The Last Dreadnought In Hıstory: Yavuz (Goeben)


The armament race which had begun in the late 19th century came into prominence in the maritime with the realization of the programs considering the construction of new ships. The construction of faster ships with long-range cannons had been stipulated in order to become superior on the sea and this race had been concluded with the construction of dreadnought class ships. When Goeben (Yavuz), which was the second dreadnought constructed in Germany, had been launched nobody could have estimated that the ship would bring the end of the age of empires in the world and that it would held a significant role in Turkish History. Being considered as the most superior ship of the period, Goeben (Yavuz) succeeded in all the battles during the war and served as the insurance of the Ottoman State at the Black Sea against the Russians. Various studies have been made on the battle cruiser Goeben (Yavuz) up to the present and in most of the studies evaluated the process through which the dreadnought passed under the Ottoman flag and the activities performed by the cruiser until the end of the war. In this study the technical specifications of Yavuz (Goeben) which did not sink despite the mine wounds it had, the repairs made on the ship during the period it sailed under the Ottoman and Turkish flags, and the process of its discarding will be evaluated. Besides, the study will also focus on the efforts made to keep Yavuz (Goeben), which can be considered as the last dreadnought alive when it was sold to MKEK to be dismantled, as a museum. Throughout the study national archival documents and documents from US National Archives has been used.


Keywords


Yavuz, Goeben, World War I, Yavuz and its repairs, Yavuz as a Museum Cruiser

Author : İskender TUNABOYLU
Number of pages: 771-802
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7827/TurkishStudies.7814
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Journal of Turkish Studies
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