Slava

History

Slava remained the sole survivor of this class after the disastrous war with Japan in 1904/05.
The harsh lesson  of that war was not wasted,  and in  the Russian Navy a new surge to bring it to the former high  standards, considerably lowered around the beginning of 20th century, started to be put immediately into effect after its end.
It was apparent in the removal of a number of old admirals,  new promotions from amongst the most energetic and distinguished captains, increased training, adoption of the new concepts of naval tactics and warfare  and greatly expanded gunnery practice and sea exercises and voyages.
In 1906  she was modernized to some extent  and had her fighting tops  on the masts removed in the process.
As one of  only two comparatively modern battleships,  prior to 1910  left in the Baltic Sea  after the Russo-Japanese war of 1904/05,  "Slava" took an active part in all this rejuvenation  and had her share of  sea voyages with cadets and visits to distant foreign ports.
In World War I  she actively participated in all the naval operations as part of the   2nd Battleship Squadron  of the Baltic Fleet  in support of  the Russian naval and land operations in that area. 
During the war several attempts by German seaplanes were made to bomb her,  mostly in retaliation to the bombing raids by  the Russian flying boats  on their warships and installations  in the Baltic Sea ports,  but only one of them had attained its goal.   
That was on  26 April 1916, when she was at anchor in Moonsund harbor, causing only a slight damage.
Very successful operations of the Russian Fleet during 1914/16 against German naval units in which "Slava" took part,  abruptly turned to worse after the February 1917 revolution. 
Provisional Government led by Kerensky was unable to instill the necessary trust in itself from the population and the Armed Forces.
Many of the people in Russia  at the time regarded that Government with contempt as not too far from being treasonous and as U.S.sponsored, both not entirely unsubstantiated beliefs.  
Therefore members of the Armed Forces  were leaving the ranks of their units   including  naval vessels in droves,  being then completely disorganized through the issue of the infamous Order No.1 of the Kerensky Government.
With the failure of the so-called "summer offensive" during June-August 1917, drummed up by the Kerensky regime,  but which through various reasons created by his revolution  turned out to be a complete flop,  the Germans  in turn   started their own  large scale offensive  in the region of the Riga Gulf   around August-
September 1917.
In the ensuing battles "Slava" participated, but had to be sunk in the gulf by a torpedo from a Russian destroyer,  when it became apparent that through the lack of sufficient  Russian forces on this front the Germans were in
a complete control of all entrances to the Gulf of Riga and she could not be removed to the safer area. 
She settled on the bottom up to her decks in the Moonsund Straight with a listing to the port side, on 17 October 1917  with her crew removed before sinking and taken by the Russian destroyers to Rogokuhl.

This unnecessary sacrifice was caused  by unwillingness and inability  of the Provisional Government  to properly organize  in time   sufficient resistance  to German efforts during their above mentioned offensive,  and also a chaos created by that regime in Russia.