Giulio Cesare

History

Design

Service

Giulio Cesare was commissioned for the first time on 7 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 merely 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 and Conte di Cavour bombarded the Greek island of Corfu following the Corfu Incident. She was decommissioned in May 1928 due to her age, and served as a gunnery training ship until the decision came in 1933 to modernize Cesare as well as Cavour.

Giulio Cesare re-joined the Regia Marina in 1937 as the first modern battleship of the fleet. At the time, 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 declare war on Britain and France on 10 June 1940, Cesare was one of only two battleships readily available to fight the Royal Navy. Fortunately for Italy, France was on the verge of falling to the German advance, leaving the Regia Marina with rough numerical superiority in the Mediterranean against the Royal Navy (and a supposed home field 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 Royal Navy pushing to reinforce Malta and Egypt. Cesare’s first scrape with the Royal Navy came at the Battle of Calabria on 9 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 severe 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 declined to chase the retreating Italians when their cruisers came under fire from Veneto’s 15-inch guns; Cesare did not open fire. With another inconsequential battle to the Regia Marina — and Giulio Cesare’s — name, 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 morale was low following losses at Matapan and as a result of 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 of the year, 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 against the Royal Navy. 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.

In early 1942, Italy opted 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 them. The Italians were only able to operate half their battleships, and while construction on carriers had begun, it was to be too little too late as the Royal Navy was further 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 even further. Cesare quickly escaped Pola before she could be captured by the Germans, sailing for Taranto and then on to Malta, where she arrived and was interned from 12 September 1943 until 17 June 1944, when she returned to Taranto.

Following post-war negotiations, Giulio Cesare and many other Italian warships were 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 6 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 failed to materialize when Novorossiysk was lost on 29 October 1955. Suffering an explosion from an unknown source, a hole was blown clean through the ship; Novorossiysk eventually capsized with a loss of 608 crew. While the reason for her loss was most likely the ship striking an unexploded German mine left over from World War II, 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 24 February 1956, salvaged the next year, and subsequently scrapped.

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  Giulio Cesare as built.

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  Giulio Cesare in La Spezia shortly before reconstruction, circa 1933.

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  Giulio Cesare after reconstruction.

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  Conte di Cavour and Giulio Cesare at Napoli, circa 1938.

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  Giulio Cesare at sea, c. 1940.

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  Giulio Cesare firing to starboard during gunnery exercises.

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  Giulio Cesare after reconstruction

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  Office of Naval Intelligence drawing of the Conte di Cavour class, January 1943

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  Launch of Giulio Cesare, 15 October 1911.

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  Guilio Cesare shortly after completion, 1914