Ss Leyla Today

Artifacts recovered include a ship’s bell with the Ottoman crescent-and-star insignia, several brass shell casings (supporting the ammunition cargo claim), and the captain’s sextant, which is now on display at the Rahmi M. Koç Museum in Istanbul. The story of the SS Leyla is more than a shipwreck. It is a microcosm of World War I’s forgotten fronts. While the Western Front’s trenches are well-documented, the naval war in the Black Sea saw desperate, close-quarters combat where ships like the SS Leyla were the lifelines of empires on the brink of collapse.

Captain Ali Rıza Bey, a seasoned mariner with 25 years of experience, knew the danger. Russian submarines, operating out of Sevastopol, had been decimating Ottoman shipping in the Black Sea. Despite the risk, the cargo was too urgent to delay. At 03:47 on November 14, approximately 40 nautical miles off the coast of Cape İğneada (near the Turkish-Bulgarian border), lookouts on the SS Leyla spotted a periscope slicing through the choppy water. It was the Russian submarine Morzh (Walrus), one of the most successful submarines of the Imperial Russian Navy. ss leyla

By the time a Bulgarian fishing trawler, the St. Nikola , spotted the debris field, only 17 people were still alive—14 Ottoman sailors, 2 German soldiers, and 1 civilian female nurse, Halide Edip’s assistant (historical records differ on her name, but she is often cited as "Nurse Emine"). The nurse died of exposure hours after rescue. The sinking of the SS Leyla might have become a footnote, but it triggered a diplomatic crisis. The Ottoman government initially suppressed news of the disaster for two weeks, fearing it would damage morale. When the story finally broke in the newspaper İkdam on December 3, 1917, it was heavily censored. Artifacts recovered include a ship’s bell with the