SMS was the lead ship of the pre-dreadnought battleships, which included , , and , built for the German (Imperial Navy) in the early 1890s. She was the first pre-dreadnought built for the German Navy; earlier, the navy had only built coastal defense ships and armored frigates. The ship was laid down at the AG Vulcan dockyard in 1890, launched on 21 September 1891, and commissioned into the German Navy on 19 November 1893. and her three sisters were unique for their time in that they carried six heavy guns instead of the four that were standard in other navies. She was named after the Province of Brandenburg.
served with I Division during the first decade of her service with the fleet. This period was generally limited to training exercises and goodwill visits to foreign ports. These training maneuvers were nevertheless very important to developing German naval tactical doctrine in the two decades before World War I, especially under the direction of Alfred von Tirpitz. The ship saw her first major deployment in 1900, when she and her three sister ships were deployed to China to suppress the Boxer Uprising. In the early 1900s, all four ships were heavily rebuilt. She was obsolete by the start of World War I and only served in a limited capacity, initially as a coastal defense ship. In December 1915, she was withdrawn from active service and converted into a barracks ship. was scrapped in Danzig (now Gdańsk, after the war, in 1920.
Design
was the first pre-dreadnought battleship of the (Imperial Navy). Prior to the ascension of Kaiser Wilhelm II to the German throne in June 1888, the German fleet had been largely oriented toward defense of the German coastline and Leo von Caprivi, chief of the (Imperial Naval Office), had ordered a number of coastal defense ships in the 1880s. In August 1888, the Kaiser, who had a strong interest in naval matters, replaced Caprivi with (VAdm—Vice Admiral) Alexander von Monts and instructed him to include four battleships in the 1889–1890 naval budget. Monts, who favored a fleet of battleships over the coastal defense strategy emphasized by his predecessor, cancelled the last four coastal defense ships authorized under Caprivi and instead ordered four battleships. Though they were the first modern battleships built in Germany, presaging the Tirpitz-era High Seas Fleet, the authorization for the ships came as part of a construction program that reflected the strategic and tactical confusion of the 1880s caused by the (Young School).
and her sister ships—, , and —were long, with a beam of and a draft of . She displaced as designed and up to at full combat load. She was equipped with two sets of 3-cylinder vertical triple expansion steam engines that each drove a screw propeller. Steam was provided by twelve transverse cylindrical Scotch marine boilers. The ship's propulsion system was rated at and a top speed of . She had a maximum range of at a cruising speed of . Her crew numbered 38 officers and 530 enlisted men.
The ship was unusual for her time in that she possessed a broadside of six heavy guns in three twin gun turrets, rather than the four-gun main battery typical of contemporary battleships. The forward and after turrets carried 28 cm (11 in) K L/40 guns, while the amidships turret mounted a pair of 28 cm (11 in) guns with shorter L/35 barrels. Her secondary armament consisted of eight SK L/35 quick-firing guns mounted in casemates and eight 8.8 cm (3.45 in) SK L/30 quick-firing guns, also casemate mounted. s armament system was rounded out with six torpedo tubes, all in above-water swivel mounts. Although the main battery was heavier than other capital ships of the period, the secondary armament was considered weak in comparison to other battleships.
The ship was protected with compound armor. Her main belt armor was thick in the central citadel that protected the ammunition magazines and machinery spaces. The deck was thick. The main battery barbettes were protected with thick armor.
Service history Construction to 1896
Ordered as armored ship A, was laid down at AG Vulcan in Stettin in May 1890. Her hull was completed by September 1891 and launched on 21 September, when she was christened by Wilhelm II. Fitting out work followed and was finished, with the exception of the installation of her guns, by the end of September 1893, when she was transferred to Kiel. There, her guns were mounted, and on 19 November was commissioned into the fleet. Sea trials began four days later; on the first day of trials, Wilhelm II and a delegation from the Brandenburg provincial government came aboard the ship to observe. On 27 December, the ship received a flag bearing the coat of arms of Brandenburg, which was flown on special occasions. At the end of the month, was formally assigned to II Division of the Maneuver Squadron.
Trials continued into 1894, and while conducting forced draft tests in Strander Bucht on 16 February, the ship suffered the worst machinery accident in the history of the . One of the main steam valves from the starboard boilers exploded, killing forty-four men in the boiler room and injuring another seven. The cause of the explosion was a defect in the construction of the valve. Prince Henry, aboard the nearby transport ship , immediately ordered the ship to come to s aid, and took off the dead and wounded men. then put into Wiker Bucht, and was later towed to Kiel, where she entered the (Imperial Shipyard) for repairs. The accident caused a minor political incident after the press criticized Wilhelm II for failing to send Prince Henry to the funerals for the sailors. Additionally, VAdm Friedrich von Hollmann, the State Secretary of the (Imperial Naval Office) stated before the (Imperial Diet) that "such accidents could occur again and again", which increased parliamentary resistance to further increases in naval budgets; this led to an initial rejection of funds for the first armored cruiser, . Admirals Eduard von Knorr and Hans von Koester criticized the comment, forcing Hollmann to publicly apologize.
Repair work was completed by 16 April, allowing to return to trials which lasted until the middle of August, and included a cruise through the Kattegat. On 21 August, the ship joined II Division, though a reorganization of the fleet saw the ship transferred to I Division, along with her three sister ships. I Division was based in Wilhelmshaven in the North Sea. and the rest of the squadron attended ceremonies for the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal at Kiel on 3 December. The squadron thereafter began a winter training cruise in the Baltic Sea; this was the first such cruise by the German fleet. In previous years, the bulk of the fleet was deactivated for the winter months. During this voyage, I Division anchored in Stockholm from 7 to 11 December, during the 300th anniversary of the birth of Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus. King Oscar II held a reception for the visiting German delegation. Thereafter, further exercises were conducted in the Baltic before the ships had to put into their home ports for repairs.
The year 1895 began with what became the normal training cruises to Heligoland and then to Bremerhaven, with Wilhelm II onboard the flagship, . This was followed by individual ship and divisional training, which was interrupted by a voyage to the northern North Sea, the first time that units of the main German fleet had left home waters. On this trip, joined and the two battleships stopped in Lerwick in Shetland from 16 to 23 March. These exercises tested the ships in heavy weather; both vessels performed admirably. In May, more fleet maneuvers were carried out in the western Baltic, and they were concluded by a visit of the fleet to Kirkwall in Orkney. The squadron returned to Kiel in early June, where preparations were underway for the opening of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. Tactical exercises were carried out in Kiel Bay in the presence of foreign delegations to the opening ceremony. Further training exercises lasted until 1 July, when I Division began a voyage into the Atlantic Ocean. This operation had political motives; Germany had only been able to send a small contingent of vessels—the protected cruiser , the coastal defense ship , and the sailing frigate —to an international naval demonstration off the Moroccan coast at the same time. The main fleet could therefore provide moral support to the demonstration by steaming to Spanish waters. Rough weather again allowed and her sister ships to demonstrate their excellent seakeeping. The fleet departed Vigo and stopped in Queenstown, Ireland. Wilhelm II, aboard his yacht , attended the Cowes Regatta while the rest of the fleet stayed off the Isle of Wight.
On 10 August, the fleet returned to Wilhelmshaven and began preparations for the autumn maneuvers later that month. The first exercises began in the Heligoland Bight on 25 August. The fleet then steamed through the Skagerrak to the Baltic; heavy storms caused significant damage to many of the ships and the torpedo boat capsized and sank in the storms—only three men were saved. The fleet stayed briefly in Kiel before resuming exercises, including live-fire exercises, in the Kattegat and the Great Belt. During this period, on 22 August, collided with the aviso , though only the latter was damaged in the accident. The main maneuvers began on 7 September with a mock attack from Kiel toward the eastern Baltic. The next day, while she was in Kiel, Czar Nicholas II of Russia inspected during a visit to Germany. Subsequent maneuvers took place off the coast of Pomerania and in Danzig Bay. A fleet review for Wilhelm II off Jershöft concluded the maneuvers on 14 September. The rest of the year was spent on individual ship training. The year 1896 followed much the same pattern as the previous year. Individual ship training was conducted through April, followed by squadron training in the North Sea in late April and early May, which included a visit to the Dutch ports of Vlissingen and Nieuwediep. Further maneuvers, which lasted from the end of May to the end of July, took the squadron further north in the North Sea, frequently into Norwegian waters where the ships visited Bergen from 11 to 18 May. During the maneuvers, Wilhelm II and the Chinese viceroy Li Hongzhang observed a fleet review off Kiel. On 9 August, the training fleet assembled in Wilhelmshaven for the annual autumn fleet training.
1897–1900 and the rest of the fleet operated under the normal routine of individual and unit training in the first half of 1897. Early in the year, the naval command considered deploying I Division to another naval demonstration off Morocco to protest the murder of two German nationals there, but a smaller squadron of sailing frigates was sent instead. The typical routine was interrupted in early August when Wilhelm II and (Empress) Augusta went to visit the Russian imperial court; both divisions of I Squadron were sent to Kronstadt to accompany the Kaiser, who proceeded to the capital at Saint Petersburg. They had returned to Neufahrwasser in Danzig on 15 August, where the rest of the fleet joined them for the annual autumn maneuvers. These exercises reflected the tactical thinking of the new State Secretary of the , (KAdm—Rear Admiral) Alfred von Tirpitz, and the new commander of I Squadron, VAdm August von Thomsen. These new tactics stressed accurate gunnery, especially at longer ranges, though the necessities of the line-ahead formation led to a great deal of rigidity in the tactics. Thomsen's emphasis on shooting created the basis for the excellent German gunnery during World War I. The maneuvers were completed by 22 September in Wilhelmshaven.