The Crimea Operation was a German offensive operation on the Eastern Front of World War I which occurred in April 1918.
Following the 1917 October Revolution, the Crimean Tatars, led by Noman Celebicihan, proclaimed the creation of the Crimean People's Republic on 13 December 1917. However, the Bolshevik and anarchist-dominated Black Sea Fleet quickly put down the Crimean nationalist uprising, retaking the Crimea in January 1918; Celebicihan was executed by the Bolsheviks that February, and, on 19 March, the Taurida Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed, with Simferopol as its capital.
In April 1918, however, the Imperial German Army in occupied Ukraine backed the Ukrainian People's Republic in launching an offensive to clear the Crimea of Bolsheviks and to capture the Black Sea Fleet. The Crimea was quickly overrun by the Germans and Ukrainian nationalists, and, in April, the Bolshevik leaders Anton Slutsky and Jan Tarwacki were arrested and shot in Alushta by Tatar nationalists. On 29 April, the colors of the Ukrainian Republic were raised, and, on 30 April, the Taurida SSR was abolished. Most of the Black Sea Fleet ships came under German control at Sevastopol, but, on the end of World War I in November 1918, the ships were handed over to Pyotr Wrangel's White Army during the Russian Civil War.