HDMS Herluf Trolle (1899) was a Danish coastal defense ship. The first of her class of three ships (including Olfert Fischer and Peder Skram), she was launched on 2 September 1899 and commissioned on 7 June 1901.
She had an uneventful career, as Denmark remained neutral throughout World War One. Herluf Trolle and her sisters patrolled Denmark’s coast, enforcing her neutrality. Post war, with reduced naval budgets, she was sold for scrap in 1934.
Belt armor: 178 to 203 mm (7 to 8 in) Gun turrets: 170 to 190 mm (6.5 to 7.5 in)
Herluf Trolle class 2-view line drawingPostcard for Danish coastal battleship Herluf TrolleHerluf Trolle prior to being launchedHerluf Trolle under constructionHerluf Trolle (1899)Herluf Trolle (1899)Herluf Trolle (1899)Herluf Trolle c. 1902Herluf Trolle and Peder Skram (to the left) saluting
Commissioned on 18 October 1915, Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya, was the second of the three Imperatritsa Mariya-class dreadnoughts built for the Imperial Russian Navy. Her two sister were Imperatritsa Mariya and Imperator Aleksandr III.
During the First World War, she engaged the Turkish battlecruiser Yavûz Sultân Selîm (ex-German Goeben) once, but only inflicted splinter damage while taking no damage herself. The majority of her service saw her covering the actions of smaller vessels during which she did not fire her armament apart from briefly engaging the Turkish cruiser Midilli on 25 June 1917.
Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya was renamed Svobodnaya Rossiya (Free Russia) after the February Revolution of 1917. The ship sailed from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk on 30 April 1918 as German troops approached the city. Svobodnaya Rossiya was scuttled on 19 June by four torpedoes fired by the destroyer Kerch in Novorossiysk harbor to prevent her from being turned over to the Germans as required by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. She was partially salvage in the 1920s.
Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya Under Construction
Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya under constructionImperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya under constructionImperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya fitting out in 1915
Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya In Service
Imperatritsa Ekaterina VelikayaImperatritsa Ekaterina VelikayaImperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya on trialsImperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya fitting out in 1915Imperatritsa Ekaterina VelikayaImperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya in drydock Sevastopol 1915Imperatritsa Ekaterina VelikayaSvobodnaya Rossiya ex Imperatritsa Ekaterina II in 1918Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya main armament
Imperator Aleksandr III was a battleship built for the Imperial Russian Navy. The third and last of the three ship Imperatritsa Mariya-class (along with her sisters Imperatritsa Ekaterina Velikaya and Imperatritsa Mariya), she was launched 15 April 1914. Completion was delayed as effort was concentrated on her two more advanced sisters. Additionally, the delivery of her turbines from Britain was also delayed.
Renamed Volia (Freedom), she entered service on 17 July 1917. By this time, the Black Sea Fleet had become ineffective dure to the February 1917 Revolution and she saw no combat. On 1st of October 1918, she was handed to the Germans who commissioned her into the Imperial German Navy and manned her with the crew of the decommissioned dreadnought Rheinland. Several cruises were made, but she was not combat ready before Germany surrendered and she was handed to the British on 24 November 1918.
The Royal Navy sailed Volia to Izmit in Turkey. On 29 October 1919 she was sailed back to Sevastopol by a crew from the battleship HMS Iron Duke and turned over to the White Russians on 1 November. They renamed her General Alekseyev and carried out shore bombardments with only three of her of twelve guns operable. With the collapse of the White Russian armies in Southern Russia in 1920, the ship helped to evacuate the Whites from the Crimea to Bizerte, where she was interned with the rest of White Russian’s fleet. Negotiations to sell her to the Soviet Union fell through and she was sold for scrap in the late 1920s to pay her docking costs although she was not actually broken up until 1936.
Imperator Aleksander III fitting outImperator Aleksandr III in 1916Volia ex-Imperator Aleksander III, in 1917Volia ex Imperator Aleksander III, at Sebastopol in 1918Volia ex Imperator Aleksander III in 1917Volia ex Imperator Aleksander III in 1918 in ConstantinopleVolia ex-Imperator Aleksander III in Sevastopol with cruiser Pamiat’ Merkuria, and Evstafi, August 1918General Alekseyev ex Volia ex Imperator Aleksander III in 19201924 General Alekseyev due to lack of maintenance seriously began to rustGeneral Alekseyev ex Volia ex Imperator Aleksander III in 1922 interned in BizerteGeneral Alekseyev in 1936 being scrapped
