for Novorossiysk on 28 June to intern the remaining Soviet warships, but they had already been scuttled when the Turkish ships arrived. The destroyers remained, but returned to Sevastopol. On 14 July the ship was laid up for the rest of the war. While in Sevastopol, dockyard workers scraped fouling from the ship's bottom. subsequently returned to Constantinople, where from 7 August to 19 October a concrete cofferdam was installed to repair one of the three areas damaged by mines. The German navy formally transferred ownership of the vessel to the Turkish government on 2 November. According to the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres between the Ottoman Empire and the Western Allies, was to have been handed over to the Royal Navy as war reparations, but this was not done due to the Turkish War of Independence, which broke out immediately after World War I ended, as Greece attempted to seize territory from the crumbling Ottoman Empire. After modern Turkey emerged from the war victorious, the Treaty of Sèvres was discarded and the Treaty of Lausanne was signed in its place in 1923. Under this treaty, the new Turkish republic retained possession of much of its fleet, including . Post-war service During the 1920s, a commitment to refurbish as the centerpiece of the new country's fleet was the only constant element of the various naval policies which were put forward. The battlecruiser remained in İzmit until 1926, in a neglected state: only two of her boilers worked, she could not steer or steam, and she still had two unrepaired scars from the mine damage in 1918. Enough money was raised to allow the purchase of a new floating dock from Germany, as could not be towed anywhere without risk of her sinking in rough seas. The French company Atelier et Chantiers de St. Nazaire-Penhöet was contracted in December 1926 to oversee the subsequent refit, which was carried out by the Gölcük Naval Shipyard. Work proceeded over three years (1927–1930); it was delayed when several compartments of the dock collapsed while being pumped out. was slightly damaged before she could be refloated and the dock had to be repaired before the repair work could begin. The Minister of Marine, Ihsan Bey (İhsan Eryavuz), was convicted of embezzlement in the resulting investigation. Other delays were caused by fraud charges which resulted in the abolition of the Ministry of Marine. The Turkish