HMS Agincourt was a
World War I Dreadnought battleship of the
Royal Navy which fought at the Battle of
Jutland
.
Design
Agincourt was single-class
vessel, laid down by
Armstrongs
at
Newcastle upon
Tyne
as the
Brazilian
Rio de Janeiro in September 1911.
Agincourt was unusual in having seven main turrets, more
than any other dreadnought ever completed, and they were numbered
"1" through "7", but unofficially named after the days of the week
(unlike the usual A, B, Q, etc). Popular belief at the time held
that firing a full broadside of 14 guns would have capsized her.
This was
proven wrong by her gunnery officer at the Battle of
Jutland, who fired fourteen broadsides at the German High Seas Fleet. The
resulting sheet of flame was described as looking like a
battlecruiser blowing up, although no damage resulted other than a
few popped rivets.
She had poor armour in comparison with her armament, having just
9 inches (229 mm) maximum belt thickness, compared with
12 inches (305 mm) or more found in most contemporary
dreadnoughts. Added to this her internal layout was poor, with
fewer bulkheads and more open spaces than would have been
acceptable for a ship designed for the Royal Navy. By the time of
her completion, her 12 inch (305 mm) guns also lagged
behind her contemporaries - most
capital
ships under construction had larger-
calibre naval rifles. Nonetheless, the sheer number
of main guns on the
Agincourt meant that her weight of
broadside was at least a match for most rivals, even though those
guns' ability to penetrate armour was not as great.
Sale to the Ottoman Empire
The chief designer of Armstrongs,
Eustace Tennyson d'Eyncourt,
produced her outline design in his hotel bedroom in Brazil during
the negotiations.
However, the rubber trade on which Brazil
was reliant
collapsed, and relations with Brazil's neighbor Argentina
(against whom the Brazilians had started a naval
arms race) were improved. As a
result, Brazil cancelled the order in 1912 and sold the vessel to
the
Ottoman Navy for £2,750,000 in
January 1914.
Renamed the
Sultan Osman I, she underwent
trials in July 1914 and was completed in August, just as the
First World War began. She was among the
first British battleships with completely centreline distributed
superfiring turrets (a necessity given the number carried), nearly
five years after such a layout had been shown on the
USS South
Carolina.
Seizure
The war broke out before delivery during the trials. Even though
the Turkish crew had arrived to collect her, the British Government
took over the vessel for incorporation into the Royal Navy. At the
same time the British also took over a second Turkish battleship, a
King George
V vessel being built by
Vickers -
the
Reshadiye - which was renamed
HMS
Erin. Such an action was allowed for in the contracts,
as then-First Lord of the Admiralty
Winston
Churchill did not want to risk the ships being used against the
British, but it had consequences.
The takeover caused considerable ill-feeling in Turkey, where
public subscriptions had partially funded the ships. In that
period, the Ottoman government was in a financial deadlock and for
the budget of these battleships, people's donations were asked. In
taverns, cafés, schools and markets everybody donated some amount
of money for the Ottoman Navy. To encourage this campaign,
plentiful donations were awarded with a medal called the "Navy
Donation Medal".
This
proved an important factor in turning Turkish public opinion
against Britain
, especially
as the Turkish Navy had been
pro-Britain - the Army having been pro-German. It helped put the
Ottoman Empire into the war on the
side of Germany
and the
Austro-Hungarian Empire
against the Triple Entente of
Britain, France
and Russia
(29 October
1914). As an act of generosity towards her ally, Germany
sent the
battlecruiser SMS Goeben (renamed
Yavuz) and
the
light cruiser SMS Breslau (renamed
Midilli);
which joined the Turkish fleet in late 1914.
Royal Navy Service
The Royal Navy made modifications before commissioning her: in
particular they removed the flying deck over the two centre
turrets. They failed, however, to modify a number of written
labels, causing problems for seamen who could not distinguish, for
example, hot taps from cold. The ship was also initially fitted
with
Turkish style lavatories which
were not popular with British sailors. At the time of the Battle of
Jutland, one of her Petty Officers was James Callaghan father of
the future British Prime Minister Jim Callaghan.
Her nickname,
The Gin Palace, came from her luxurious
fittings (which may have led to the original high cost to the
Brazilians) and a corruption of her name (
A Gin
Court),
Pink Gin having been a
popular drink among Royal Navy officers at the time.
The name "Agincourt" was initially supposed to be given to a
battlecruiser variant of the
Queen Elizabeth
class of fast battleships, which was cancelled in favour of
another battleship of that class. The proposed
Agincourt
battlecruiser itself resulted in the cancellation of the sister
ship of
Tiger, which would
have received the name
Leopard.
Battle honours
HMS
Agincourt formed part of the First Battle Squadron
at the Battle of
Jutland, which she survived unscathed firing several
broadsides without damage.
She was reallocated to the
Second Battle Squadron
in 1918 and decommissioned in 1919. After unsuccessful attempts to
sell her to the Brazilian Government she was recommissioned as a
depot ship before being decommissioned again in 1921 and scrapped
in 1924.
Images
Image:PopTilley.jpg|Crew members - 1914Image:HMS Agincourt und
Erin.jpg|HMS Agincourt with
HMS
Erin - 1918Image:HMS Agincourt (1914).JPG|HMS
Agincourt - 1918
See also
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