SMS was a protected cruiser of the , built for the German Imperial Navy () in the 1890s. was laid down at the AG Vulcan shipyard in 1895, launched in April 1897, and commissioned into the Navy in July 1898. The ship, named for the earlier screw frigate , was armed with a battery of two 21 cm guns and eight 15 cm guns and had a top speed of . Though the five Victoria Louise-class cruisers proved to be disappointing in some ways, they marked the beginning of a decade of German cruiser construction.
served abroad in the American Station for the first several years of her career. During her deployment in the Americas, she participated in the Venezuela Crisis of 1902–1903 and shelled several Venezuelan fortresses, including the bombardment of Fort San Carlos. Notably, the ship suffered an ammunition fire during the cruise, which informed the navy about the instability of its propellant charges, leading to reformulation that spared several German warships from destruction during battles in World War I. returned to Germany in 1905, by way of the country's colonies in German South West Africa and German West Africa. She was used as a torpedo training ship from 1906 to 1908.
She was modernized in 1909–1911, after which she was used as a training ship for naval cadets, conducting training cruises in the early 1910s. In November 1912, while cruising in the Mediterranean Sea, she participated in an international naval protest of the First Balkan War. During another training voyage to the Caribbean Sea in early 1914, she embarked the deposed Haitian president Michel Oreste as he fled into exile. At the outbreak of World War I later in 1914, was mobilized into V Scouting Group, but served in front-line duty only briefly. She was used as a barracks ship after 1915, and ultimately sold for scrapping in 1920.
Design
In the early 1890s, elements in the German naval command structure grappled with what type of cruiser ought to be built to fulfill the various needs of the fleet. The (RMA—Imperial Navy Office) preferred to build a combination of large cruisers of around along the lines of and significantly smaller vessels of about to support them, while the (Naval High Command) argued that a uniform force of cruisers was preferable. In the event, the RMA carried the day and three 6,000-ton cruisers were authorized in 1895; this was in part due to the intervention of Kaiser Wilhelm II and in part due to comparisons with foreign contemporaries, like the United States' and the Austro-Hungarian . The experience of Japanese cruisers during the contemporaneous First Sino-Japanese War showed the benefit of larger guns, which were adopted for the main battery of the Victoria Louise class. For the 1896/1897 fiscal year, another pair of ships were authorized, and one of these became .
They resembled the larger s, designed at the same time, albeit at reduced scale. The new cruisers proved to be unsatisfactory as fleet cruisers, because they were too slow and they lacked sufficient armor protection. They nevertheless provided good service as overseas cruisers and later as training ships. They (along with the contemporaneous armored cruiser ) nevertheless marked the beginning of a trend of German cruiser construction that lasted through the s built a decade later.
Characteristics
was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward. As designed, she displaced , and at full load, her displacement rose to . The ship's superstructure included a large conning tower forward and a smaller deck house further aft. She was fitted with a heavy military mast atop the conning tower and a lighter pole mast further aft. Her hull featured a flared clipper bow combined with a pronounced ram. The ship had a crew of 31 officers and 446 enlisted men.
Her propulsion system consisted of three vertical 4-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines, each driving a single screw propeller. Steam was provided by twelve coal-fired Dürr boilers, which were vented through three funnels. Her engines were rated for , and provided a top speed of . Coal storage amounted to if all available spaces were used. The ship had a range of approximately at the more economical speed of .
The ship was armed with a main battery of two SK L/40 guns in single gun turrets, one forward and one aft. The guns were supplied with 58 rounds of ammunition each. They had a range of . also carried a secondary battery of eight SK L/40 guns. Four were mounted in turrets amidships and the other four were placed in casemates, two abreast the conning tower and the others abreast the mainmast. These guns had a range of . She also carried ten SK L/30 guns for defense against torpedo boats. The gun armament was rounded out by ten Maxim machine cannon. She was also equipped with three torpedo tubes with eight torpedoes, two launchers were mounted on the broadside and the third was in the bow, all below the waterline.
The ship was protected with Krupp armor; her deck was on the horizontal with sloped sides that were thick. Her main and secondary battery turrets had 10 cm thick sides and the secondary casemates had the same level of protection. The conning tower had 15 cm thick sides.
Modifications After being employed as a torpedo testing ship in the mid-1900s, received a trainable torpedo tube on the starboard broadside position for testing purposes. The mount proved to be unsuccessful, and it was not employed on other warships.
Between 1909 and 1911, underwent a major reconstruction at the (Imperial Shipyard) in Danzig. This included replacing her boilers with new Navy-type models, and the funnels were reduced to two. Her military mast was removed to reduce the top-heaviness of the ship, which improved her handling in turns. Two of the 15 cm guns and all of the Maxim guns were removed, and an eleventh 8.8 cm SK L/30 gun was installed, along with three 8.8 cm SK L/35 guns. She was disarmed entirely by 1916.
Service history
was ordered under the contract name "M" and was laid down at the in Danzig on 10 August 1896. She was launched on 9 December 1897, and the method used was unusual for the time. Rather than a traditional slipway, the shipyard moved ships sideways onto a floating dry dock, which was then submerged to float the hull. Friedrich von Hollmann gave a speech at the ceremony. She was named after the earlier screw frigate . After completing fitting-out work, which included installing facilities for a divisional staff, she was commissioned into the German navy on 13 September 1899. Under the command of (KzS–Captain at Sea) Hermann da Fonseca-Wollheim, the ship then began sea trials, which lasted until 24 March 1900; following these, she was sent back to the shipyard for repairs. In April, KzS Erich von der Groeben relieved Fonseca-Wollheim, but he then died of a stroke on 19 May before could embark on her first major cruise abroad. As a result, Fonseca-Wollheim resumed command of the vessel. The ship then moved to Kiel to make preparations for the cruise, which began with s departure from Kiel on 26 May, bound for South America.
American Station The ship reached Saint Lucia in the Lesser Antilles on 14 June, where she joined the American Station, which had been disbanded for several years; the previous station ship, the unprotected cruiser , had been transferred away in 1898. then began a cruise along the coast of Venezuela and then through the Caribbean Sea. She visited New Orleans, United States, and then several ports in Mexico through January and February 1901 before returning to the Venezuelan coast. The ship arrived in Trinidad on 6 April, and from there, began a voyage south to visit the eastern coast of South America. In May, inspected Margarita Island off the coast of Venezuela for its potential as a naval base, but the Germans determined the port was insufficient for their purposes. The ship proceeded further southward, steaming as far as La Plata, Argentina, before returning north.
She arrived back in Venezuelan waters by 1 August, stopping in La Guaira. While there, she received orders to remain in the area to protect German nationals and business interests during the Thousand Days' War that involved Venezuela and Colombia. The German naval command sent the unprotected cruiser and the old screw corvettes and . In addition to protecting Germans in the area, the deployment was intended as a show of force to compel the Venezuelan government to make reparations for grievances related to internal conflicts in the 1890s. On 6 October, two sailors from were arrested in Caracas, Venezuela, prompting the cruiser to send a landing party ashore in La Guaira to demand their release, which was quickly granted. Also that month, a German merchant vessel was fired upon off the coast of Venezuela; both of these incidents were resolved diplomatically. As the threat to German interests in the region proved to be less than expected, was sent to Newport News, United States, for periodic maintenance that lasted from 26 November to 17 December.
While was under repair, KzS Oskar Stiege arrived to replace Fonseca-Wollheim. During that period, the Germans left and in La Guaira, but at the end of the year, and left for home, though they were replaced by the light cruiser , which arrived in February 1902. returned to Newport News for another overhaul from 19 May to 25 September. While the ship was in dry dock in June, Stiege fell ill and the ship's executive officer, (Captain Lieutenant) Peter Lengerke, temporarily took command until KzS Georg Scheder arrived in August. After emerging from dry dock in September, steamed to Port-au-Prince, Haiti. Earlier that month, in the middle of the civil war, the German gunboat had sunk the Haitian gunboat over the Markomannia incident. arrived later, allowing to return to Venezuelan waters.
Venezuelan crisis of 1902–1903
By this time, tensions between Venezuela and Britain, Germany, and Italy had risen significantly over measures that the Venezuelan president, Cipriano Castro, had imposed to try to suppress a rebellion, including a blockade of several coastal cities. Castro also suspended payments toward foreign debts. The German naval command instructed their ships in the region to free any German merchant vessels that were seized by the Venezuelan Navy by force if necessary. No incidents involving German ships materialized, however, but the European powers concluded an agreement on 1 December to put an end to the blockade. By that time, Germany had assembled a cruiser division led by , and including , , and , along with the training ships and . The unit was formally organized as the East American Cruiser Division, and Scheder was given the title of (Commodore).
On 7 December, the Europeans gave Castro an ultimatum, which he ignored. Scheder then began to seize or neutralize Venezuelan warships, along with the British protected cruiser and the destroyer , which were placed under his command. The ships carried out operations against the Venezuelan Navy between 10 and 14 December. Scheder sent to capture the gunboat while responded to a request for assistance from the German consul in La Guaira. She and Retribution send landing parties ashore to defend the consulate and then to protect British nationals in the area. On the 13th, the British merchant ship had been boarded and its crew arrested by Venezuelan forces. In response, the British protected cruiser bombarded the forts at Puerto Cabello, and enlisted in the attack. The ships shelled the fortresses and , but the shellfire did little damage. So the British and German ships sent landing parties ashore to damage both with explosives. They then freed Topaze and her crew. The brazenness of the Anglo-German attack on the port convinced Castro to order the release of all British and German nationals who had been arrested.