October 29, 1914

Black Sea Raid

The Ottoman fleet raids Russia’s Black Sea ports

Two of the ships flying Ottoman flags were still German-manned vessels, commanded by the German admiral who had brought them to Constantinople.

Four ports, no declaration

On 29 October 1914 a combined Ottoman naval force of eleven warships, commanded by German Rear Admiral Wilhelm Souchon, attacked Russian ships and the ports of Sevastopol, Odessa, Novorossiysk and Feodosia without any prior declaration of war.

The force included the former German warships Goeben and Breslau, renamed Yavuz Sultan Selim and Midilli but still carrying German crews and serving under Souchon.

At Odessa before dawn, three torpedo boats sank the Russian gunboat Donetz; a contemporary diplomatic report also recorded damage to shipping, the town and a sugar factory, with deaths and injuries.

Ordered around a divided cabinet

İsmail Enver Pasha, the Ottoman minister of war, had instructed Ottoman captains to follow Souchon's instructions and supported action against Russia without a prior declaration. The Ottoman cabinet itself remained divided over entering the war.

Renaming Goeben and Breslau had not made them conventionally Ottoman-crewed ships. In practice they remained German possessions and kept their German crews.

The Ottoman government initially claimed that Russian forces had attacked first; scholarship describes that account as a manufactured justification.

The declarations came days later

The listing folds the raid and the Allied declarations into one line, and the corpus article places the shelling in November. The raid was on 29 October; Russia declared war on 2 November, and Britain and France on 5 November.

Most modern reference works date Russia's declaration to 2 November, though some Turkish scholarship gives 3 November. That disagreement does not touch the raid's own date.

That date is Gregorian: contemporary Russian records used 16 October under the Julian calendar, and Ottoman records 16 Teşrin-i Evvel under the Rumi calendar.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 6 sources not yet audited

How this was checked

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What the sources leave uncertain

29 October is the Gregorian date. Contemporary Russian records used 16 October under the Julian calendar, and Ottoman records used 16 Teşrin-i Evvel under the Rumi calendar.
Most modern reference works date Russia’s declaration to 2 November Gregorian, although some Turkish scholarship gives 3 November. This does not affect the raid’s securely established 29 October date.