Secondary Campaigns and Interventions
Allied fleets also played a role in coercing the Greek government to join the Allies and later supply the campaigns in Palestine and Macedonia. Although Germany was able to gain control of the Black Sea and part of the Russian fleet after the collapse of the Russian Empire, they were never able to break out into the Aegean. The German–Turkish fleet tried in 1918, but hit a minefield; the Breslau was sunk and the Goeben almost followed that fate, but the captain was able to run the ship aground and beach it before capsizing. The Goeben was not repaired until after the war.
Allied fleets occupied Constantinople briefly after the Armistice of Mudros, until the new Turkish Republic under Mustafa Kemal took back control of the city in 1923.
Allied ships did continue to intervene in Russia after the war ended, bringing expeditionary forces and supplies via the Mediterranean to the White armies in southern Russia.
Japan, an ally of Great Britain, sent a total of 14 destroyers to the Mediterranean starting in April 1917. The Japanese ships were very effective in patrol and anti-submarine activity. The Austro-Hungarian navy lost nine submarines during the war: five sunk by the Italian navy (U-10, U-13, U-16, U-20, U-23), one by Italian and French units (U-30), one by British units (U-3), none by the Japanese navy, which converserly suffered 68 dead and heavy damage on the destroyer Sakaki, torpedoed by Austrian submarine U-27.
Read more about this topic: Naval Warfare In The Mediterranean During World War I
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