Russian submarine Morzh

Around the time that the submarine was completed in early 1915, the Black Sea Fleet had been ordered to attack the Bosporus in preparation for landing ground troops there in support of the British and the French during the Gallipoli campaign.^[12] The other two boats of its class, Nerpa and Tyulen, were already active with the rest of the fleet in blockading the Bosporus to prevent coal shipments between Constantinople and the coal producing region near Zonguldak, about 150 miles away. The German commanding admiral in the region, Wilhelm Souchon, thought that Russian submarines could potentially cut off the Ottoman Navy from its main supply of coal, though initially they did not have that much success. Morzh joined its sister ships in patrolling the waters near the Bosporus. In July 1915, it accompanied the submarine minelayer Krab, which was also recently completed, to the opening of the strait to lay naval mines for the German cruiser Goeben. Krab had some engine problems during the mission and had to be towed back to base by Morzh.^[11]

In August 1915 Morzh carried out patrols together with Tyulen, and on the 10th they attacked a supply convoy escorted by Goeben, the Ottoman cruiser Hamidiye, and some Ottoman torpedo boats. Tyulen sank a large transport, and the next day both of them tried to attack Goeben, without success. Morzh continued targeting coal ships along the Anatolian coast over the next several months, and on 14 November 1915, it fired two torpedoes at Goeben that barely missed, while the cruiser was escorting some transports near the Bosporus. After this incident Souchon decided to stop using Goeben for the task of escorting merchant ships.^[13] The Russian naval attacks on the Bosporus in 1915 did not make a significant impact on the fighting in Gallipoli, but their campaign against coal shipping became a problem for the Ottomans.^[11][14]

In March 1916, the steamer Dubrovnik was torpedoed by Tyulen but still kept going, and it was finished off by Morzh.^[2][10] In May 1916, the submarine was damaged during an attack by a Turkish plane,^[1] and in June Morzh captured the Turkish sailing ship Belouzar, which was transporting oil.^[15] After the February Revolution in 1917, the Black Sea Fleet and its submarines continued to be active and the Russian Provisional Government intended to eventually land ground troops along the Anatolian coast.^[16] While on a patrol that took place in May 1917, Morzh was lost at sea with its entire crew of 42 men, most likely from a mine near the Bosporus.^[2][1][17]

Morzh carried out 19 patrols^[17] and was given credit for sinking or capturing 30 ships during the war, with a gross register tonnage of 4,907, which made it the third highest achieving Russian submarine in the Black Sea after Tyulen and Narval.^[18]

• 
  The submarine's conning tower.
• 
  Transport ship Edirne being torpedoed.

The wreck of Morzh was discovered in 2000. There is a memorial for the crew of the submarine on the property of the Consulate General of Russia in Istanbul.^[17]

• Budzbon, Prezemyslav (1986). "Russia". In Gardiner, Robert & Gray, Randal (eds.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921. Conway Maritime Press. pp. 295–321. ISBN 0-85177-245-5.
• Dovzhenko, V. (2021). "Черноморский флот России в первой мировой войне" [Black Sea Fleet of Russia in the First World War]. Морской сборник [Naval Review] (in Russian) (3).
• Halpern, Paul G. (1994). A Naval History of World War I. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-61251-172-6.
• Polmar, Norman & Noot, Jurrien (1991). Submarines of the Russian and Soviet Navies, 1718–1990. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-570-1.
• Westwood, J. N. (1994). Russian Naval Construction, 1905–45. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-349-12458-9.