SMS ("His Majesty's Ship ") was the second and final member of the of light cruisers built for the German (Imperial Navy). Named for the town of Emden, she was laid down at the (Imperial Dockyard) in Danzig in 1906. The hull was launched in May 1908, and completed in July 1909. She had one sister ship, . Like the preceding cruisers, was armed with ten guns and two torpedo tubes.
spent the majority of her career overseas in the East Asia Squadron, based in Qingdao, in the Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory in China. In 1913, Karl von Müller took command of the ship. At the outbreak of World War I, captured a Russian steamer and converted her into the commerce raider . rejoined the East Asia Squadron, then was detached for independent raiding in the Indian Ocean. The cruiser spent nearly two months operating in the region, and captured nearly two dozen ships. On 28 October 1914, launched a surprise attack on Penang; in the resulting Battle of Penang, she sank the Russian cruiser and the French destroyer .
Müller then took to raid the Cocos Islands, where he landed a contingent of sailors to destroy British facilities. There, was attacked by the Australian cruiser on 9 November 1914. The more powerful Australian ship quickly inflicted serious damage and forced Müller to run his ship aground to avoid sinking. Out of a crew of 376, 133 were killed in the battle. Most of the survivors were taken prisoner; the landing party, led by Hellmuth von Mücke, commandeered an old schooner and eventually returned to Germany. s wreck was quickly destroyed by wave action, and was broken up for scrap in the 1950s.
Design
The 1898 Naval Law authorized the construction of thirty new light cruisers; the program began with the , which was developed into the and es, both of which incorporated incremental improvements over the course of construction. The primary alteration for the two -class cruisers, assigned to the 1906 fiscal year, consisted of an additional boiler for the propulsion system to increase engine power.
was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward. She displaced as designed and up to at full load. The ship had a minimal superstructure, which consisted of a small conning tower and bridge structure. Her hull had a raised forecastle and quarterdeck, along with a pronounced ram bow. She was fitted with two pole masts. She had a crew of 18 officers and 343 enlisted men.
Her propulsion system consisted of two triple-expansion steam engines drove a pair of screw propellers. Steam was provided by twelve coal-fired Marine-type water-tube boilers that were vented through three funnels. The propulsion system was designed to give for a top speed of . carried up to of coal, which gave a range of at . was the last German cruiser to be equipped with triple-expansion engines; all subsequent cruisers used the more powerful steam turbines.
The ship's main battery comprised ten SK L/40 guns in single pivot mounts. Two were placed side by side forward on the forecastle; six were located on the broadside, three on either side; and two were placed side by side aft. The guns could engage targets out to , and were supplied with 1,500 rounds of ammunition, 150 per gun. The secondary armament consisted of eight SK L/55 guns, also in single mounts. She had two torpedo tubes with four torpedoes, mounted below the waterline, and could carry fifty naval mines.
The ship was protected by a curved armored deck that was up to thick. It sloped downward at the sides of the hull to provide defense against incoming fire; the sloped portion was thick. The conning tower had thick sides, and the guns were protected by thick gun shields.
Service history
The contract for , ordered as (replacement) , was placed on 6 April 1906 at the (Imperial Dockyard) in Danzig. Her keel was laid down on 1 November 1906. She was launched on 26 May 1908 and christened by the (Lord Mayor) of the city of Emden, Dr. Leo Fürbringer. After fitting-out work was completed by 10 July 1909, she was commissioned into the fleet. The new cruiser began sea trials that day but interrupted them from 11 August to 5 September to participate in the annual autumn maneuvers of the main fleet. During this period, also escorted the imperial yacht with Kaiser Wilhelm II aboard. was decommissioned in September after completing trials.
On 1 April 1910 was reactivated and assigned to the (East Asia Squadron), based at Qingdao in Germany's Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory in China. The concession had been seized in 1897 in retaliation for the murder of German nationals in the area. left Kiel on 12 April 1910, bound for Asia by way of a goodwill tour of South America. A month later, on 12 May, she stopped in Montevideo and met with the cruiser , which was assigned to the (East American) Station. and stayed in Buenos Aires from 17 to 30 May to represent Germany at the celebrations of the hundredth anniversary of Argentinian independence. The two ships then rounded Cape Horn; stopped in Valparaíso, Chile, while continued on to Peru.
The cruise across the Pacific was delayed because of a lack of good quality coal. eventually took on around of coal at the Chilean naval base at Talcahuano and departed on 24 June. The cruise was used to evaluate the ship on long-distance voyages for use in future light cruiser designs. encountered unusually severe weather on the trip, which included a stop at Easter Island. She anchored at Papeete, Tahiti to coal on 12 July, as the bunkers were nearly empty after crossing . The ship then proceeded to Apia in German Samoa, arriving on 22 July. There, she met the rest of the East Asia Squadron, commanded by (Rear Admiral) Erich Gühler. The squadron remained in Samoa until October, when the ships returned to their base at Qingdao. was sent to the Yangtze River from 27 October to 19 November, which included a visit to Hankou. The ship visited Nagasaki, Japan, before returning to Qingdao on 22 December for an annual refit. The repair work was not carried out; the Sokehs Rebellion erupted on Ponape in the Carolines, which required s presence; she departed Qingdao on 28 December, and left Hong Kong to join her.
The two cruisers reinforced German forces at Ponape, which included the old unprotected cruiser . The ships bombarded rebel positions and sent a landing force, which included men from the ships along with colonial police troops, ashore in mid-January 1911. By the end of February the revolt had been suppressed, and on 26 February the unprotected cruiser arrived to take over the German presence in the Carolines. and the other ships held a funeral the following day for those killed in the operation, before departing on 1 March for Qingdao via Guam. After arriving on 19 March, she began an annual overhaul. In mid-1911, the ship went on a cruise to Japan, where she accidentally rammed a Japanese steamer during a typhoon. The collision caused damage necessitating another trip to the drydock in Qingdao. She returned to the Yangtze to protect Europeans during the Chinese Revolution that broke out on 10 October. In November, (Vice Admiral) Maximilian von Spee replaced Gühler as the commander of the East Asia Squadron.
At the end of the year, won the Kaiser's (Shooting Prize) for excellent gunnery in the East Asia Squadron. In early December, steamed to Incheon to assist the grounded German steamer . In May 1913, (Lieutenant Commander) Karl von Müller became the ship's commanding officer; he was soon promoted to (Commander). In mid-June, went on a cruise to the German colonies in the Central Pacific, and was stationed off Nanjing, as fighting between Qing and revolutionary forces raged there. On 26 August, rebels attacked the ship, and s gunners immediately returned fire, silencing the attackers. moved to Shanghai on 14 August.
World War I
spent the first half of 1914 on the normal routine of cruises in Chinese and Japanese waters without incident. During the July Crisis that followed the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, was the only German cruiser in Qingdao; Spee's two armored cruisers, and , were cruising in the South Pacific and was en route to replace off the coast of Mexico. On 31 July, with war days away, Müller put to sea to begin commerce raiding once war had been formally declared. Two days later, on 2 August, Germany declared war on Russia, and the following day, captured the Russian steamer . The Russian vessel was sent back to Qingdao, and converted into the auxiliary cruiser .
On 5 August, Spee ordered Müller to join him at Pagan Island in the Mariana Islands; left Qingdao the following day along with the auxiliary cruiser and the collier . The ships arrived in Pagan on 12 August. The next day, Spee learned that Japan would enter the war on the side of the Triple Entente and had dispatched a fleet to track his squadron down. Spee decided to take the East Asia Squadron to South America, where it could attempt to break through to Germany, harassing British merchant traffic along the way. Müller suggested that one cruiser be detached for independent operations in the Indian Ocean, since the squadron would be unable to attack British shipping while it was crossing the Pacific. Spee agreed, and allowed Müller to operate independently, since was the fastest cruiser in the squadron.
Independent raider
On 14 August, and left the company of the East Asia Squadron, bound for the Indian Ocean. Since the cruiser was already operating in the western Indian Ocean around the Gulf of Aden, Müller decided he should cruise in the shipping lanes between Singapore, Colombo and Aden. steamed toward the Indian Ocean by way of the Molucca and Banda Seas. While seeking to coal off Jampea Island, the Dutch coastal defense ship stopped and asserted Dutch neutrality. Müller steamed into the Lombok Strait. There, s radio-intercept officers picked up messages from the British armored cruiser . To maintain secrecy, s crew rigged up a dummy funnel to impersonate a British light cruiser, then steamed up the coast of Sumatra toward the Indian Ocean.
On 5 September, entered the Bay of Bengal, achieving complete surprise, since the British assumed she was still with Spee's squadron. She operated on shipping routes there without success, until 10 September, when she moved to the Colombo–Calcutta route. There, she captured the Greek collier , which was carrying equipment for the British. Müller took the ship into his service and agreed to pay the crew. captured five more ships; troop transports Indus and Lovat and two other ships were sunk, and the fifth, a steamer named Kabinga, was used to carry the crews from the other vessels. On 13 September, Müller released Kabinga and sank two more British prizes, including . The next day, the Germans paid Clan Mathesons lascar crew to tranship coal from Pontoporos to Emden. Off the Ganges estuary, stopped and searched the Norwegian steamship Dovre. Finding no contraband, they transferred British prisoners to her, and released her. Dovre informed Müller that Entente warships were operating in the area, which persuaded him to return to the eastern coast of India.
stopped and released an Italian freighter, whose crew relayed news of the incident to a British vessel, which in turn informed British naval authorities in the region. The result was an immediate cessation of shipping and the institution of a blackout. Vice Admiral Martyn Jerram ordered Hampshire, , and the Japanese protected cruiser to search for . The British armored cruiser and the Japanese armored cruiser were sent to patrol likely coaling stations.