Imperial Russian Navy
|
Imperial Russian Navy |
|
|---|---|
 Russian naval war flag |
|
| active | 1696 to 1917 |
| Country |
 Russian Empire
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| Armed forces | russian armed forces |
| Armed forces | Russian Navy |
| Type | marine |
| Subordinate troops |
Black Sea Fleet |
| Patron saint | Nicholas of Myra |
| Butcher | Russo-Turkish Wars , Russo-Swedish Wars , Russian Campaign in 1812 , Russo-Japanese War , First World War |
| commander | |
| Important commanders |
Peter the Great |
| insignia | |
| Jack of the Russian Navy |
|
| The naval standard of the All-Russian Emperor |
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The Imperial Russian Navy ( Russian Российский императорский флот ) were the naval forces of the Russian Empire . These existed from the beginning in the 17th century until the October Revolution in 1917.
story
Reign of Peter I.
The regular Russian navy was set up under Tsar Peter I , who wanted to modernize Russia and bring it up to the technical standards of Western Europe. This required a lively technological, cultural and economic exchange, and he was determined to intensify communication with Europe on maritime trade. The Tsar himself dealt intensively with shipbuilding and learned the craft during his Great Legation as part of a four-month training course in a Dutch shipyard. At the end of the 17th century, Russia was almost completely cut off from the world's oceans and had only one international seaport in Arkhangelsk . The tsarist empire was therefore considered a classic land power at the time and had no seafaring tradition. For this, Russia had an abundance of all the materials and raw materials that were required for shipbuilding. Shipbuilding in their own country was much cheaper than in the Netherlands and England , which Peters predecessors also knew. In 1662, for example, Tsar Alexei I had sounded out abroad to what extent it would be possible to buy ships there and lease sea trading places for Russian merchants. Dutch shipyard workers were recruited who entered Russian service. They built a large ship, the Oryol, for service on the Caspian Sea . It was launched in Astrakhan in 1669 .
Russia's great power rivals, Sweden and the Ottoman Empire , tried to keep Russia away from access to the seas. The need to build his own navy arose for the young Tsar Peter after his first military failure in the battle for Azov in 1695, when it became clear that the Ottomans with their powerful fleet could not be beaten by land warfare alone. In front of the fortress town of Azov, the Don flowed into the Sea of Azov . This was supposed to guarantee access to the Black Sea and to open the gateway to the Mediterranean. François Le Fort was in charge of building the new navy . For the implementation of the second Azov campaign of 1696 Peter was the first fleet in the history of Russia , the Azov Fleet build from two battleships , four fire-ships , 23 galleys and 1300 as Strug called canon rowing boats with auxiliary sails was that the shipyards and were built around Voronezh . As support for the army in the second of the Azov campaigns, they successfully took part in the siege and conquest of Azov. The long-term plan was to conquer more fortresses on the Black Sea, which is why the tsar presented his boyar duma with a list of allocation regulations for the procurement of the funds needed to build a navy, which on October 20, 1696, made a decision to build a navy. This date is considered the official birthday of the regular Russian Navy. (See Petrine reforms ) Although Russia had gained access to the Black Sea with the second Azov campaign , it still had no access to the world's oceans, as the Bosphorus , which was under Ottoman control, prevented access and the events against the war against the Turks were prevented was not possible in the north. In the northwest, the Gulf of Finland led into the Baltic Sea, but this had been the territory of the Swedish Empire since 1617 with the Treaty of Stolbowo . In 1700 the Great Northern War broke out. In order to gain access to the Baltic Sea, the Newaumland first had to be conquered and secured militarily. River boats were also built and used in these battles on Lake Ladoga , Lake Onega and Lake Peipus . The siege of Nyenschanz and the siege of Nöteborg followed . The Peter and Paul Fortress was built to secure the newly conquered areas . Now Peter had his window to the west and a naval base on the Baltic Sea. The construction of the rowed fleet took place in the years 1702–1704 at shipyards in the delta of the Sjas , Luga and Olonka rivers . The Baltic Fleet gradually developed from this . In order to be able to defend the conquered coastline and attack the enemy sea connections in the Baltic Sea , the Russians created a fleet of Russian and imported sailing ships. Thousands of Russian farmers were used to build the fleet, who were instructed by hundreds of shipbuilders and officers whom Peter recruited from Western Europe for service. Western mathematicians, shipbuilders and scientists created the basis for seafaring education and shipbuilding technology in Russia. Initially, the Wladimirskij Prikas (Владимирский приказ) was responsible for shipbuilding, later the Admiraltejskij Prikas (Адмиралтейский приказ). The naval officers came from the nobility and the common seamen from the ranks of the army recruits . Service in the fleet was lifelong. In 1701 the "School for Mathematical and Navigational Sciences" was established, at which foreign teachers worked (e.g. Prof. Farwharson from Aberdeen); in her, however, children of noble families were a minority. The students were often sent abroad to learn how to serve in foreign fleets.
After establishing themselves in St. Petersburg and repelling the attacks by the Swedes , the acquisition of a port further south became the new strategic goal for the Russian Navy, as the port of St. Petersburg was often frozen and unusable. Nevertheless, St. Petersburg remained the main base, and the Kronstadt sea fortress was built in the run-up to the new capital . The country's first naval academy was also established in St. Petersburg. Further bases were created in Vyborg , Helsinki , Reval and Åbo . Cornelius Cruys became the first commander-in-chief of the Baltic fleet . In 1718, the supreme naval authority of Russia was created: the Admiralty College (Адмиралтейств-коллегия).
The young Russian Navy passed an important test against the Swedish Navy in the naval battle of Hanko in July 1714. Until then, Sweden had dominion in the Baltic Sea, after which the Russian Navy could advance to Denmark.
In 1722 the Imperial Russian Navy had 130 sailing ships , including 36 ships of the line , 9 frigates , 3 Schnauen (шнява <ndl. Snauw) (a light two-master used for reconnaissance and communication purposes ), 5 bombards and 77 auxiliary ships . The rowed fleet consisted of 396 ships, including 253 galleys and 143 half- galleys (so-called skampawei (скампавея); modified three-masted brigantine). The ships were piled up in 24 shipyards, including those in Voronezh , Kazan , Pereyaslav , Arkhangelsk , Olonez , Saint Petersburg and Astrakhan .
The organizational principles of the Imperial Russian Navy as well as the educational and training methods for preparing the future cadre and the methods for carrying out military actions were summarized in the "Maritime Regulations" (Устав Морской, 1720) based on service regulations and maritime law provisions of leading naval powers. Peter the Great, Fyodor Apraxin , Akim Senjawin , Naum Senjawin , Mikhail Golitsyn, and others are generally considered to be particularly important in the development of Russian naval warfare. The main principles of naval warfare were also developed by Grigory Spiridov , Fyodor Ushakov and Dmitri Senjawin .
In the 18th century
After Peter's death, the laboriously built naval force headed towards its decline. In the second half of the 18th century , Russia sought supremacy in the Black Sea , leading to wars against the Ottoman Empire . To strengthen the Russian fleet, Empress Katharina appointed the English admiral Sir Charles Knowles as general manager of the Russian admiralty in 1770 , who strongly pushed the expansion of the Russian navy and was released into retirement in 1774 at his own request at the age of 70. For the first time, Russia sent its squadrons from the Baltic Sea to distant theaters of war. Admiral Spiridov's squadron gained naval supremacy in the Aegean Sea by destroying the Turkish fleet in the battle of Çeşme in 1770 , and in 1771 the Russian army conquered the coasts of the Kerch Strait and the fortresses of Kerch and Yenikal (now part of Kerch). After they had reached the Danube , the Russians set up the Danube military flotilla to guard the mouth of the Danube . In 1773 the ships of the Azov flotilla, which was newly established in 1771, sailed into the Black Sea. The Russo-Turkish War of 1768–1774 ended victorious for Russia: it received the coast of the Azov Sea and part of the Black Sea coast between the Bug and Dniester rivers . The Crimea was initially declared independent under the Russian protectorate , but annexed as early as 1783. In 1778 the Russians founded the port of Chersonese . The first ship of the line of the Black Sea Fleet was put into service in this city in 1783, and a year later there was already a squadron.
In the second half of the 18th century and early 19th century , the Imperial Russian Navy had the third largest fleet in the world after Great Britain and France . The Black Sea fleet had five ships of the line and 19 frigates (1787), the Baltic fleet 23 ships of the line and 130 frigates (1788).
Heinrich Bacheracht was the first chief medical officer of the imperial Russian fleet.
In the 19th century
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In the early 19th century, the Russian Navy consisted of the Baltic and Black Sea Fleets, the Caspian Flotilla , the White Sea Flotilla , and the Okhotsk Flotilla . In 1802 the Ministry of the Naval Forces was established (renamed the Ministry of the Navy in 1815).
In 1826 the Russians built their first armed steamship Ischora (Ижора, 73.6 kW / 100 PS), equipped with eight cannons . In 1836 they constructed the first paddle steamer frigate of the Russian Navy, the Bogatyr (Богатырь, displacement: 1340 t, drive: 177 kW / 240 PS, armament: 28 cannons). Between 1803 and 1855 Russian sailors undertook over 40 world and long-distance voyages, which played an important role in the discovery of the Far East and various other sea areas.
Russia's slow technical and economic development in the first half of the 19th century caused it to lag behind other European countries in the construction of steamers. When the Crimean War broke out in 1853 , Russia had the Baltic and Black Sea Fleets, the Arkhangelsk Flotilla , the Caspian Flotilla and the Siberian Flotilla (a total of 40 ships of the line, 15 frigates, 24 corvettes and briggs , 16 steam frigates, etc.) with a total of 91,000 men. Still, the reactionary system had a beneficial effect on the development of the Russian Navy, especially the Baltic Fleet, which was known for its rigorous military drill . Thanks to Admirals Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev , Pavel Nakhimov , Vladimir Kornilov and Vladimir Istomin , the sailors of the Black Sea Fleet were trained in the art of warfare and the maintenance of military traditions that had been formed in the time of Admiral Fyodor Ushakov. In the sea battle near Sinope in November 1853, when the war with Turkey began, the Black Sea fleet (6 ships of the line, 2 frigates) under Admiral Nakhimov, which was superior in numbers and equipment, shot down the Turkish squadron (7 frigates, 3 corvettes, 2 steamers, 2 briggs, 2 transport ships ) together with bomb cannons . This slaughter gave Great Britain and France the opportunity in March 1854 to enter the war against Russia on the Turkish side. During the siege of Sevastopol in 1854–1855, most of the ships in the Black Sea Fleet sank in coastal areas to prevent enemy ships from approaching. The Baltic fleet remained in its ports in the face of a huge Anglo-French fleet sent into the Baltic Sea and accepted the conquest of the Åland Islands . The Treaty of Paris forbade Russia to fortify the Åland Islands, to allow warships to pass through the Dardanelles in the sense of the Strait Treaty, and to limit the Black Sea fleet to the size of the Turkish fleet in the Black Sea (the latter provision repealed in 1871).
Since 1860 the Russian sailing fleet lost its importance and was slowly replaced by steamships. After the Crimean War, Russia began building steam-powered armored ships, monitors, and sea-based batteries. These ships had heavy artillery and armor, but they were neither good seaworthy nor high speed or long range. In 1861 the Russians built their first steel armored gunboat Opyt (Опыт). In 1869 they began building one of the first seaworthy Ironclad armored ships, the Pjotr Veliki (Пётр Великий).
In 1895 the fleet was composed as follows:
- Baltic fleet : 5 squadron armored ships ; 10 1st class armored cruisers ; 2nd class cruiser: 1 covered cruiser, 2 unarmored, 2 training ships; 9 unarmored 3rd class cruisers, 1 training ship; 1 armored vehicle for coastal defense; 3 gunboats 1st class, 10 2nd class; 5 torpedo cruisers; 19 offshore torpedo boats ; 4 coastal torpedo boats; 88 port torpedo boats; 6 transport ships; also kaiserl. Yachts (3), harbor vehicles, customs flotilla and steam launches.
- Black Sea Fleet : 4 squadron armored ships; 1 unarmored cruiser 2nd class; 6 3rd class unarmored cruisers; 2 coastal tanks (Popowken); 3 torpedo cruisers; 11 deep sea torpedo boats; 5 coastal torpedo boats; 9 port torpedo boats; 9 transport ships. In addition, the volunteer fleet , which in peacetime mainly took over the transport of soldiers and detainees to the Amur area, but whose ships were to be used as auxiliary cruisers in the event of war: 9 steamships
- Caspian Sea Flotilla : 2 gunboats, several steamers and harbor vehicles.
- Siberian Fleet : 2 cruisers 2nd class; 2 gunboats 1st class; Coastal and harbor torpedo boats 5 each; 1 port vehicles; 2 transport ships; also several small steamers, schooners and barges.
- Amudarja -Flottille: 1 steamboat, 2 Barkschiffe and several smaller vehicles.
After the Sino-Japanese War of 1894/1895, the Russian Navy decided to expand its Pacific squadron . The construction program of 1898 envisaged the construction of ships of the line, cruisers and destroyers for this station. Some of these ships were to be built abroad, as the Russian Baltic Sea shipyards were busy and insufficiently efficient. The liner Retwisan in the United States and the Zessarewitsch in France were ordered and built. The latter resulted in five Russian replicas of the Borodino class . At the same time, the armored cruiser Bajan in France, the protected cruiser Varyag in the USA, the cruisers Askold and Bogatyr in Germany , and the smaller cruisers Nowik and Bojarin in Germany and Denmark , respectively, were ordered. There were also destroyers from France and Germany. These cruisers and destroyers were also partially replicated in Russian shipyards.
In the 20th century
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In the Russo-Japanese War from 1904 to 1905, large parts of the Pacific Fleet ( sea battle in the Yellow Sea ) and the Baltic Fleet hurrying to help ( sea battle at Tsushima ) were destroyed. The Russian Navy, formerly the world's third largest fleet, dropped to sixth place, and the focus of Russian naval activities shifted from the Far East back to the Baltic Sea. The first Russian submarine that of Ivan Bubnov designed Дельфин ( Dolphin ), ran 1902 from the pile. However, contrary to the ideas of its first commander, Admiral Nikolai von Essen, the Baltic Fleet never went on the offensive during the First World War , but was largely blocked by inferior German forces under Prince Heinrich of Prussia until the end of the war and remained largely inactive.
In the October Revolution of 1917, sailors, especially from the Baltic Fleet, played a key role. The starting gun was fired on October 25th by the cruiser Aurora , which is still a museum ship in Saint Petersburg today .
See also
literature
- James Cracraft: The Revolution of Peter the Great. 2003.
- Anthony Glenn Cross: By the banks of the Neva: chapters from the lives and careers of the British in Eighteenth-century Russia. Glasgow 1997.
- Edward J. Phillips: The Founding of Russias Navy. Peter the Great and the Azov Fleet, 1688-1714. Westport 1995.
- Harald Pinl: The warship building of Russia between 1725 and 1762. Langenhagen 2003.
- Heinz Stoelzel: The Russian Navy in the time of the tsars . Lecture at the 11th Historical-Tactical Conference of the Fleet on November 30, 1967.
Web links
- Index of the ships of the Imperial Russian Navy (Russian) ( Memento from May 30, 2002 in the Internet Archive )
- History of the Imperial Russian Navy
Individual evidence
- ↑ Erich Donnert: Peter the Great. Koehler & Amelang, Leipzig, p. 130.
- ↑ On the Russian fleet in the Crimean War see Jürgen Rohwer (Hrsg. D. German version): Seemacht. A history of naval warfare from antiquity to the present. By Elmar B. Potter and Chester W. Nimitz . Pawlak, Herrsching 1982, ISBN 3-88199-082-8 , pp. 181-184.