German Maritime History: The German Navy Before World War One

After the war of 1866 and the establishment of the North German Confederation, the North German Federal Navy was created and Prussian War ships began flying the new federal war flag. The Navy was no longer merely defensive, but could also be employed if an offensive against enemy forces was needed: 10 Panzerschiffe (battleships), 22 Küstenverteidigungsfahrzeuge (coastal defense ships),20 Korvetten (corvettes), 8 Avisos, 3 Transportschiffe (transport ships) and 7 Schulschiffe (School vessels) were planned. The Diet approved the plan and the German shipbuilding industry and developed sufficiently.

In March 1872, a Naval academy was created at Kiel for training officers, followed by the creation of the Machine Engineer Corps in May and a Medical Corps in February 1873. A Torpedo Engineer Corps was created dealing with torpedoes and mines in July, 1879. In May, 1872, a ten year building program instituted to modernize the fleet called for 8 armoured frigates, 6 armoured corvettes, 20 light corvettes, 7 monitors, 2 floating batteries, 6 avisos, 18 gunboats and 28 torpedo boats.

The Panserfregatte SMS König Wilhelm, above, was built in 1868 by the Thames Iron Works in Leamouth, London. She was an armored frigate of the Prussian and later the German Imperial Navy. The frigate was rigged as a three-master and initially ordered by the Turkish Navy but was purchased during construction by Prussia and launched on April 25, 1868 under her new name, König Wilhelm. During the Franco Prussian War, König Wilhelm remained in port. Germany’s ironclads had been forbidden to fight France’s blockading forces.

SMS König Wilhelm was regarded as an excellent ship which maneuvered very well, but it lurched violently and the sails had only limited influence. In May of 1878, a German tank squadron consisting of the flagship SMS König Wilhelm, the battleship SMS Großer Kurfürst, SMS Prussia and the Aviso SMS Falke under the command of Rear-Admiral Carl Ferdinand Batsch was steaming through the English Channel to the Mediterranean for a maneuver. At the height of Folkestone, two sailing ships crossed their course. SMS König Wilhelm and SMS Großer Kurfürst had to dodge them and wanted to go back to their course. The watch officer on SMS König Wilhelm misunderstood his command and turned and rammed the SMS Großer Kurfürst with his battering ram so violently that it turned to port. The ship’s officers on SMS Großer Kurfürst also failed to maneuver correctly, and after the collision, water penetrated into SMS Großer Kurfürst so rapidly that it soon afterwards sank with its 269 men on board. 218 of men were rescued by German and English ships.

After the serious accident, SMS König Wilhelm was fundamentally rebuilt from 1878 to 1882 at the Imperial Shipyard Wilhelmshaven, where the prow was removed as well as the rig down to the lower masts. Following the removal of her entire rigging in Hamburg in 1897, she was reclassified as an armored cruiser, First Class, carrying a crew of 732. She was decommissioned in 1904, serving thereafter as a barracks hulk in Kiel and Naval Academy Mürwik. She was scrapped in 1921.

The Panzerfregatte SMS Kaiser, above, was built at Samuda Brothers, London and launched in 1874. She was the lead ship of the Kaiser class armored frigates. The ship was commissioned into the Imperial German Navy on February 13, 1875. Later, SMS KAISER was converted to a large cruiser at the Imperial Shipyard, Wilhelmshaven. In 1889, Kaiser Wilhelm II embarked on a tour of Genoa, Athens, Istanbul and Venice on the ship. The photo on the right is during that tour. After 1894, she served in Asian waters with the Far East Cruiser Division of the Imperial Navy. SMS Kaiser was Rear Admiral Otto von Diederichs’ flagship of the Cruiser Division in East Asia and participated in the amphibious landing during the German acquisition of Kiautschou Bay in northeastern China in November 1897.

SMS Mars was an artillery training ship. She arrived in 1877 for the training of crews and testing of modern guns and techniques. From the beginning of 1881, her use was in the North Sea. On April 26, 1881, she experienced a terrible explosion on board during a firing exercise which claimed nine lives and injured several others. In 1895, SMS Mars took part at the inauguration of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. From 1908, SMS Mars was used as the Hulk for the Baltic Sea stations. In 1914, she was removed from the list of warships and in Lübeck in 1921 the hull of the ship was aborted.