SMS was a protected cruiser or of the German Imperial Navy () and the lead ship of the . She had one sister, ; the two ships were the first protected cruisers built by the German Navy. was laid down in 1886 at the AG Vulcan shipyard in Stettin, launched in July 1887, and commissioned into the fleet in May 1888. The cruiser was named after Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine, sister-in-law of Kaiser Wilhelm II. As built, the ship was armed with a main battery of fourteen guns and had a top speed of .
saw extensive service with the German fleet in the first years of her career, frequently escorting Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht on cruises throughout Europe. In 1894, she was deployed to East Asian waters; she was in dock for engine maintenance in November 1897 when Otto von Diederichs seized the naval base Jiaozhou Bay, and so she was not present during the operation. She was present in the Philippines in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Manila Bay between American and Spanish squadrons during the Spanish–American War in 1898. eventually returned to Germany in 1901. She remained in service until early 1914, when she was retired from front-line service and converted into a submarine tender. She served in this capacity until 1921, when she was sold for scrap and broken up the following year.
Design
In 1883, General Leo von Caprivi became the Chief of the Imperial Admiralty, and at the time, the pressing question that confronted all of the major navies was what type of cruiser to build to replace the obsolete rigged screw corvettes that had been built in the 1860s and 1870s. Cruisers could be optimized for service with the main fleet or for deployments abroad, and while the largest navies could afford to build dedicated ships of each type, Germany could not. To solve the problem, the Germans would build 2nd-class cruisers that attempted to fulfill both roles. The first cruiser design built under this program was the .
was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward. She displaced normally and up to at full load. Her propulsion system consisted of two Wolfsche 2-cylinder, double-expansion steam engines that drove a pair of screw propellers. Steam was provided by four coal-fired fire-tube boilers, which were ducted into a pair of funnels. These provided a top speed of and a range of approximately at . She had a crew of 28 officers and 337 enlisted men.
The ship was armed with a main battery of four 15 cm RK L/30 guns in single pedestal mounts, supplied with 400 rounds of ammunition in total. They had a range of . also carried ten shorter-barreled 15 cm RK L/22 guns in single mounts. These guns had a much shorter range, at . The gun armament was rounded out by six 3.7 cm revolver cannon, which provided close-range defense against torpedo boats. She was also equipped with three torpedo tubes with eight torpedoes, two launchers were mounted on the deck and the third was in the bow, below the waterline.
The ship's main armor protection consisted of a curved deck that was on the flat portion, increasing in thickness toward the sides to , where it sloped downward to the side of the hull. The conning tower had sides that were 50 mm thick.
Modifications The ship was modernized in Wilhelmshaven in 1893. The ship's armament was significantly improved; the four L/30 guns were replaced with 15 cm SK L/35 guns with an increased range of . A secondary battery of eight SK L/35 quick-firing (QF) guns was installed in place of the L/22 guns, and six SK L/40 QF guns were added. Some equipment was removed in an effort to reduce the ship's excessive weight, including anti-torpedo nets, an auxiliary boiler, the steam winch used to hoist the ship's boats, and other miscellaneous equipment. Other changes included lowering the bulwarks and altering the anchor chains.
Service history
Construction and early career
was the first protected cruiser built by the German navy. She was ordered under the contract name " ", and was laid down at the AG Vulcan shipyard in Stettin in May 1886. Shortly after the ship's keel laying, the navy decided that she would be named after Princess Irene, the wife of Prince Heinrich. She was launched on 23 July 1887, and in January 1888, she was towed from Stettin to Kiel, arriving on 31 January. There, fitting-out work and installation of her guns was carried out. She was commissioned to begin sea trials on 25 May 1888, which were interrupted that summer when joined the fleet that steamed to Great Britain to celebrate the ascension of Kaiser Wilhelm II. She was assigned to the I Division, along with the ironclad corvettes and and the casemate ironclad . Heinrich commanded the division, his flag flying in . The fleet then held training maneuvers in the North Sea under command of (KAdm—Rear Admiral) Friedrich von Hollmann. completed her trials on 28 November, after which she was decommissioned for improvements to be made, which lasted into 1889.
The ship was recommissioned again on 1 April 1889 for her first period of regular service. At the end of May, she was assigned to the Maneuver Squadron. In August, the squadron made another visit to Britain. On 10 September, she went on another overseas cruise, this time to the Mediterranean Sea, where she met the Training Squadron, which was escorting the Kaiser's yacht . The ships then visited Greece, to represent Germany at the ceremonies surrounding the marriage of Wilhelm's sister Sophie to Prince Constantine on 28 October. From there, the ships sailed to Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire, where Heinrich and Wilhelm visited Sultan Abdul Hamid II. After that, sailed to Venice, Italy, after which she left the rest of the division and cruised alone starting on 14 November. The ship next stopped at the island of Corfu in Greece, before proceeding south to visit Ottoman Egypt, followed by Ottoman Syria. thereafter rejoined the Training Squadron, which returned to Germany in April 1890. After returning, was repainted white (instead of the normal black paint German warships received at the time), as she was to spend much of the rest of the year escorting Wilhelm's yacht.
spent much of 1890 in the Training Squadron, though by this time the unit had been renamed as II Division of the Maneuver Fleet. She did not take part in training exercises over the summer, however, and instead continued to escort the Kaiser aboard . In late June, the two ships sailed to Helsingør, Denmark, where Wilhelm met the Danish king, Christian IX. They then steamed north to Christiania to visit King Oscar II of Sweden–Norway. escorted Wilhelm to Bremen to visit the city, after which the Kaiser made a state visit to Belgium to meet with Leopold II on 2 and 3 August. The two ships thereafter steamed to Britain to participate in the Cowes Regatta; this was the first time Wilhelm attended the regatta. Directly thereafter, the two ships steamed to the island of Helgoland to celebrate the ceremonial transfer from Britain; there, the entire German fleet joined and for the ceremonies. then sailed with to St. Petersburg, Russia, for a state visit with Tsar Alexander III from 14 to 27 August. After returning to Germany, joined II Division for the annual fleet maneuvers. She then sailed to Wilhelmshaven on 18 September, where she was decommissioned for the winter. The ship remained out of service until 1894, in part to be refitted with quick-firing guns of the same caliber of her original armament, but also because the German fleet suffered from chronic crew shortages and men could not be assembled to recommission the ship.
East Asia Squadron
1894–1897 The outbreak of the First Sino-Japanese War in June 1894 led the major European powers to strengthen their forces in East Asia. The German fleet at that time still relied on old screw corvettes for overseas cruiser duties; and her sister ship were the only modern cruisers in the fleet, so was recommissioned on 1 November to serve in the newly created East Asia Division. (KK—Corvette Captain) Erich von Dresky took command of the ship at that time; he would command the ship until May 1896. The ship got underway on 17 November 1894, but while en route to Asia, she was diverted to Morocco. She stopped in Casablanca to protest the murder of a German businessman in the city. She then proceeded on to Asian waters to join the German squadron; upon arrival in Chefoo on 14 February 1895, she became the flagship of KAdm Paul Hoffmann. At that time, the squadron also included the screw corvettes , , and and the gunboats and .
sailed to Hong Kong, stopping in Formosa on 20 April on the way. While at Formosa, the ship sent a landing party ashore in response to a minor battle between and a Chinese coastal fort there. In late June, and left the division and their replacement, arrived soon after. By that time, Japanese forces had completed their conquest of Formosa, permitting to steam to the city of Taipei to withdraw her landing party. In July, the rebuilt old ironclad arrived in East Asia, and on 10 July she replaced as the division flagship. Later that year, they were joined by the unprotected cruiser ; and remained in the unit as well. In August, cruised to northern Japan, visiting the port of Hakodate. The rest of the year passed uneventfully for the ship.
spent the period from late May to mid-August at Chefoo, and during this period, KAdm Alfred von Tirpitz replaced Hoffmann as the divisional commander. After departing Chefoo, went on a tour of the northern East Asian ports, including the Russian port at Vladivostok. She thereafter returned to Hong Kong for a lengthy overhaul. In late 1896, Tirpitz came aboard the ship to visit the Spanish Philippines. By that time, the Philippine Revolution had broken out against the Spanish colonial government, and the major powers had taken a keen interest on developments in the islands. Tirpitz determined that the fighting did not threaten German interests in the colony, and so he departed with in January 1897, returning to Hong Kong. There, she joined the rest of the division, which cruised together through March. While the division was visiting Japan, Tirpitz received orders to return home to become the new State Secretary of the (Imperial Naval Office).
Seizure of Jiaozhou and the Spanish-American War
In June 1897, Otto von Diederichs arrived in Asia to command the Cruiser Division; he first took the squadron to visit ports in northern Japan. While in Hakotade, he transferred to to cross the Sea of Japan to Vladvostock. Diederichs spent the rest of the year reconnoitering the region for a suitable naval base. In late October, had to put into Hong Kong for extensive engine maintenance, which was completed on 30 November. She rejoined the fleet on 3 December. In the meantime, Diederichs had completed the seizure of the Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory; the Cruiser Division was sent reinforcements and promoted to the East Asia Squadron. was assigned to I Division of the squadron. joined the rest of the unit there on 2 December. In mid-April 1898, was sent to receive periodic maintenance (though the location is disputed; according to the historians Hans Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, and Hans-Otto Steinmetz, was sent to Nagasaki, Japan, for the work, while Terrell Gottschall states that the ship went to Shanghai. In any event, the ship was soon recalled, following the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, which implicated the Spanish colony in the Philippines.