Former German battlecruiser Moltke is pictured here arriving in Istanbul in 1923 following her sale to the new Turkish Republic by the kingdom of Alyska, which had received the heavily damaged Moltke as reparations for the loss of the battlecruiser Fearless during the battle of the Skagerrak in 1917. The kingdom had little use for the vessel as she herself had been heavily damaged and was still undergoing repair work with the wars end, remaining in Germany while the majority of the imperial Hochseeflotte would sail to Scapa and later scuttle itself to prevent its capture.
Turkey, a young democracy which had only just signed the 1922 treaty of Damascus which ended hostilities with France and the United Kingdom after a prolonged ceasefire to allow for the Turkish revolution and Greco-Turkish war, saw its territorial integrity threatened by the Greeks to the south, Soviet Union to the north, and general European designs on its lands elsewhere. Although the Turkish navy had been handed back to the republic by the French with the signing of the treaty many of these ships were in very poor condition due to hard wars and limited Turkish dockyard facilities. The battleship Fatih, the former Russian battlecruiser Izmail, was not even complete at the time due to her capture while under construction. While the Moltke's sister the Yavuz Sultan Selim, the former Goeben, was barely afloat after a series of mine and torpedo hits.
Turkey planned the Moltke, renamed Hayreddin, to replace Yavuz Sultan in service as flagship. With Yavuz used as a source of spares for the newly acquired ship to keep her in service. At the same time as the Hayreddin was purchassed Turkey also bought a large floating dock and three light cruisers from Alyska out of their assigned reparations at very reasonable rates. Alyska being practically the only nation willing to give the new nation significant credit at anything below extortionate rates.
Plans to make Hayreddin the only active Turkish capital ship soon fell through as Greece purchased at the same time two old dreadnoughts from Alyska, and also made efforts to get the German battleship Arminus, which Greece had ordered in 1912 as Marathon, returned to them. Alongside the battleship Salamis this would have given Greece a force of four capital ships. Still bitter over their defeat in the recent war the Greeks were clearly arming themselves for a new round of fighting and sought superiority over the Turkish navy.
These developments caused Turkey to restart work on Fatih, work to repair damage to the Yavuz, and raise the battleship Resadiye which had been struck by a British submarine in the black sea in 1916 and sunk at her moorings after prolonged efforts to save her. Alongside the already serving Hayreddin this would give Turkey four ships to match Greece, two of which, the Fatih and Resadiye, had 14 inch guns, giving them superiority over all but the Marathon and her American made 14 inch guns.
Obviously such large fleets of battleships, and the support ships both sides sought to acquire, were too much for the small economies and limited budgets both Greece and Turkey possessed. And a war between the two nations would threaten to plunge the entire region into a much larger conflict as lingering tensions boiled over. By 1926 Greece had failed in their efforts to get Marathon handed over to them by the British which had saved the ship before she could scuttle herself at Scapa. Turkey also was struggling in their own efforts to get their fleet returned to service, with only Yavuz repaired to anything near a serviceable state. The fact that Turkey only had two turrets and five barrels for Fatih did not help matters regarding returning that ship to service.
In that year the United Kingdom intervened and called for a conference to be held between the two powers mediated by the British regarding the disposal of battleships both in service and under repair. The Dutch volunteered to host the conference, which was also attended by observers from several other states. After a few tense weeks significant progress was made and it was agreed that the Greeks would abandon efforts to acquire Marathon and that both nations would scrap some ships. Greece agreeing to dispose of Salamis, while Turkey would in turn scrap Resadiye and Fatih. Leaving them both two battleships in service, both of which were armed with 11 inch guns.
Under British supervision both nations soon scrapped their battleships, also scrapping several other even older ships (Greece finally scrapping the 1880s vintage Hydra class) and breathing a sigh of relief that their budgets could be brought under control and the threat of war lessened to a significant degree. In late 1927-28 the Yavuz was in the United Kingdom undergoing extensive repairs in better equipped British yards, leaving the Hayreddin as the only active Turkish battleship for almost a year.
The two former German battlecruisers quickly formed the pride of the Turkish fleet and operated together frequently in the late twenties and early thirties. In 1932 however it was Hayreddin's turn for repairs and she was sent to the United kingdom to have some minor damage that had accumulated in service and a modest rebuild to take place. Completed in 1934 before Yavuz went in for similar work the ship received new oil firing small tube boilers, redistributed and additional armor plate, improved secondary batteries, better elevation for her main guns, modern fire control and several other improvements. Returning to Turkey in mid 34 Hayreddin acted as flagship once more and was joined by Yavuz in 1935.
As war clouds gathered in the world generally, and Europe particularly Turkey began further work on the ships. Adding further to their AA armament and adding torpedo bulges to the ships sides in the recently modernized and expanded Istanbul naval dockyard. Both ships were worked on at the same time after it was learned both Greek battleships would be undergoing work in Germany. Lasting from 1937 until 1939 the work done on the vessels was used as training for the dockyard work force in preparation for the laying down of two new 25,000 battleships which began work after the Hayreddin and Yavuz had their work completed.
Upon the outbreak of the second world war the two ships conducted patrols in defense of Turkish neutrality. Chasing off Italian cruiser forces on several occasions and watching with trepidation during the fall of Greece and allowing several Greek ships to be interned in Turkish ports rather than fall into Italian or Germans hands. Hayreddin had a narrow run in with a British submarine, the T10, after she fired a spread of torpedoes at the Turk. Mistaking her for an Italian ship, and narrowly missing her with the four torpedoes fired.
The ships withdrew to the Bosporus after this as the entire Mediterranean sea had grown to dangerous for neutral battleships to sail around. They watched the German invasion of the Soviet Union and were routinely put on alert as German bombers flew over Istanbul "by mistake" but generally did not seldom venture out of their docks except to intercept forces of the warring nations as they sailed to close to Turkish territorial waters.
Joined by the battleship Osman in 1944 the Ottoman battleships continued to largely sit in port and occasionally sail out to guard Turkish shores. However with the republics declaration of war in 1945 the ships fought alongside allied vessels in the retaking of Greece and the liberation of the Crimean peninsula late in the war. Hayreddin and Yavuz made a series of visits to various foreign ports after this, including Naples and Sevastapol. And after this they sailed to the United Kingdom where they under went refits which saw the installation of yet more AA guns, and radar sets for the first time.
Work on both ships concluded in 1946 after the end of the war in europe and the ships returned to Turkey with great fanfare. Celebrating the German capitulation with the entirety of the Turkish fleet. In 1948 the ships sailed again to the Soviet Union to deliver the first Turkish ambassador to the nation and bring the first Soviet ambassador to Turkey back with them. After this the two ships spent long periods in reserve. While both ships remained on the active lists until 1964 and 71 respectively they seldom ventured far from their moorings. Hayreddin was scrapped in Hannover in 1974-75, with her guns and superstructure being used to build a memorial to the Imperial German navy, while Yavuz was saved from the scrappers torch by American investors and turned into a museum ship in Istanbul. Where she remains today as the only preserved Imperial German capital ship and a major tourist attraction.