When the Ottoman Empire entered into the ongoing Great War in Fall 1914, the Euxine Sea became a new theater of naval operations in WWI. The struggle between the Imperial Russian and Ottoman navies (this latter reinforced by the German Mediterranean Naval Division) was heated in the following years of WWI, with Bulgaria joining the Central Powers in 1915 and Romania siding with the
Entente in 1916 albeit the former two empires and their naval forces remained as the principal actors of operations. Based on a multi-national documentation, this article aims to analyze, compare and assess the naval assets, capabilities and strategies of the Ottoman and Russian empires in the Black Sea in WWI.