SMS was the lead ship of the of pre-dreadnought battleships, built for the Imperial German Navy. She was the first capital ship built under the Navy Law of 1898, brought about by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. was laid down in 1899 at the Wilhelmshaven Navy Dockyard and completed in October 1902. She was armed with a main battery of four guns and had a top speed of .
The ship served in I Squadron of the German fleet for the majority of her peacetime career, which spanned from 1902 to 1910. During this period, she was occupied with extensive annual training and making good-will visits to foreign countries. The training exercises during this period provided the framework for the High Seas Fleet's operations during World War I. She was decommissioned in September 1910, but was reactivated in 1911 for training ship duties, which lasted through 1914.
After the start of World War I in August 1914, was brought back to active duty in IV Battle Squadron. The ship served in the Baltic Sea, including during the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915, but saw no combat with Russian forces. By late 1915, crew shortages and the threat from British submarines forced the to withdraw older battleships like . The ship then saw service in auxiliary roles, first as a training ship and then as a ship's tender. After the war, she was converted into a tender for minesweepers in 1919. In July 1921, the ship was sold and broken up for scrap metal.
Design
After the German (Imperial Navy) ordered the four s in 1889, a combination of budgetary constraints, opposition in the (Imperial Diet), and a lack of a coherent fleet plan delayed the acquisition of further battleships. The Secretary of the (Imperial Navy Office), (VAdm—Vice Admiral) Friedrich von Hollmann struggled—ultimately successfully—throughout the early and mid-1890s to secure parliamentary approval for the first three s. In June 1897, Hollmann was replaced by (KAdm—Rear Admiral) Alfred von Tirpitz, who quickly proposed and secured approval for the first Naval Law in early 1898. The law authorized the last two ships of the class, as well as the five ships of the , the first class of battleship built under Tirpitz's tenure. The s were broadly similar to the s, carrying the same armament but with a more comprehensive armor layout.
Characteristics
was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward. She displaced as designed and up to at full load. Unlike her sister ships, was completed with provisions for a squadron commander's staff, including a larger bridge. The ship had a large superstructure that included an armored conning tower forward, along with a flush deck. Her hull featured a pronounced ram bow. She had a crew of 30 officers and 650 enlisted men.
The ship was propelled by three 3-cylinder vertical triple expansion engines that drove three screws. Steam was provided by six cylindrical and six water-tube boilers, all coal-fired, which were vented through a pair of large funnels located amidships. s powerplant was rated at , which generated a top speed of . The ship had a cruising radius of at a speed of .
s armament consisted of a main battery of four 24 cm (9.4 in) SK L/40 guns in twin gun turrets, one fore and one aft of the central superstructure. Her secondary armament consisted of eighteen 15 cm (5.9 inch) SK L/40 guns that were mounted in casemates. Six of these were placed in the hull and the other six were in the superstructure, two of which were forward-firing under the forward turret. Close-range defense against torpedo boats was provided by a tertiary battery of twelve 8.8 cm (3.45 in) SK L/30 quick-firing guns and twelve machine cannon in the upper superstructure. The armament suite was rounded out with six torpedo tubes, all submerged in the hull; one was in the bow, another in the stern, and two on each broadside.
The ship was protected with Krupp armor plate. Her armor belt was thick in the central citadel that protected her magazines and machinery spaces and reduced to on either end of the hull. Horizontal protection was provided by an armor deck that was thick; it sloped down at the sides and connected to the bottom edge of the belt. The sloped sides increased in thickness to . The main battery turrets had of armor plating on their faces and the secondary casemates received of armor plate. Her conning tower was protected with 250 mm of armor.
Service history Construction to 1905 s keel was laid down on 30 September 1899 at the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Shipyard) in Wilhelmshaven, listed under construction number 25. She was ordered under the contract name "C", as a new unit for the fleet. was launched on 3 July 1900, with Kaiser Wilhelm II in attendance; Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria, of the House of Wittelsbach, gave a speech at her launching ceremony. Completion of the ship was delayed due to a collision with the ironclad , which accidentally rammed Wittelsbach in July 1902 while she was fitting out. She was commissioned on 15 October 1902, and thereafter began sea trials, which were completed in December. After trials ended, was transferred from Wilhelmshaven to Kiel in the Baltic Sea, but she ran aground in the Great Belt in heavy fog on 13 December. The crew attempted to free the ship by removing stores to lighten her, and the battleship and the armored cruiser attempted to pull her free without success, before additional tugs and other vessels arrived to pull free on 20 December. After arriving in Kiel, she entered for repairs.
On 1 March 1903, she became the flagship of KAdm Gustav Schmidt, the deputy commander of I Squadron. That year, the squadron was occupied with the normal peacetime routine of individual and unit training, including a training cruise in the Baltic, followed by a voyage to Spain that lasted from 7 May to 10 June. In July, she embarked on the annual cruise to Norway with the rest of the squadron. The autumn maneuvers consisted of a blockade exercise in the North Sea, a cruise of the entire fleet first to Norwegian waters and then to Kiel in early September, and finally a mock attack on Kiel. The exercises concluded on 12 September. The year's training schedule concluded with a cruise into the eastern Baltic that started on 23 November and a cruise into the Skagerrak that began on 1 December. and I Squadron participated in an exercise in the Skagerrak from 11 to 21 January 1904. Further squadron exercises followed from 8 to 17 March, and a major fleet exercise took place in the North Sea in May. In July, I Squadron and I Scouting Group visited Britain, including a stop at Plymouth on 10 July. The German fleet departed on 13 July, bound for the Netherlands; I Squadron anchored in Vlissingen the following day. There, the ships were visited by Queen Wilhelmina. I Squadron remained in Vlissingen until 20 July, when they departed for a cruise in the northern North Sea with the rest of the fleet. The squadron stopped in Molde, Norway, on 29 July, while the other units went to other ports.
The fleet reassembled on 6 August and steamed back to Kiel, where it conducted a mock attack on the harbor on 12 August. During its cruise in the North Sea, the fleet experimented with wireless telegraphy on a large scale and searchlights at night for communication and recognition signals. Immediately after returning to Kiel, the fleet began preparations for the autumn maneuvers, which began on 29 August in the Baltic. The fleet moved to the North Sea on 3 September, where it took part in a major landing operation, after which the ships took the ground troops from IX Corps who had participated in the exercises to Altona for a parade for Wilhelm II. The ships then conducted their own parade for the Kaiser off Helgoland on 6 September. Three days later, the fleet returned to the Baltic via the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, where it participated in further landing operations with IX Corps and the Guards Corps. On 15 September, the maneuvers came to an end. became the squadron flagship on 1 October, flying the flag of KAdm Friedrich von Baudissin. I Squadron went on its winter training cruise, this time to the eastern Baltic, from 22 November to 2 December.
1905–1914
took part in a pair of training cruises with I Squadron during 9–19 January and 27 February – 16 March 1905. Individual and squadron training followed, with an emphasis on gunnery drills. On 12 July, the fleet began a major training exercise in the North Sea. The fleet then cruised through the Kattegat and stopped in Copenhagen and Stockholm. The summer cruise ended on 9 August, though the autumn maneuvers that would normally have begun shortly thereafter were delayed by a visit from the British Channel Fleet that month. The British fleet stopped in Danzig, Swinemünde, and Flensburg, where it was greeted by units of the German Navy; and the main German fleet was anchored at Swinemünde for the occasion. Politically, the visit was strained by the developing Anglo-German naval arms race. As a result of the British visit, the 1905 autumn maneuvers were shortened considerably, from 6 to 13 September, and consisted only of exercises in the North Sea. The first exercise presumed a naval blockade in the German Bight, and the second envisioned a hostile fleet attempting to force the defenses of the Elbe. In September, Maximilian von Spee, who would go on to command the East Asia Squadron at the outbreak of World War I, took command of the ship.
In October, I Squadron went on a cruise in the Baltic. In early December, I and II Squadrons went on their regular winter cruise—this time to Danzig, where they arrived on 12 December. While on the return trip to Kiel, the fleet conducted tactical exercises. The fleet undertook a heavier training schedule in 1906 than in previous years. The ships were occupied with individual, division and squadron exercises throughout April. Starting on 13 May, major fleet exercises took place in the North Sea and lasted until 8 June with a cruise around the Skagen into the Baltic. The fleet began its usual summer cruise to Norway in mid-July. The fleet was present for the birthday of Norwegian King Haakon VII on 3 August. The German ships departed the following day for Helgoland, to join exercises being conducted there. The fleet was back in Kiel by 15 August, where preparations for the autumn maneuvers began. On 22–24 August, the fleet took part in landing exercises in Eckernförde Bay outside Kiel. The maneuvers were paused from 31 August to 3 September when the fleet hosted vessels from Denmark and Sweden, along with a Russian squadron from 3 to 9 September in Kiel. The maneuvers resumed on 8 September and lasted five more days.
The ship participated in the uneventful winter cruise into the Kattegat and Skagerrak from 8 to 16 December. The first quarter of 1907 followed the previous pattern and, on 16 February, the Active Battle Fleet was re-designated the High Seas Fleet. From the end of May to early June the fleet went on its summer cruise in the North Sea, returning to the Baltic via the Kattegat. This was followed by the regular cruise to Norway from 12 July to 10 August. During the autumn maneuvers, which lasted from 26 August to 6 September, the fleet conducted landing exercises in northern Schleswig with IX Corps. The winter training cruise went into the Kattegat from 22 to 30 November. In May 1908, the fleet went on a major cruise into the Atlantic instead of its normal voyage in the North Sea, which included a stop in Horta in the Azores. The fleet returned to Kiel on 13 August to prepare for the autumn maneuvers, which lasted from 27 August to 7 September. Division exercises in the Baltic immediately followed from 7 to 13 September. After the end of the maneuvers, was relieved as the squadron flagship by the new battleship and became the flagship of the deputy commander.