page_title: Italian cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi (1899)
section_title: Construction and service
hierarchical_section_title: Italian cruiser Giuseppe Garibaldi (1899) / Construction and service
caption_attribution_description: Slovenščina: Potopljena italijanska oklopna križarka Giuseppe Garibaldi
context_page_description: Giuseppe Garibaldi was the lead ship of her class of armored cruisers built for the Royal Italian Navy in the 1890s. The ship often served as a flagship and made several deployments to the Eastern Mediterranean and the Levant during her career. At the beginning of the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–12 she bombarded Tripoli. Giuseppe Garibaldi bombarded Beirut in early 1912 and sank an Ottoman ironclad there. Several months later she bombarded the defenses of the Dardanelles.
  The ship spent several months deployed to Albania after the end of the First Balkan War in 1913 to protect Italian interests there. Giuseppe Garibaldi was sunk by an Austro-Hungarian submarine in the Adriatic Sea shortly after Italy declared war on the Central Powers in 1915 with the loss of 53 crewmen. Her wreck was discovered in 2008 and has been examined by underwater archaeologists in subsequent years.
context_section_description: Giuseppe Garibaldi, named after General Giuseppe Garibaldi, one of the founders of modern Italy, was laid down at the Gio. Ansaldo & C. shipyard in Genoa-Sestri Ponente on 21 September 1898 and launched on 29 June 1899. While conducting preliminary steam trials on 12 July 1900, tubes in two of her boilers burst, killing one crewman and wounding two others. Repairs took until 10 August and she was completed on 1 January 1901. From 23 July to 2 October 1902, the ship cruised the Mediterranean, making port calls at Tripoli and in the Aegean Sea. The following year, Giuseppe Garibaldi made port visits to Algiers, Salonica, and Piraeus, Greece. During the 1905 fleet maneuvers, she was assigned to the "hostile" force blockading La Maddalena, Sardinia. The ship was part of the international expeditionary force that occupied Lemnos and Mytilene in November–December 1905 in a failed effort to force the Ottoman Empire to pay its debts to European countries in a timely manner. Together with her sister ships Francesco Ferruccio and Varese, the ship was in Marseilles, France on 15–16 September 1906 to participate in a fleet review for Armand Fallières, President of France, on the latter date. Giuseppe Garibaldi was deployed to the Levant in May–July 1907 and again in June 1908.
  When the Italo-Turkish War began on 29 September 1911, she was flagship of the 4th Division of the 2nd Squadron of the Mediterranean Fleet, commanded by Rear Admiral Paolo Thaon di Revel, and was one of the ships that bombarded Tripoli on 3–4 October. Giuseppe Garibaldi was the first ship to enter the harbor after the conclusion of the bombardment when a small landing party entered Fort Hamidiye and disabled the breech mechanisms of the fort's guns. The desultory bombardment killed 12 Ottoman soldiers and severely wounded 23 more in addition to 7 dead civilians. On 13 October, the three sisters sailed to Augusta, Sicily to recoal. The ship andVarese were in Tobruk in January 1912 while the bulk of the fleet was refitting in Italy.
  Giuseppe Garibaldi and Francesco Ferruccio bombarded Beirut on 24 February 1912, setting the elderly Ottoman ironclad Avnillâh on fire. Giuseppe Garibaldi later entered the harbor and torpedoed the ironclad, sinking it and killing two officers and 40 enlisted men. Her entry forced the torpedo boat Ankara to scuttle itself. Varese is sometimes credited with participating also in the bombardment. The bombardment killed over 140 civilians and wounded more than 200. On 18 April, Giuseppe Garibaldi and Varese bombarded the fortifications at the Dardanelles, heavily damaging them. After returning to Italy later that month, the ship began a refit that lasted through mid-June that included replacing her worn-out guns.
  After the end of the First Balkan War in May 1913, Giuseppe Garibaldi was deployed to the Albanian port of Scutari to ensure that it was returned by Montenegro to the Ottoman Empire and to protect Italian interests in the city. She returned home in August before deploying to Benghazi in February–March 1914.
  When Italy declared war on the Central Powers in May 1915, she was the flagship of the 5th Cruiser Division, commanded by Rear Admiral Eugenio Trifari, and based at Brindisi. On 5 June the division bombarded rail lines near Ragusa, modern Dubrovnik, and departed Brindisi on the evening of 17 July to do the same near Ragusa Vecchia the following morning. Shortly after beginning the bombardment at 04:00, Giuseppe Garibaldi was struck by one torpedo, on the starboard side near the aft boiler rooms, fired by the Austro-Hungarian submarine U-4. She sank within minutes on an even keel, although only 53 crewmen were killed. The remaining 525 were rescued by three destroyers left behind to rescue survivors as the division immediately retreated to avoid further attacks.
  The wreck of the Giuseppe Garibaldi is upside-down and located at coordinates 42°28.362′N 18°16.758′E south-east of Dubrovnik, Croatia, at the depth of 122 meters (400 ft). The wreck was initially located by a Czech expedition in 2008 although the death of one diver o
caption: An Austro-Hungarian propaganda poster depicting the sinking
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