SMS Möwe (Seagull) was the second member of the of steam gunboats built for the German (Imperial Navy) in the late 1870s. Intended to serve abroad, the ship was ordered as part of a construction program intended to modernize Germany's fleet of cruising vessels in the mid-1870s. The Habicht class was armed with a battery of five guns, and was the first class of German gunboat to use compound steam engines. The ship had a top speed of .
Möwe embarked on three major overseas cruises during her career, the first two as a frontline combat vessel. The first, from 1880 to 1882, took the ship to the South Pacific. On the way home, she was diverted to Egypt in response to the Anglo-Egyptian War to protect Germans and other foreign nationals in the country. A second major deployment followed, this time to Africa, which lasted from 1884 to 1889. Möwe was involved in the establishment of the German colonial empire in German West Africa, carrying the imperial commissioner, Gustav Nachtigal, to establish formal colonial treaties in Togoland and Kamerun. Nachtigal died from malaria while aboard Möwe in 1885. Later that year, the ship moved to German East Africa, where she assisted in the suppression of the Abushiri revolt in 1888.
After returning to Germany in 1889, Möwe was converted into a survey ship, and in that guise she began her final overseas voyage in 1890. She initially sailed to German East Africa and worked off the coast for the next four years. In 1894, she moved to the South Pacific to begin surveying the colonies in German New Guinea, Micronesia, and Melanesia. Worn out and unable to make the voyage back to Germany by 1905, she instead sailed to the German naval base in Qingdao, China, where she was hulked. In 1910, she was sold and subsequently broken up.
Design
By the mid-1870s, the large screw frigates and screw corvettes that formed the backbone of the German cruiser force were beginning to need to be replaced. Some of these ships had been in service for twenty years, and in that time spent considerable periods on deployments overseas. To replace these older vessels, the German (Imperial Navy) ordered the six s and three Habicht-class steam gunboats. The three gunboats were the first vessels of the type to use compound steam engines, which increased speed and engine efficiency.
Möwe was long overall, with a beam of and a draft of forward. She displaced as designed and at full load. The ship's crew consisted of 6–7 officers and 121–126 enlisted men. She was powered by a double-expansion steam engine that drove a 2-bladed screw propeller, with steam provided by two coal-fired, cylindrical fire-tube boilers. Her propulsion system was rated to produce a top speed of at , but she reached in service. At a cruising speed of , she could steam for . To supplement the steam engine on long voyages, the ships were fitted with a schooner sailing rig. While cruising under sail, the screw could be raised.
The ship was armed with a single RK L/22 built-up gun, which supplied from a magazine with 115 shells. She also carried four K L/23 built-up guns, which were supplied with a total of 440 rounds of ammunition. After 1882, the ship's armament had been standardized on a uniform battery of five K L/23 built up guns and five Hotchkiss revolver cannon. In 1889, two of the 12.5 cm guns were removed.
Service history Construction and first overseas deployment, 1880–1882
Möwe laid down at the Schichau-Werke shipyard in Elbing in 1878 under the contract designation "C", and was launched on 8 October 1879. Work on the ship was completed at Danzig the following year, and she was commissioned on 31 May 1880 to be moved to Kiel, under the command of (KK—Corvette Captain) Franz von Kyckbusch. There, her guns were installed between 10 and 28 June. She then completed a short period of sea trials, and following their conclusion, she was decommissioned on 17 July. Her time out of service proved to be brief, as on 1 October, Möwe was recommissioned to join her sister ship in the Australian Station. She was again captained by Kyckbusch. The ship sailed from Kiel on 17 October, and on 28 October 1880, Möwe was driven into the British schooner Rescue at Plymouth, Devon, United Kingdom. The schooner was severely damaged at the bow. Möwe lost her bowsprit and topsail yard. Möwe continued on south through the Atlantic, stopping in Funchal, Madiera, and then Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on the way. She arrived in Cape Town, South Africa, on 2 January 1881. There, she met Habicht and the two vessels sailed together the rest of the way to Melbourne, Australia.
Möwe stayed in Melbourne to represent Germany at the Melbourne International Exhibition and left on 24 March, bound for Apia in Samoa. She anchored there on 29 April; Möwe and Habicht replaced the previous station ships, the gunboats and . Möwe remained in Samoa through mid-October, when she sailed south to Sydney, Australia, so her crew could be sent home and their replacements embarked, though Kyckbusch remained in command of the ship. On 21 January 1882, she sailed back north to Samoa, which she reached on 2 March. The screw corvette arrived in Apia on 18 April to replace Möwe as the station ship there, allowing her to return home. But on the way, her orders were changed, redirecting her to Ottoman Egypt, where tensions between Britain and the Khedivate of Egypt had grown dangerously high. Concerns for the safety of foreigners in the country prompted the collection of warships in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, and Möwe joined the German contingent, which also included the corvette , Habicht, and the gunboat .
Möwe sent a landing party of twenty-five men ashore in Port Said on 7 July to defend the German consulate there. She remained in the area around the Suez Canal through the end of September. During this period, she sailed to Ismailia in the canal and embarked around 150 German, Austro-Hungarian, Italian, and French nationals and evacuated them to Port Said. Möwe also escorted convoys of merchant ships in the area during the fighting. On 24 September, the ship left Egypt for home, arriving in Kiel on 1 November. She was decommissioned there four days later for an overhaul that would begin in 1883, which included replacement of the ship's armament. The crew's experience during the voyage in the south Pacific had demonstrated that the 15 cm gun was unnecessary, and that lighter, faster-firing weapons were preferable.
Second overseas deployment, 1884–1889 West African operations
Möwe was recommissioned for another tour abroad on 1 April 1884, this time to western Africa. Her captain at that time was KK Paul Hoffmann. Beginning in 1880, German trading companies had moved operations from British West Africa to the so-called Slave Coast, as these areas were not yet subjected to European colonial rule and customs duties were more favorable. The German intrusion led to violent reactions from the local residents, and encouraged power struggles between rival leaders. The German corvette attempted to suppress the fighting in early 1884, and arrested three of the leaders. The Germans brought them back to Germany to impress on them the scale of the German Empire. Möwe was to embark the three captives and return them to Africa. In addition, Hoffmann was ordered to support the activities of Gustav Nachtigal, a renowned explorer of Africa, who had been designated as the imperial commissioner for Germany's colonial empire. Nachtigal was to establish the first German protectorates in what would become German West Africa.
The ship sailed from Kiel on 15 April and stopped in Lisbon, Portugal, on 3 May. There, she embarked Nachtigal and his partner, Maximilian Buchner, before departing on 19 May. The ship stopped briefly to show the flag in Tangier on 26 May and then continued on to the Cape Verde islands, arriving there on 9 June. There, she met the screw frigate , and the two ships sailed together to the Los Islands off the coast of West Africa. While there, the Germans negotiated agreements with local chiefs over German trading posts on the islands. An outbreak of fever forced Möwe to leave earlier than planned, and she sailed on to Freetown in British Sierra Leone and then Monrovia, Liberia, before reaching the Gulf of Guinea. She initially stopped in Klein Popo, in the recently acquired protectorate of Togoland, where the three African captives were released. On 4 July, Nachtigal negotiated a formal protection agreement in Baguida, followed by a similar agreement in Lomé. German flags were raised in the cities to mark the establishment of German authority. Nachtigal also claimed Klein Popo and Ouidah for Germany, but soon abandoned them over conflicting claims with France.
Möwe sailed east to Douala, at the mouth of the Wouri River, arriving there on 12 July. German trading companies operating in the area had requested that Germany formally colonize the country, and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck eventually approved the proposal. Accordingly, on 14 July, Nachtigal secured protection treaties with the rulers of Douala, Deido, and Akwa. Buchner became the imperial commissioner for the colony of Kamerun, which was to initially comprise the coastal area along the Bay of Biafra, between the Niger River delta and Gabon. Möwe toured the rea, raising the German flag in several towns, including Bimbia, Malimba, Kribi, Klein Batanga, and Benito. German claims encroached on French interests in neighboring French Gabon led to negotiations in Libreville, Gabon, on 10 August where Nachtigal agreed with withdraw from Benito. Möwe sailed there on 18 August to remove the German flag.
With the international borders thus clarified, Nachtigal boarded Möwe and continued south on 9 September. On 4 October, the ship stopped at the southern border of Portuguese Angola, where Nachtigal directed the construction of a border guard post at the Kunene River; Nachtigal intended to claim the land to the south of Angola for Germany. Three days later, the ship anchored in Lüderitz Bay, where Nachtigal disembarked to travel inland and negotiate protection treaties with rulers further inland. Möwe sailed on without him, bound for Cape Town, where she underwent an overhaul and her crew was given time to rest. Nachtigal arrived back at the ship on 20 November, and Möwe traveled back north to Walvis Bay. There, Nachtigal met with British colonial authorities for negotiations of the borders of the newly created German South West Africa. Möwe then sailed back north to Kamerun, stopping at the mouth of the Kunene on 27 November on the way.
While Möwe had been away from Kamerun, significant unrest had broken out in the colony at the instigation of British consuls and naval officers. The German Admiralty organized the West African Squadron, led by the screw corvette and commanded by (Rear Admiral) Eduard Knorr. The ships arrived in Kamerun on 17 December, shortly before Möwe reached the colony on 31 December. In January 1885, Möwe sailed initially to Bimbia and then Victoria to support efforts to restore order in the colony. In late January, the ship moved to Togoland, where unrest against German rule had also broken out. German authorities quickly arrested the leaders of the rebellion, allowing Möwe to return to Kamerun on 10 February. Nachtigal returned to the ship on 22 February, sailing for Libreville for further discussions on border arrangements with the French. From there, the ship sailed to Lagos for border negotiations with authorities in British Nigeria related to German claims on Mahinland. Möwe was present for the raising of the German flag there later. On 21 March, after having returned to Kamerun, Möwe hosted a negotiated settlement between rival chiefs off Douala.