War of 1904–1905 that seriously delayed the completion of the two ships. They were the most modern ships in the Black Sea Fleet when World War I began and formed the core of the fleet for the first year of the war, before the newer dreadnoughts entered service. They forced the German battlecruiser to disengage during the Battle of Cape Sarych shortly after Russia declared war on the Ottoman Empire in late 1914. Both ships covered several bombardments of the Bosporus fortifications in early 1915, including one where they were attacked by Goeben, but they managed to drive her off. Later, and were relegated to secondary roles after the first dreadnought entered service in late 1915, and were subsequently put into reserve in 1918 in Sevastopol. Both ships were captured when the Germans took the city in May 1918 and were turned over to the Allies after the Armistice in November 1918. Their engines were destroyed in 1919 by the British when they withdrew from Sevastopol to prevent the advancing Bolsheviks from using them against the White Russians. They were abandoned when the Whites evacuated the Crimea in 1920 and were scrapped in 1922–1923. Andrei Pervozvanny class The Andrei Pervozvanny class were the last predreadnought battleships built for the Baltic Fleet. They were conceived by the Naval Technical Committee in 1903 as an incremental development of the s with increased displacement and heavier secondary armament. Work on the lead ship, (Saint Andrew), commenced at the New Admiralty, Saint Petersburg in March 1904; trailed by six months. The disastrous experiences of the Russo-Japanese War led to countless redesigns, change orders and delays in construction. After the completion of Andrei Pervozvanny its builders identified seventeen distinct stages of her design. Andrei Pervozvanny was launched in October 1906 but subsequent alterations delayed completion until 1911. Almost all of her hull was armored, albeit thinly; redesign and refinement of protective armor continued until 1912. The ship's armament mixed novel quick-firing, long-range, 8-inch guns with obsolescent 12-inch 40-caliber main guns. The Andrei Pervozvanny-class battleships became the only battleships of the Old World fitted with lattice masts, which were replaced with conventional masts at the beginning of World War I. The imposing ships, the largest in the Russian Navy until the completion of , were dated from the start: by the time of their sea trials the Royal Navy had already launched the super-dreadnoughts. In the