SMS (Prince Bismarck) was Germany's first armored cruiser, built for the (Imperial Navy) in the late 1890s. Ordered in response to widespread foreign adoption of the ship type, the Germans built to serve abroad in the German colonial empire and as a scout for the main fleet in home waters. The ship's design emerged from a failed 1890s design competition that was heavily influenced by the new emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II. Though that failed to produce a workable design, further efforts resulted in the development of , which was in many respects a cruiser version of the contemporary of battleships. carried the same main battery of four guns as the battleships, but was faster due to a longer, lighter hull and more powerful engines.
The Germans worked to finish construction on the ship as early as possible after the outbreak of the 1899 Boxer Uprising in China; arrived there in late 1900, becoming the flagship of the East Asia Squadron. Most of the initial fighting had taken place by the time the ship arrived, but she participated in a blockade of the Yangtze as part of the campaign to defeat the Boxers. From 1901 to 1909, remained on station as the squadron flagship; most of her time was spent on routine patrols in the region, training exercises with other ships of the squadron, and visits to foreign ports. In 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, a pair of damaged Russian warships sheltered at the German naval base at Qingdao, so and other units of the squadron had to intern them for the rest of the conflict.
By 1909, was in poor condition and needed to return home for extensive repairs. She was recalled in April 1909, and the new armored cruiser was sent to relieve her. After arriving in Germany, was drydocked in 1910 for repairs and a modernization that lasted into late 1914, by which time World War I had started. The ship thereafter served as a training vessel, as she was no longer suitable to serve in a combat capacity. Over the course of 1915 and 1916, she was disarmed before returning to training duties. Following Germany's defeat in late 1918, was struck from the naval register in June 1919 and shortly thereafter sold to ship breakers. Demolition was completed the following year.
Background
From the 1870s to early 1880s, the German (Imperial Navy) opposed building armored cruisers such as the Russian . But in the mid-1880s, following the rise of General Leo von Caprivi to the position of Chief of the Imperial Admiralty, opinions among senior leaders began to change. Soon after his appointment, Caprivi established a commission to examine the question of future warship construction. As part of the process, Caprivi requested several experimental designs from Alfred Dietrich, the chief constructor for the German fleet, to compare estimated costs from the various proposals. Among several battleship and coastal defense ship proposals, Dietrich prepared designs for two armored cruisers, which displaced , respectively. They carried a main battery of eight guns and had identical armor protection; the chief differences being the greater size and increased engine power of the latter, which gave it a half knot advantage in speed.
Political events quickly overtook Caprivi's program, as 1888 became the Year of the Three Emperors: with the deaths of Kaiser Wilhelm I and his successor Kaiser Friedrich III, Kaiser Wilhelm II ascended the throne. The new monarch quickly replaced Caprivi with Alexander von Monts. Monts opted to build four s, as the new Kaiser sought to modernize the fleet. Following Monts' untimely death in early 1889, Wilhelm II reorganized the naval high command, and Admiral Karl Eduard Heusner became the State Secretary of the (Naval Office), which oversaw administrative matters including warship construction. By 1890, Heusner had been replaced in turn by Admiral Friedrich von Hollmann, who believed that Germany could not compete with the dominant British Royal Navy. He therefore opted for a strategy based on a defense force centered on small coastal defense ships and flotillas of torpedo boats, coupled with a fleet of cruisers to protect the German colonial empire and German economic interests abroad.
1891–1893 design competition Frustrated by Hollmann's preference for smaller, cheaper 2nd- and 3rd-class cruisers, (KAdm—Rear Admiral) Hans von Koester wrote him a letter in January 1891 outlining the weaknesses of these vessels. Koester singled out the recently completed of protected cruisers, which were too slow to serve as fleet scouts and too weakly armed to take part in a fleet battle. Hollmann was soon convinced, particularly after Wilhelm II intervened in the matter, and in April he began to solicit tenders from German shipbuilders. General requirements were as follows: dimensions restricted to existing port facilities; speed of at least ; main battery of four 24 cm guns; belt armor with a thickness of . Hollmann and Admiral Max von der Goltz (the head of the , the Navy High Command) argued over particular aspects of the new ship. Hollmann soon revised the speed figure up to and set displacement to be between to assuage Goltz's concerns about speed.
By August 1891, five private shipyards and the three imperial yards in Wilhelmshaven, Kiel, and Danzig had all been selected to participate in the design competition. Wilhelm II, who was famously obsessed with the fleet, also participated semi-covertly through his naval cabinet, which submitted proposals on his behalf. Hollmann expected the process to move quickly, and he planned to order three armored cruisers for the 1892–1893 construction year. In April 1892, he ordered submissions to be entered by 1 May, but the deadline was unrealistic and he was forced to delay to 1 October. In total, nine designs were submitted, which were evaluated in June and July 1893; the naval command decided that none of the proposed vessels were acceptable, and that none would be built. From Hollmann's perspective, it was just as well, since funding for the project he had conceived beginning in 1891 had been repeatedly delayed, and by 1893, the Army was in the midst of a major expansion that absorbed funds that might otherwise have been requested by the Navy.
While the design submission process was still underway in April 1893, Koester issued an order for a marine architect student to create a proposal for an armored cruiser of about displacement, which was close to the size of the French cruiser . Koester sought to evaluate whether the larger vessel of Hollmann's design contest or a smaller ship along French lines was preferable. The student, Hermann Wellenkamp, concluded that an armored cruiser limited to 6,500 tons would require significant compromises in armor protection and structural strength. As a result, the concept of a smaller armored cruiser was abandoned for future projects.
In the aftermath of the failed 1891–1893 design competition, Wilhelm made several attempts to revise his design, all of which failed to produce a workable ship. Hollmann projected a new armored cruiser, designated to replace the old screw corvette of that name, for the 1894–1895 estimates. By that time, opinions in the (Imperial Diet), which had historically been against naval spending, had begun to warm. The budgetary board approved the request to include a new battleship——and , but by the time the proposals advanced to the itself, support for the large, expensive cruiser had collapsed and only the new battleship was approved. The defeat gave Dietrich and the design department more time to work out details in the design. Another attempt would be made for in the 1895–1896 construction year, but the first members of the of protected cruisers were laid down in 1895 instead.
Design
Records of the early design history of what would become Fürst Bismarck are fragmentary; according to the historian Dirk Nottelmann, it can be assumed that the basic parameters of the 1891–1893 competition were used as a starting point in 1894. To complicate matters, in June 1894, then- Alfred von Tirpitz published his " No. IX" memo that laid out his vision for the future development of the German fleet. Tirpitz's plan included prescriptions for an armored cruiser that emphasized the ship's role as a scout for the battle fleet, and thus called for a top speed of and a large number of quick-firing guns. These priorities contrasted sharply with the requirements laid out by Hollmann, who had originally requested designs with a top speed of 17 knots and a mixed armament of 24 cm and guns.
The earliest surviving design proposal was designated VIIc, and it generally followed Hollmann's requirements including the armament, though it had a top speed of 20 knots, in line with Tirpitz's thinking. This proposal was completed on 1 November 1894 and secured the approval of Wilhelm II four days later. The naval leadership, prompted by the Kaiser, next evaluated whether the 10.5 cm guns could be replaced by an equal number of 15 cm weapons. The design staff concluded that weight savings elsewhere would be necessary to maintain speed on the prescribed hull, and the simplest solution was to reduce the caliber of the main battery guns from 24 cm to . This proposal was designated VIII, but it was soon rejected because of a still prohibitive increase in overall weight. Six further concepts were proposed, with 21 or 24 cm main guns, and varying numbers of 15 cm guns. Further discussions suggested the possibility of a pair of single guns or significant reductions in armor thicknesses to reduce weight. Consideration was also given to reducing by about 1,000 tons and incorporating improvements into the last three Victoria Louise-class cruisers about to be laid down, which would have converted them into armored cruisers. Ultimately, none of these ideas influenced the final design.
On 29 April 1895, Hollmann convened a meeting of the relevant departments within the naval command to settle on the final characteristics of the new cruiser. Over the course of the following three days, the representatives ironed out details, many of which were inspired by the contemporary s, including the type and arrangement of the gun armament, the composition of the superstructure, and the configuration of the propulsion system. A new proposal, VIId, was prepared on 24 May, and the Kaiser approved the concept three days later. The new ship, to be named Fürst Bismarck, would be more than a knot faster than her battleship counterparts, which was accomplished by a longer hull, a propulsion system rated higher, and reduced armor protection to save weight. Some details were still undetermined, as VIId omitted copper sheathing for the hull; Tirpitz and his supporters opposed the installation of sheathing, as it was unnecessary in home waters and added weight. Hollmann's faction insisted on it, since they sought to use the cruiser on foreign stations where frequent hull cleaning was impossible. Ultimately, Wilhelm II intervened on 10 June and ordered the installation of sheathing.
The introduction of sheathing necessitated further revisions to keep weight from increasing. The ship was widened and the secondary battery was rearranged to reduce the armor needed to protect the guns. This version, which reused the designation VIII, was approved on 13 September, but it quickly became clear that the hull was not strong enough for the proposed weights. To avoid needing to reduce armor thicknesses, the hull was lengthened from between perpendiculars so that the reinforced hull structure would not prohibitively increase the draft. Dietrich carried out further detail work into early 1896, presenting his finalized design in a memorandum published on 16 April. By that time, the had approved construction of the ship, which had already begun on 1 April.