Giulio Cesare was one of three
Conte di Cavour-class dreadnought battleships built for the Royal Italian Navy (
Regia Marina) in the 1910s. She served in both
World Wars, although she was little used and saw no combat during the former. The ship supported operations during the
Corfu Incident in 1923 and spent much of the rest of the decade in
reserve. She was rebuilt between 1933 and 1937 with more powerful guns, additional armor and considerably more speed than before.
Both
Giulio Cesare and her
sister ship,
Conte di Cavour, participated in the
Battle of Calabria in July 1940, when the former was lightly damaged. They were both present when British torpedo bombers
attacked the fleet at
Taranto in November 1940, but
Giulio Cesare was not damaged. She escorted several convoys to North Africa and participated in the
Battle of Cape Spartivento in late 1940 and the
First Battle of Sirte in late 1941. She was designated as a
training ship in early 1942, and escaped to
Malta after Italy surrendered. The ship was transferred to the
Soviet Union in 1949 and renamed
Novorossiysk (Новороссийск). The Soviets also used her for training until she was sunk, with the loss of 608 men, when an old German
mine exploded in 1955. She was
salvaged the following year and later
scrapped.