SMS was the second and final member of the of steam gunboats built for the German (Imperial Navy) in the 1870s. The ship was ordered as part of a construction program intended to begin replacing the old s that had been built a decade earlier. Unlike the older ships, was intended to serve abroad to protect German economic interests overseas. The ship was armed with a battery of four guns, and had a top speed of .
spent most of her career abroad, first off the coast of Spain in 1874–1875 during the Third Carlist War; the ship's captain was involved in settling a dispute between the Carlists and a German merchant ship captain whose vessel was attacked by Carlist forces. thereafter sailed to the Pacific for a tour from 1876 to 1878 that saw the ship operate primarily off the coast of China. A second deployment to the Pacific followed from 1879 to 1881, and during this cruise the ship patrolled the South Pacific. Her third and final tour in the Pacific began in 1883. During the latter voyage in 1885, she was involved in establishing a protectorate in the Marshall Islands. was transferred from the Pacific to African waters in 1887 before returning home late the following year. She was used as a survey ship from 1891 to 1893, but was in poor condition by that time, and she was accordingly struck from the naval register in 1896. The ship was used as a coal storage hulk until 1905, when she was sold to ship breakers and dismantled.
Design
In the late 1850s and early 1860s, the Prussian Navy had embarked on a construction program that included the fifteen s and eight s. By 1869, the navy realized that the earliest vessels, starting with the badly rotted , would need to be replaced. Design work started for the new class, which was intended for overseas cruising, instead of coastal defense as the earlier vessels had been.
was long overall, with a beam of and a draft of . She displaced normally and at full load. The ship's crew consisted of 5 officers and 98 enlisted men. She was powered by a pair of marine steam engines that drove one 2-bladed screw propeller, with steam provided by two coal-fired fire-tube boilers, which gave her a top speed of at . When steaming at maximum speed, the ship had a cruising range of . As built, she was equipped with a three-masted barque rig. The ship was armed with a battery of two RK L/22 built-up guns and two K L/23 built-up guns.
Service history The contract for was awarded on 9 November 1869; she was initially ordered as an aviso to comply with the fleet plan of 1867. The keel for the new ship was laid down at the in Danzig in 1870 under the contract name "A". The ship was named after the eponymous marine mollusc. She was launched on 31 August 1871, by which time Prussia had unified the German states as the German Empire. Completion of the ship was delayed while the sea trials of her sister ship were carried out. eventually began her own trials, though not in commission, on 15 November 1872. Testing concluded on 7 December, and on 7 May 1873, she was formally reclassified as a gunboat. The ship was commissioned on 4 June, under the command of (KK—Corvette Captain) Johann-Heinrich Pirner, into what was now the (Imperial Navy). initially joined the Training Squadron, based in Wilhelmshaven and led by the flagship . She took part in training maneuvers at Kiel that began on 24 June. decommissioned on 17 September for the winter months.
Deployment to Spain was recommissioned on 17 March 1874. In August, she and were ordered to Spain in response to the Cantonal rebellion and the contemporaneous Third Carlist War. The deployment was in response to attacks against Germans in the country, including the summary execution of a retired captain of the Prussian Navy on the orders of Prince Carlos, the leader of the Carlist rebellion against the First Spanish Republic. The German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, pressed the navy to send a squadron of ironclads to Spain in response to the attacks, but Kaiser Wilhelm I and Albrecht von Stosch, the Chief of the Admiralty, preferred a smaller and less intrusive option. Therefore, and were to be sent; they were ordered to avoid interfering in internal Spanish affairs and to act in close cooperation with Paul von Hatzfeldt, the German ambassador to Spain.
On 8 August, the two gunboats departed Kiel, under the overall command of the captain of , (KL—Captain Lieutenant) Otto Zembsch, as he was the senior of the two captains. They arrived in Santander, Spain, on 24 August and thereafter patrolled the northern coast of Spain. Their presence prompted rumors that the Germans would intervene in the fighting in Spain, and Carlist artillery batteries opened fire on them while they cruised off Guetaria. and returned fire and then continued on along the coast. The ships returned to Santander the fall to seek shelter from heavy storms, remaining there through October. Illegal weapon shipments from France prompted the Spanish Navy, the British Royal Navy, and the German gunboats to begin joint operations to interdict the vessels carrying guns to Spain. , , and the British gunboat patrolled the area through the end of the year. On 12 December, rescued most of the crew from the Italian barque after it sank in Santander.
As weather in the area worsened as winter approached, was ordered to return to Germany on 19 December, while departed the following day for La Plata, by way of the West Indies. But events in northern Spain would quickly see both ships recalled; the Rostock-flagged brig had put in at Guetaria due to the weather, and Carlist forces had opened fire, prompting the crew to abandon the vessel. then ran aground and was seized by the Carlist forces, who demanded payment to return the vessel and its cargo. Bismarck immediately demanded a retaliation, and both ships were ordered back to Spain. In addition, the screw corvette , which was in Curaçao, was sent to join them. The three ships had assembled in Santander by 31 January 1875, and Zembsch led negotiations with the Carlists. They eventually reached an acceptable resolution, and the two sides exchanged salutes in Guetaria on 28 April, formally ending the incident. then sailed for Gibraltar, so as to be available quickly in the event of another incident.
thereafter sailed south to visit ports in Morocco on 12 June; she cruised off the Moroccan coast through the end of September, interrupted only by a period of repair in Cádiz, Spain. The ship was then ordered back to the northern Spanish coast, as unrest there threatened German commercial interests. She arrived back in Santander on 17 October. Zembsch left the ship at that time. remained in Spanish waters until early 1876, by which time the Carlist rebellion had been defeated. On 3 March, the ship received orders to return home, and after arriving in Kiel, she was drydocked for examination. Found to be in good condition, she received a pair of anti-balloon guns, at the insistence of her new captain, KK Victor Valois, in preparation for another deployment overseas.
First deployment to the Pacific
departed Germany on 5 April 1876, bound for East Asia. While in Port Said, Egypt, on 19 April, the ship received orders to divert to Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire in response to the murder of the German and French consuls in Salonika. was to reinforce the gunboat , which was the station ship there, until other German vessels could arrive. On 25 July, the gunboat relieved , allowing her to continue on to Asia. She arrived in Singapore on 11 September, where she joined the German cruising unit in the area, led by Alexander von Monts aboard the screw frigate . For the rest of 1876, toured several ports in south China. In early 1877, she was cruising in the Gulf of Tonkin, and she was sent to Hainan to conduct surveys of the island. In need of repairs by mid-April, sailed to Nagasaki, Japan, for periodic maintenance that concluded on 24 September. A typhoon struck Yokohama, Japan, on 2 October while was in the harbor, and she was driven into a British steamship, suffering damage. On 30 November, Valois, along with the captain of the screw frigate and Carl von Eisendecher, the German ambassador to Japan, paid a visit to Emperor Meiji.
By 18 January 1878, had moved to Shantou, China, and there she received orders to return to Germany. Once again, while in Port Said on 16 March, the ship received a change of instructions, this time to sail for the coast of Ottoman Palestine, where unrest directed against Europeans necessitated intervention to prevent attacks. The situation had calmed by the end of July, permitting to resume her voyage home. After arriving in Kiel, the ship was decommissioned on 7 September for a lengthy overhaul that included repairs to her boilers. The anti-balloon guns were removed, and a pair of Hotchkiss revolver cannon were added. The work was completed by 20 May 1879, when she was recommissioned to replace on station in the South Pacific.
Second deployment to the Pacific departed on 17 June, bound for Australia, and while passing through the English Channel, she stopped in Folkestone, Britain, to check the salvage operation attempting to raise the ironclad , which had accidentally sunk there earlier that year. She arrived in Singapore on 5 September and remained there for eleven days; the ship's captain, KK Jeschke, had died of heat stroke while the ship passed through the Suez Canal, and had to wait in Singapore until his replacement arrived. thereafter left for Sydney, Australia, arriving on 3 November. She met there. then sailed north to Apia in Samoa on 15 November, arriving there eventually on 11 December. There, she met the screw corvette , the flagship of German naval forces in the region. Shortly thereafter, the power struggle between the rivals Malietoa Laupepa and Malietoa Talavou Tonumaipeʻa during the Samoan Civil War were decided in the latter's favor, departed on 25 January 1880, leaving as the sole German warship in the South Pacific.
then departed to visit Auckland, New Zealand. On the way, she stopped in Nukuʻalofa, the capital of Tonga, to attempt to improve relations with Germany. While was in Auckland from 26 April to 20 May, the Tongan crown prince died, and the ship carried his body back to Nukuʻalofa. The act led to the Tongan government loosening restrictions on German merchants in the kingdom. On 26 June, arrived back in Apia, where she rendezvoused with the gunboat , which was sent to reinforce the German presence in the region. From mid-August to mid-December, toured Australia, stopping in Brisbane, Sydney, and Melbourne. While in the last city, the ship's crew contributed workers to finish the German exhibit at the Melbourne International Exhibition held that year. She also sent her landing party ashore to take part in a parade held on 9 November in honor of the birthday of Albert, Prince of Wales. By March 1881, had returned to Samoa. While in Apia on 25 March, she received orders to return to Germany. She departed five days later and arrived in Brisbane on 1 May; by that time, her replacement, the gunboat , had arrived in Apia on 28 April. arrived back in Kiel on 15 September, where she was decommissioned for another overhaul.
Third deployment to the Pacific