over to the Germans as required by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. No attempt was made to salvage her during the 1920s, but the 12-inch shells were salvaged from her wreck until a magazine explosion was triggered in 1930 by the explosive charges used to gain access to the shells. Imperator Aleksander III Imperator Aleksander III (, Emperor Alexander III) was launched on 2 April 1914, renamed Volya (—Freedom) in 1917 and then General Alekseyev () in 1920. The ship did not take part in operations during World War I due to long delays in the delivery of its machinery from Britain, but was able to go to sea by 1917 and conduct a series of trials. On 1 May 1918 she sailed from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk to avoid capture by advancing German troops. While at Novorossiysk she received an order to scuttle on 19 June 1918, but the majority of the crew refused to do so and decided to return to Sevastopol. Upon arrival she was disarmed and only guards were left on board, but the Germans took control on 1 October. She made a brief cruise with a German crew on 15 October, but her guns were still inoperable. After Germany's surrender she was turned over to the British, who moved her to İzmit in Turkey. In 1919 the British brought her back to the Black Sea and turned her over to the White Russian forces, where she fought in the Russian Civil War against the Red Army, mainly carrying out shore bombardments. With the collapse of the White Russian armies in Southern Russia in 1920, the battleship assisted in their evacuation to French-owned Tunisia, where she was interned in Bizerte. She was eventually scrapped there to pay her docking fees. The French stored her guns and later donated them to the Finns during the Winter War, although they did not arrive until after the end of the war. The Germans captured four of these 12-inch and some 130 mm guns in transit in Narvik harbor when they invaded Norway in April 1940. Both the Finns and Germans used these guns as coastal artillery. The Germans emplaced all four guns, after rebuilding them to accept German ammunition, in armored turrets in 'Batterie Mirus' on Guernsey. The Finns used three of the 12-inch guns to repair railway guns that had fallen into their hands in 1941. They were used throughout