Giulio Cesare

History

Design

Service

Giulio Cesare was commissioned for the first time on the 7th of June 1914, completed ahead of her sister-ships Conte di Cavour and Leonardo da Vinci, joining Dante Alighieri as the second modern dreadnought battleship of the Regia Marina, a month before the outbreak of World War I. Serving as the flagship of the southern Adriatic Sea fleet, she saw absolutely no action throughout the war as the Italian naval chief of staff believed that Austro-Hungarian submarines and minelayers could operate too effectively in the narrow confines of the Adriatic, and as such Cesare served as a fleet-in-being throughout the war. She finally saw action after the war in 1923, where she alongside her sister Cavour bombarded the Greek island of Corfu following the Corfu Incident. She was decommissioned in May 1928 due to her age, serving as a gunnery training ship until the decision came in 1933 to modernize Cesare alongside her sister Cavour.

Giulio Cesare re-joined the Regia Marina in 1937 as the first modern battleship of the fleet. At that moment, Cesare and Cavour were the only combat-ready battleships Italy had, and they would remain as such until after Italy entered the war in 1940. When Italy did enter the war on the 10th of June 1940, Cesare was one of only two battleships readily available to fight the Royal Navy. Fortunately for Italy, France had capitulated a month before they joined, and now the Regia Marina had rough numerical superiority in the Mediterranean against the British; and the Italians had the home advantage. The war in the Mediterranean quickly became a convoy interdiction fight, with the Regia Marina working to keep supply lines to Italian Libya open, and the British to reinforce Malta and Egypt. Cesare’s first scrape with the Royal Navy came at the Battle of Calabria on the 9th of July 1940. The battle itself was indecisive, but Cesare took a direct hit from Warspite at extreme range, causing a fire that effectively shut down half her boilers and cutting her speed to 18 knots, causing the Italians to break off. This battle early in the war immediately highlighted the sever inferiorities the Regia Marina suffered from compared to the well-armed, armored, organized and disciplined Royal Navy. Cesare was quickly repaired, and was joined in operations by the older Andrea Doria and Caio Duilio, and the brand-new Littorio and Vittorio Veneto.

Giulio Cesare participated in several more unsuccessful attempts at intercepting British convoys across the Mediterranean in 1940. The Regia Marina took a catastrophic blow following the daring British air raid on Taranto, with Cesare caught in the attack. Cesare, along with Veneto and Doria suffered the least damage, and moved to Naples while Taranto’s air defenses were upgraded. Despite suffering from Taranto, the Regia Marina still desired to force the British forces into combat. This came to be as the Battle of Cape Spartivento, where Cesare and Veneto accompanied by six heavy cruisers and fourteen destroyers engaged and then retreated from British Forces; Italian Admirals were under strict orders to not engage enemy forces unless under favorable conditions. Shots were exchanged between the cruisers present, but the British ceased to chase the retreating Italians when their cruisers came under fire from Veneto’s 15” guns; Cesare did not open fire. With another inconsequential battle to Cesare’s name and the Regia Marina, a change of command occurred.

The repeated Italian failures forced the Germans to join the battle of the Mediterranean by air and by land. Cesare suffered damage in January 1941 following an air raid on Naples, rushing out to sea to attempt to intercept the British force that had struck Genoa in late early February that year, once again failing to intercept British forces. Despite the successful invasion of Greece and the occupation of Crete giving the Axis strategic control of the Eastern Mediterranean, Italian naval moral was low following the losses at Matapan and their dwindling resources, but nevertheless their battleships, including Cesare, were largely intact. Cesare nevertheless remained in port for the majority of 1941. Towards the end, however, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the Italians were no longer so readily assisted by the Germans and, despite their limited resources, began to use their heavier units in convoy escorts again, helping to support the dire situation in North Africa. The last time Cesare fired her 320mm guns during the war was during the First Battle of Sirte, yet another inconclusive engagement to her name. She last sortied to support another convoy to North Africa in January 1942, returning to Taranto where she served as a gunnery training ship, later transferring to Pola in safer waters.

Italy had decided to focus its resources on their trio of modern battleships Littorio, Vittorio Veneto and the new Roma, as well as constructing and fueling more badly-needed destroyers. While the situation favored the Axis during the first half of 1942, American entry to the war began to tilt the balance of power against the Axis. The Italians were only able to operate half their battleships, and while construction on carriers had begun, it was coming to be too little too late as the Royal Navy was reinforced by the United States Navy. In the last days of the Regia Marina, Doria and Duilio were brought out of reserve, but Cavour was still under repairs and Cesare was effectively permanently attached to a naval school in Pola. Following the successful allied invasion of Sicily, Mussolini’s fascist regime collapsed, and an Armistice was signed with the Allies. This prompted a violent German reaction that split Italy in two, and divided the battered Regia Marina further. Cesare quickly escaped Pola before she could be captured by the Germans, she returned to Taranto, then onto Malta, where she arrived and was interned there from the 12th of September 1943 to the 17th of June 1944, when she returned to Taranto for four years onwards.

Following post-war negotiations, Giulio Cesare and many other Italian warships were to be transferred to the Soviet Red Fleet. Following an overhaul and decommissioning from the now defunct Regia Marina, Cesare was transferred to the Soviet Union at Valone, Albania, on the 6th of February 1949. Under the Soviet flag, she sailed to the Black Sea where she was renamed Novorossiysk. She remained in Soviet service until 1955. She underwent many gradual refits while in Soviet service, but the plans to replace her guns with Russian-designed 305mm guns when Novorossiysk sunk on the 29th of October 1955. The explosion blew a hole clean through the ship, and the uncontrolled flooding made her eventually capsize with a loss of 608 men. While the reason for her loss was most likely the ship striking an unexploded German mine left over from WWII, other sources and theories put forth said that she was sunk by Italian Frogmen of a wartime special operations unit, either to avenge the transfer of their ship to the Soviet Union or doing so on behalf of NATO. She was stricken from the naval register on the 24th of February 1956, salvaged the next year, and subsequently scrapped.

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  Giulio Cesare as built.

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  Giulio Cesare after reconstruction.

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  Giulio Cesare at sea, c. 1940.

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  Giulio Cesare firing to starboard during gunnery exercises.