Iclaliye (1870)

Central Battery Ironclad (1868-71), in service til 1928.

Iclaliye or İclâliye (“Glorious”), also orthographed Idjlalieh, was an ironclad corvette ordered from STT in Austro-Hungary in 1867 by the Elayet of Egypt, but asked for by Ottoman Sultan Abdülaziz on 5 June 1867 with all other ordered Ironclads. She was laid down in May 1868, completed in February 1871 and largely based on the French-Built Asar-i Şevket-class but with a more powerful armament. She took part in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, supporting Ottoman forces in the Caucasus. However she also was submitted to the same neglect that plagued the remainder of the Ottoman Navy in her late life, suntil activated as artillery platform support to defending Constantinople, and later became a training and barracks ship until 1928 when she was decommissioned and sold for BU.

Development

Colorized photo of the İclâliye in the 1870s Golden Horn.

The Eyalet of Egypt (more than a governor, less than a viceroy) was at the head of a province of the Ottoman Empire which always wanted more independence. For context, Egypt underwent from 1860 major political, economic, and social transformation, being increasingly autonomous and deeply influenced by European powers. Under the Rule of Abbas I (1848–1854), the country saw some modernization projects started by Muhammad Ali Pasha reversed, reduced military expansion and caution towards European influence, which all fit well in the Ottoman’s wished, but this changed under Sa’id Pasha (1854–1863) which expanded irrigation and agriculture, encouraged European investment, and famously Granted the concession for the construction of the Suez Canal to Ferdinand de Lesseps. Isma’il Pasha (1863–1879) made an even greater effort to adopt more European traits culturally and economically, promoting railways, schools, urban modernization, legal reforms but also, its land forces, for an expansion into Sudan and East Africa as well as obtaining funds for the largest naval expansion program in Egypt’ history.

Ironclad İclaliye on the right as decpicted by Ivan Aivazovsky/Hovhannes Ayvazyan. From Sochi Art Museum (Russian Federation – Sochi)

He wanted a fleet of Ironclads. Seen from Istambul, Egyptian efforts to assert their independence by this more aggressive way angered Sultan Abdülaziz, who on 5 June 1867 demanded Egypt to surrender all of its ironclads ordered from foreign shipyards. In exchange, he conceded more autonomy and officially granted Isma’il the title “Khedive,” recognizing indeed greater autonomy for the province, provided it remained toothless. This forced in turn the Ottoman Gocernment to fund these new ships that were not planned by its own naval staff.

Among those ironclad warships ordered from foreign shipyards, Iclaliye “Glory”, was the last. The contract was awarded to Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard (STT) in Trieste, Austro-Hungarian Empire, in 1868. After lengthy negotiations, Iclaliye was acquired by Abdülaziz. Iclaliye was in short, a larger French-designed Asar-i Şevket-class ironclad because the Ottomans wanted a more powerful armament.

Design of the class

Hull and general design

Iclaliye mesured 63.6 m (208 ft 8 in) long between perpendiculars, 66 m (216 ft 6 in) long overall for a beam of 12.8 m (42 ft) and draft of 4.8 m (15 ft 9 in). She was built entirely in iron, albeit with wood still used internally, notably for her luxurious interior mess and officer’s quarters, plus decks. She displaced 2,228 metric tons (2,193 long tons) at normal load, 1,650 t (1,620 long tons or 1,820 short tons) at full load or BOM. Her crew amounted to 16 officers and 132 ratings completed. With later modernization this changed up to 180 by 1891.

She was a corvette from the start due to her simple two-mast rigging. She had some tumblehome following French fashion, as well as a long ram bow, and a “bottom up” style rounded poop. She started with an all-out black livery, even her funnel, but the mast and most deck fitting and CT were buff-painted. Later in her career, she was painted in light grey. Otherwise there are little clues about her detailed design and no plans survived. She likely had a conning tower, with a flying bridge above, forward of her single, tall funnel. The deck was likely dotted wth large hatches. Her flanks were bare, so her central battery was simple, broadside style. Of course her design evolved considerably later in her career, especially after her 1900 refit.

Powerplant

Iclaliye was powered by a single horizontal compound steam engine. It drew a single screw bronze, lilely 2 or 4-bladed propeller. Steam came from two coal-fired box boilers provided by STT (Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino) as well, albeit the engine was xxxx. Their exhausts were trunked into a single funnel amidships, raked like the masts. This engine was rated at 1,800 indicated horsepower (1,300 kW). The ships was sold with a contracted speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) obtained on sea trials. However she was crippled by the lack of maintenance and by 1877 already, barely six years after entering service she was just capable of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph). Next, decades of poor or inexistant maintenance reduced her speed to a mere 6 knots (11 km/h; 6.9 mph) in 1896. For autonomy, she carried 250 t (250 long tons; 280 short tons) of coal for a range estimated to xxx. Of course under sail it was unlimited: She had a supplementary corvette style sailing rig with two masts, easy to brace and man.

Protection

Iclaliye was protected with wrought iron armor plating also from STT forges:

-Complete armored belt, waterline, 2 meters (6 ft 6 in) above, 2 meters (6 ft) below, 152mm (6 in) thick above, 114 millimeters (4.5 in) below.

-Casemate battery protected by 114 mm of iron, and closed by 102 millimeters (4 in) transverse bulkheads.

-Barbette mounting: 127 millimeters (5 in) of iron.

Armament

Iclaliye had a central battery of two 228 mm (9 in) muzzle-loading Armstrong guns, three 178 mm (7 in) Armstrong guns. Two 228 mm and two 178 mm guns were in the armored casemate. The extra 178 mm gun was atop the casemate, on a revolving barbette mount in open air, unshielded, for the best traverse. No data on these.

Upgrades

The cadet training ship Iclaliye (Idjlalieh) in 1914.

In 1885, she had instead a 150 mm (5.9 in) 22-caliber Krupp gun placed in the deck barbette mount and two 278 mm (10.9 in) Krupp guns in the casemate. It seems she kept her 178 mm guns. There was a secondary battery of two 87 mm (3.4 in) Krupp breech-loading guns, two 63.7 mm (2.51 in) Krupp breech-loaders, two 37 mm (1.5 in) Hotchkiss revolver cannon, two 25.4 mm (1 in) Nordenfelt guns to deal with torpedo boats.

In 1905, her Krupp 150 mm gun and 63.7 mm guns were removed. She became a TS, so that was considered well enough. By 1914, her appareance had changed, albeot she sill kept her two original masts, for traditional training, and that was her main propuslion given the state of her machinery. She still had her two side gun ports and main guns inside, but an extra accomodation room was installed forwrd of her mainmast and a built-in, large enclosed bridge with open bridge on its roof installed in front of her funnel which was shortened. The guns were placed in embrasures and platforms, but she had no modern military masts.

Career of İclâliye

Iclaliye was laid down in May 1868 and formally transferred to the Ottoman Empire on 29 August 1868. She was launched in 1869 (extract date unknown) and started sea trials for completion on 25 January 1871, and accepted, commissioned in February. However the cost of all these acquisition meant the Ottoman ironclad fleet was just too costly to maintain so she was activated every summer, just for short cruises from the Golden Horn to the Bosporus, checking her propulsion. No maintenance was done in between nor serious trainings. The crews were assembled and disbanded each time, returning to their civilian life.

So when the Russo-Turkish War flared out, the fleet, which started to mobilize in September 1876 already, as tensions had been growing for several years was ill-prepared. This all started with an insurrection Ottoman Bosnia in mid-1875, Serbia declaring war in July 1876 and Russia acting as protector of the Balkan Christians (and Slavs in general) started to be more vocal against the Ottoman Government. By early 1877, İclâliye was assigned to the 2nd Division, Mediterranean Fleet, in Crete with Mukaddeme-i Hayir and Aziziye. After the war started on 24 April, Iclaliye was transferred to the Black Sea Division and spent the war without doing much, but deterrence. Hobart Pasha did not wanted to clash with the Russian Black Sea Fleet albeit the latter at the time only had the two circular odditiies of the Vitse-admiral Popov class. The Russians kept two corps in reserve for coastal defense at all times, fearing a bombardment sortie that never happened. Hobart Pasha was eventually pressed by the Sultan to act, and instead of attacking to the West, sailed to the almost undefended eastern Black Sea to support Ottoman forces in the Caucasus, bombarding Poti and defending Batumi.

On 14 May 1877, the squadron (, Avnillah, Muin-i Zafer, Feth-i Bülend, Mukaddeme-i Hayir, Necm-i Şevket) bombarded Russain defences at Sokhumi and landed infantry with rifles to arm the local populace and start an uprising. The port was captured two days later, but Russian torpedo boats were sent to try sinking the Ottoman flet at anchor in port several times. Iclaliye escaped these. However on 10 June six Russian torpedo boats attacked Sulina, where she was at the mouth of the Danube, with Feth-i Bülend and Mukaddeme-i Hayir. The TB Chesma fired a torpedo at Iclaliye but it was caught by the defensive net around her, proving the concept was right, and explaining hy these were kept on most capital ships until 1914. Iclaliye was not fast enough to catch the retreating Russian torpedo boats. Postwar she was back, laid up in Constantinople from 1879.

Annual summer cruises to the Bosporus ended so she completeluy lacked any maintenance for the next years, until the early 1880s. Saying when she was inspected, Iclaliye was in poor condition was an understatement. He underwater hull was now a happy marine life zoo (fouling level 10), her machinery had rusted out and badly needed cleanup. Her guns had been tapped shuts, but were now obsolete. Iclaliye was declared unable to go to sea or perform any service in her state, as reported by the British naval attaché. In case of war, six months would be needed to concentrate on five ironclads to be serviceable. She was restored, and still had a care crew of one-third but in 1883 she received a full crew of conscripts to be sent to Crete, guarding the island for three years and back to the Golden Horn in January 1886. This conflicts with the dates given for her rearmement however, started to be in 1885.

Iclalyie before 1891
Most sources however are positive she was refitted by the Imperial Arsenal in 1891. So by the start of the Greco-Turkish War, in February 1897, she was inspected again. Despite her new armament, her machinery had been left in the same state, and she was declared unfit for combat. In addition her crew was poorly trained, only instructed by reading the manual. In April-May 1897 however, she was put into shape enough to take part in several sorties into the Aegean Se, tryng to rise raise morale of the fleet. British Admiral Henry Woods and German Admiral Eugen Kalau vom Hofe led the inspection and reported that sorry state and a fleet condemns to do figuration and having no part in the fight.

This became such an embarrassment postwar, that Sultan Abdul Hamid II authorized a modernization program. A commission had to select the most suitable ironclads to be modernized in foreign shipyards. In Germany, Krupp, Schichau-Werke, and AG Vulcan sent their own teams to survey the ships in Istambul, and reported unfavourably to any modernization attempt given their “scrapyard value only” general state. They officially withdrew in December 1897. The other concern, after receiving an estimation, was the unwillingness of the Ottoman treasury to pay for the work. By 1900, contracts were awarded for some ironclads in Italy, but not Iclaliye.

Instead in 1904, Iclaliye had her 15 cm Krupp gun deck barbette removed. She was placed in the reserve fleet. During the Italo-Turkish War, she was stationed in the Golden Horn as a battery. On 30 October 1912, in the First Balkan War, she was reactivated, and sent to stop the Bulgarian advance at Çatalca, and since it could not be under her own power (but by sailing there) she was towed there, joined by Necm-i Şevket, remaining as anchored firing batteries for a few days. When the more modern pre-dreadnought Barbaros Hayreddin and Torgud Reis arrived, as the modernized ironclads Mesudiye and Asar-i Tevfik, the two ships were towed back to Büyükçekmece, remaining on 15-20 November, but seeing little action. From February 1914, back home, Iclaliye was downgraded to an accommodation hulk, for the Naval High School, at Heybeliad with some accomodations added, and eventually became a stationary training ship for cadets from February 1919 in Constantinople. She was again a barracks ship in 1923 at the Gölcük Naval Shipyard until decommissioned in 1928, BU in Gölcük.

Read More/Src

Books

Gardiner, Robert, (Ed.) (1979). Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships: 1860–1905.
Langensiepen, Bernd; Güleryüz, Ahmet (1995). The Ottoman Steam Navy 1828–1923. Conway Maritime Press.
Sondhaus, Lawrence (2001). Naval Warfare, 1815–1914. New York: Routledge.
Wilson, Herbert Wrigley (1896). Ironclads in Action: A Sketch of Naval Warfare from 1855 to 1895. Marston and Co

Links

/istanbulansiklopedisi.org
tr.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org List of Turkish ironclad warships