Sultan Murad V, who had come to power in 1876 after Abdulaziz was deposed, distrusted the navy and left it chronically underfunded. The ships of the fleet saw little activity and their crews were poorly trained. Sultaniye was laid up in 1905 in Izmir and saw no further active service. In October 1911, after the start of the Italo-Turkish War, the garrison at Izmir prepared to scuttle the ship to block the harbor entrance. After they loaded the ship with stone, they sank her at the harbor entrance outside Izmir on 20 April 1912, along with the transport vessel Izmir. The defenses were later strengthened with a barrage of mines. Ironically, the Italian participation in the Triple Alliance with the German and Austro-Hungarian Empires prevented them from directly attacking the Ottoman provinces in Anatolia, and Austro-Hungarian pressure had already forced the Italians to abandon a blockade of Ionia.
