally, because of expensive upkeep, Yavuz was sold for scraping in 1971. The scraping work concluded in 1976. Some parts, like the propellers, were preserved and can now be seen in Istanbul’s Naval Museum.

The story of the Goeben/Yavuz is one of resilience. This warship endured high-speed chases that significantly strained her machinery in the Mediterranean, survived multiple mine hits and aerial bombings, and fought the Russian Black Sea Fleet almost single-handedly. She was also tasked with missions outside of her intended operational scope. But, most impressively, she survived World War I without proper repairs and endured years of neglect afterward. When she was sold for scrapping, she was the last surviving ship built by the Imperial German Navy and the longest-serving battlecruiser in any navy.