Victoria took approximately fifteen minutes to sink, with 358 members of the crew, including Vice-Admiral Sir George Tryon, lost in the disaster.

On 22 June 1893, the bulk of the fleet, eleven ironclads (eight battleships and three large cruisers), were on their annual summer exercises off Tripoli in the Ottoman Empire (now Lebanon).

[2] However, initiative was a quality that had become blunted by decades of naval peace since Trafalgar, and which was unwelcome in a hierarchical navy that deified Admiral Horatio Nelson while misunderstanding what he had stood for.

[3] A taciturn and difficult man to his subordinate officers, Tryon habitually avoided explaining his intentions to them, to accustom them to handle unpredictable situations.

Tryon's flag-lieutenant was Lord Gillford, and it was he who received the fatal order to signal to the two divisions to turn sixteen points (a half circle) inwards, the leading ships first, the others of course following in succession.

Five minutes after the collision, the bow had already sunk 15 ft (4.6 m), the ship was listing heavily to starboard and water was coming through the gun ports in the large forward turret.

Victoria capsized just 13 minutes after the collision, rotating to starboard with a terrible crash as her boats and anything free fell to the side and as water entering through the funnels caused explosions when it reached the boilers.

Nobly forgetful of his own safety, he worked with others to the end, and went down with the vessel ... seeing escape impossible he folded his arms upon his breast, and looking up to heaven, his lips moving in prayer, he died.

"[7] The area around the wreck became a "widening circle of foaming bubbles, like a giant saucepan of boiling milk", which the rescue boats did not dare enter.

[8] Lieutenant Lorin, one of the survivors, stated: "All sorts of floating articles came up with tremendous force, and the surface of the water was one seething mass.

Commander John Jellicoe, the executive officer of Victoria, who had been bedridden with "Malta fever" for several days, was assisted in the water by Midshipman Philip Roberts-West, and shared the captain's cabin on Edgar after being rescued.

[13] The news of the accident caused a sensation and appalled the British public at a time when the Royal Navy occupied a prime position in the national consciousness.

[16][17] Of immediate concern was why one of Britain's first-class battleships – one of many of similar design – had sunk from a relatively modest injury when rammed at low speed.

A court martial was begun on the deck of HMS Hibernia at Malta on 17 July 1893 to investigate the sinking of Victoria, and to try the conduct of her surviving crew, chief amongst them Captain Bourke.

He had served the same role in previous courts martial, which was to advise on points of law and to impartially sum up the prosecution and defence cases.

Captain Alfred Leigh Winsloe, an expert on signals and fleet manoeuvres, was appointed as prosecutor and had travelled out to Malta with the new admiral and his staff.

Camperdown was travelling at about 6 kn (6.9 mph; 11 km/h), so the blow roughly equated with the energy of a shell from one of the 12 in (300 mm) guns then in service, the 45-ton breech-loading rifle (BLR).

Had Camperdown been travelling more slowly, then it was likely the damage from her stem would have been lessened, but the underwater ram might instead have torn a hole along Victoria's relatively thin lower plating as she continued to move forward.

[24] It was estimated from survivor reports that initially twelve watertight compartments were affected, causing a buoyance loss of some 680 long tons (690 t) at the fore end of the ship, mostly concentrated below the level of the armoured deck.

Had all doors been closed initially so that only the breached compartments were flooded, then the ship's deck would have likely remained just above water level with a heel of around 9° and Victoria would have been able to continue under her own power.

Bourke was found blameless, since the collision was due to Admiral Tryon's explicit order but the judgement carried an implied criticism of Rear-Admiral Markham.

The Saturday Review commented, "the court has evaded the real point with a slipperiness (for we cannot say dexterity) not wholly worthy of the candour we expect from officers and gentlemen."

As a compromise, a rider was added to the verdict, to the effect that Markham had no justification for his belief that Victoria would circle around him, and thus he should have taken action much sooner to avoid collision.

A scale section of Victoria – a popular exhibit on display at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago at the time of the accident – was subsequently draped in black cloth as a tribute to the loss.

It has variously been suggested that he might have been ill or indisposed in some way, supported by his curt comments to officers who queried him at the time, and his apparent inattention to the results when the manoeuvre commenced.

Whatever the possible reason for the initial mistake, some confirmation of this explanation comes from the reported statement of Lieutenant Charles Collins, who had been officer of the watch on Victoria at the time of the incident.

[33] One historian has gone so far as to suggest that Tryon's incomprehensible letters to Lord Charles Beresford indicate that he "was suffering from some deterioration of the brain; that his fatal error was no mental aberration such as is to be expected of the young and inexperienced, but the consequence of a disease which at times clouded and confused his judgement and ideas.

[37] This view has been taken by others, who have added to the argument Tryon's behaviour, which was consistent with his having set a TA problem for his subordinate to solve and therefore followed his normal habit of not explaining his intentions or intervening until afterwards.

[37] Others have argued that the witnesses' accounts suggest Tryon accepted having made a mistake, and that had one column of ships passed outside the other instead of both turning inwards, they would then have been in the wrong formation to approach their normal positions at the anchorage.

The 1949 Ealing comedy Kind Hearts and Coronets features a satire of the accident, in which Alec Guinness plays Admiral Lord Horatio D'Ascoyne, who orders a manoeuvre that causes his flagship to be rammed and sunk by another ship in his fleet.