Battleship "Empress Maria". The death of the battleship "Empress Maria"

The history of naval forces of different countries of the world is full of mysteries. Such a complex machine as a battle ship is full of equipment, weapons and machines, improper handling of which can lead to the death of the ship. But that does not explain everything. The catastrophe is most often so fleeting and large that there is nobody to tell about all its circumstances. The wreckage is a heap of twisted metal, usually lying on the bottom, so the investigation and clarification of the causes are extremely difficult. So it was with the Japanese ships Fuso, Congo, Mutsu, Yamato, the American dreadnought Arizona, the Italian cruiser Roma, the Soviet Marat, the English Barham and Hood. In the post-war period, the martyrologist was replenished with Novorossiysk. The death of the battleship "Empress Maria" in October 1916 can be attributed to the hard-to-explain historical facts.

A series of the best battleships

Contrary to popular opinion, whose origin can be explained by the specific approach of Soviet party leaders to domestic pre-revolutionary history, the Russian Empire was not a backward country. Discoveries of our scientists have forever entered the treasury of world science. Russian electrical engineers developed the world's first three-phase power supply systems, invented an induction motor and wireless communications. All these achievements have found their application in the construction of new ships of the Imperial Navy, launched in the series in 1911. There were three of them: the battleship "Empress Maria" became the first of them. "The Empress Catherine the Great" and "Emperor Alexander III" as a whole repeated its constructive decisions, although, as it often happens, they were built taking into account new ideas emerging during the production process. In the spring of 1914 the head unit was launched. It happened at the right time. The world war, which began, it would seem, suddenly from the shots that thundered in Sarajevo, was in fact no surprise. Battleships such as "Empress Maria" substantially equalized the balance of power in the proposed maritime theater of operations. The Russian fleet was healing the Tsushima wounds.

Porphyry name

A series of ships received the names of the royal people of the Russian State. It is interesting that only the battleship Empress Maria of the Black Sea Fleet was named in honor of the alive, alive at that time the widow of Alexander III, nee Danish princess Louise Sophia Frederick Dagmar, who became a real Russian patriot, incidentally, despite her foreign origin. However, this has already happened, it is enough to recall Catherine the Great, whose name was given to another battleship of the same type. No doubt, this woman deserved this honor, besides she was the mother of Nicholas II. Its role in Russian history is great, and the strength of character, kindness and righteousness of life successfully competed with external beauty.

Maria Fyodorovna's fate is tragic, she died in her homeland, in Denmark (1928), while at the same time living in emigration and embodying the share of all those Russians who happened to eat the bitter bread of a foreign land, "leaving no crusts." And before that, she lost dear and close people: two sons, a daughter-in-law, four granddaughters and a grandson.

Ship Features

Battleship "Empress Maria" was a ship in all respects outstanding. He walked swiftly, developing a speed of almost 24 knots (about 40 km / h) with the loading of 2 thousand tons of coal and 600 tons of fuel oil had autonomy in eight days, the team consisted of 1,260 sailors and officers. Power plant - a turbine type, it consisted of two machines of 10 000 liters. from.

Battleships are a special type of naval equipment, they are distinguished by a high level of artillery armament. Four gun turrets were equipped with three 12-inch guns (produced by the famous Obukhov plant) each. In addition to the main caliber, an auxiliary one was also presented, in quantity of 32 pieces. These guns had a different purpose, including anti-aircraft guns, which indicated the ability of Russian engineers to think in advance and take into account the growing threat of an air attack. There was one more constructive feature, which was different battleship "Empress Maria". Drawings of superstructures were compiled taking into account the maximum increase in the sector of fire, so the power of the volley was not much dependent on the angle of the target in relation to the course.

The outputs of the torpedo tubes were located below the waterline, which was a revolutionary achievement at that time. The shell was encased with a layer of armor 250 mm thick, and the deck was protected by it. Special words deserve and the system of electrical supply of the ship. The battleship "Empress Maria" energized six dynamos (today they are called generators). All heavy machinery was rotated by electric motors, in particular, there were 22 of them on each artillery tower.

Such a ship could perform combat missions even in our time.

How the battleship fought

In the autumn of 1915, the intensity of sea battles on the Black Sea reached its peak. Turkey, an ally of Austria-Hungary, showed regional activity, the German submarine fleet acted no less aggressively. In response, the Black Sea Fleet bombed artillery ports of the northern Ottoman coast - Ereğli, Kilimli, Zunguldak and Kozlu. On the flagship battleship, "Mary", the naval operations were administered by Admiral Kolchak. On the account of the team, all the new sunken enemy ships appeared. The German Breslau cruiser, hurrying to the aid of the Turkish fleet, failed to fulfill its task in February and struggled to break away from the Russian battleship, receiving multiple damages. For the whole of 1916 another German raider, "Gaben", only ventured three times to enter the Black Sea basin from the Bosporus Strait, and then for a short time and unsuccessfully. From the last trip to the Sevastopol bay, the battleship "Empress Maria" returned on October 6, 1916.

Victims and survivors

Unlike many other marine accidents, most of the team managed to survive. Of the 1,260 crew members, 152 to 216 people perished from various sources. The number of wounded and burned was from one and a half hundred to 232 people. Despite the emergency medical care provided, a hundred and fifty sailors died in hospitals. Thus, the death of the battleship "Empress Maria" caused the death of three hundred and fifty people (according to the maximum estimate), which is approximately 28% of the entire team. Victims could be much more, but fortunately, almost all sailors who did not carry watch duty, participated in the prayer service that took place on the aft deck. What is called, God saved.

Testimony of eyewitnesses

The surviving members of the crew told what happened on the battleship in the early morning of October 7. In a sense, the whole Sevastopol, awakened by a terrible roar, can be called a witness. People who accidentally saw the whole picture of the disaster from the shore and other ships of the Black Sea Fleet, say that the first explosion from the ground was foiled by a foremast, a front pipe and a battle felling. But the main reason why the struggle for life was useless was the destruction of the hull, which manifested itself in the rupture of the side to below the waterline, after which the seawater began to flow into the compartments. The fire went on, meanwhile. In a few minutes the commander of the Black Sea Fleet Admiral Kolchak arrived to guide the rescue work, fire boats and tugs arrived, but nothing could be done about it. In less than an hour detonated ammunition in the cellar of the bow tower, several more explosions were heard, the battleship received negative buoyancy, the overquisition turned over and sank.

The struggle for vitality

Sailors throughout the disaster acted in accordance with the Charter and performed duties as ordered staffing. At 7:20 the sailors of the fourth casemate, who were on the watch, noticed a strange hiss that emanated from the cellar partition of the neighboring bow tower. They immediately reported to their immediate supervisor what was happening, had time to unload the fire hoses and water. It took only two minutes. Changed after the watch, the sailors at that time washed themselves before rest, they were all burnt by the hellfire of the explosion. The power supply was broken, the light went out. The explosions continued (25 of them all thundered), detonated shells of 130-mm caliber. Meanwhile, by order of a senior mechanical engineer, warrant officer Ignatiev tried to launch fire pumps. He did not succeed, the brave sailor died. An attempt to flood the cellar of the second bow tower to create a water barrier also proved to be unsuccessful, it simply did not have enough time. Realizing that everyone could not be saved, the commanders gave the command to the sailors to leave, and they themselves remained on a certain death, trying to fulfill their duty. After the rise of the ship, the remains of the heroes were found and buried.

Home version: accident

People tend to find the answer to all the inexplicable. The more mysterious the circumstances, the more complex and intricate they are usually treated. Therefore, the official version of the commission of inquiry that the explosion on the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet occurred due to the self-ignition of the ether powder fumes, was disappointing for many. Nevertheless, most likely, it was. The projectiles for a long time, along with the caps, were in the trunks, especially when the battleship was hunting for "Gaben", and this could provoke detonation. But there is one more version, according to which the mysterious death of the battleship "Empress Maria" happened not accidentally.

German Spies

In favor of the "sabotage" hypothesis, some circumstances also speak. The ship was undergoing repair work, access control was weak, and what could prevent the scout from putting into the cellar a micro-fuse similar to what was found on the Italian dreadnought "Leonardo da Vinci" in the summer of 1915? Especially since many hatches were not locked. Another fact speaks at first glance in favor of espionage sabotage: in 1933 the NKVD authorities neutralized the German intelligence headquarters headed by a certain Verman. According to the arrested, he was recruited before the revolution. And he was interested in the achievements of military Russian electrical engineering, including the schemes of the Empress Maria. The Chekists did not give any attention to this. Whether Verman was a spy is not known, then people admitted anything.

The ship was cut for scrap in 1926. Remained only a memory of what the battleship "Empress Maria" was. His model is in the museum of Nakhimov, in the homeland of the naval commander - in the Smolensk region. Another skilfully executed layout - on a large scale - adorns the exposition of the Nikolaev Museum of the History of Shipbuilding and Fleet.