Tsesarevich

History

Designed by  Forges et Chantiers Mediterranee de la Seyne   in Toulon,  France,
on order from the Imperial Russian Navy,  she had her keel laid down in May 1899.
This purchase by Russia reflected the then existing close co-operation with France as an ally, a result of a conclusion of the Franco-Russian Treaty of 1891, and opened the way to apply  the best contemporary French ideas pertaining to the naval architecture to her own shipbuilding, which proved to be not as beneficiary, as it was expected. 
Although remarkably manoeuverable, answering the slightest touch of the steering wheel, this ship,  as all the others designed by the French shipyards in that era, had a tendency for an excessive heel in turning.

Serving as  a prototype for five battleships of the   "Borodino"  class,  which were battle tested in Tsushima Straight,  as described in the proceeding article, and imparting to them all the shortcomings of her type, the drawbacks of such construction became very apparent especially after an exhaustive study of the causes
of their sinkings in a few years that followed the end of the Russo-Japanese war.
Particularly disturbing was their tendency to shift the center of gravity rapidly under certain conditions, affecting stability and resulting in upturning. It was proven not only  by the experiences  of the Russian  Navy, but  by the French themselves,  with capsizing of the battleship  "Bouvet"  after striking a mine on 18 March 1915,  during the operations at Dardanelles Straight,   as one example of a few such misfortunes in the French Navy.

After the completion  in August 1905  she was turned over to  the Russian Navy and was  dispatched to  the Par East,  where she joined  the 1st Pacific Squadron based on Port Arthur.

On the night of  8/9 February 1904  she was damaged in   a sneak torpedo attack carried by the Japanese torpedo-boats prior to the declaration of war while at anchor in the Port Arthur harbour,  but was docked and repaired. 
Then she participated in  other  naval engagements of  the 1st Pacific Squadron,  the last one on 10 August 1904 serving as a flagship of Rear-Admiral W.K.Vitgeft on this occasion.
In the ensuing battle  he was killed by a shell splinter  penetrating   through an opening in the visor of the conning tower,  but  "Tsesarevich"   continued to proceed to  Kiau-Tschiau  (German colonial possession on  the Chinese coast   at that time) and was interned there for the duration of the war.

After the termination of the Russo-Japanese war of 1904/05 she had returned to the Baltic Sea and together with "Slava"  served as the mainstay of the Russian naval forces there up until the time of commissioning the dreadnoughts of the "Petropavlovsk" class in 1914,  having been refitted  during  1906  with her fighting tops
removed from her masts at the time.

Upon the outbreak of  the World War I,  she took part in all the operations of the Russian Naval Forces in the Baltic Sea against German naval units in the span of 1914/16,  then after the February 1917 revolution was renamed by Kerensky Provisional Government  as "Grajdanin".  She took part in  the last battle under the
banner of that regime,  that is of the Riga Gulf,  and received several hits from the large caliber artillery shells,  fired by German dreadnoughts on  5 Oct.1917, necessitating her departure to Helsingfors for repairs.

After the October 1917 revolution  she was incorporated into the Soviet Navy,  and
with the end of civil war in Russia demobilized and sold for scrap in 1925.