Souchon immediately launched reforms in the navy and began with preparations for the approaching war. Bosphorus and the Black SeaĪfter Yavuz and Midilli (formerly Goeben and Breslau) joined the Turkish fleet, commander of the German Mediterranean Squadron ( Mittelmeerdivision der Kaiserlichen Marine), Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, was appointed the commander-in-chief of the Ottoman Navy as of August 18, 1914. Despite several technical and tactical problems, especially a chronic shortage of food, the fleet provided valuable assistance to the Turkish efforts at Gallipoli and the Caucasus. Although this first naval operation of the war was an offensive one, Turkish war efforts at the sea remained essentially defensive in character throughout the course of the war (though occasional sorties into Russian waters were undertaken) and they were almost exclusively restricted to the Black Sea and the Turkish Straits. The Ottoman Empire officially entered the First World War as the consequence of a major naval operation, namely Yavuz and Midilli’s raid on Russian Black Sea ports in late October 1914. Turkish warships anchored at the Golden Horn in Istanbul
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