The Kaiser's Battlefleet: German Capital Ships, 1871–1918

By Aidan Dodson

This illustrated study of the German Imperial Navy presents a ship-by-ship history from the dreadnaught era through WWI.

The battleships of the Third Reich have been written about exhaustively, but there is little in English devoted to their predecessors of the Second Reich. In The Kaiser’s Battlefleet, Aidan Dodson fills this significant gap in German naval history by covering these capital ships and studying the full span of battleship development during this period.

Kaiser’s Battlefleet presents a chronological narrative that features technical details, construction schedules and the ultimate fates of each ship tabulated throughout. With a broad synthesis of German archival research, Dodson provides fresh data and corrects significant errors found in standard English-language texts. Heavily illustrated with line work and photographs drawn from German sources, this study will appeal to historians of WWI German as well as battleship modelmakers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Nov 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781473881556

Aidan Dodson

Aidan Dodson is Hon. Professor of Egyptology in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of Bristol, UK, was Simpson Professor of Egyptology at the American University in Cairo in 2013, and Chair of the Egypt Exploration Society during 2011–16. Awarded his PhD by the University of Cambridge in 2003, he was elected a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London in 2003. He is the author of over twenty books, most recently a new edition of Amarna Sunset (AUC Press, 2018) and Sethy I, King of Egypt (AUC Press, 2019).

Book preview

Aegir, pictured soon after completion, when classified as a IV. class armoured ship. Originally intended for coastal service in defence of the Kiel Canal, she was later formally listed as a battleship, allowing her to be replaced by the six-times larger Prinzregent Luitpold. (Author’s collection)

Copyright © Aidan Dodson 2016

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by

Seaforth Publishing,

Pen & Sword Books Ltd,

47 Church Street,

Barnsley S70 2AS

www.seaforthpublishing.com

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978 1 84832 229 5

PDF ISBN: 978 1 47388 156 3

EPUB ISBN: 978 1 47388 155 6

PRC ISBN: 978 1 47388 154 9

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing of both the copyright owner and the above publisher.

The right of Aidan Dodson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Typeset and designed by Steve Dent

Printed and bound in China by 1010 Printing International Ltd

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

The Naming of German Warships

Conventions and Abbreviations

PART I RISE AND FALL OF THE BATTLEFLEET

1. Before the Empire

2. The Era of Wilhelm I

3. The New Emperor

4. The Fleet Law Era

5. The World of the Dreadnought

6. War – I

7. War – II

8. Afterglow

9. Retrospect

PART II TECHNICAL AND CAREER DATA

Ships for the Prussian and German Navies

Summary of Capital Ship Authorisations

Ship Seized by Germany

Ships for Export

APPENDICES

1. Main Armament Mountings

2. Trial Results

3. Organisation of Capital Ships and Cruisers from 1884

Bibliography

PREFACE

IN CONTRAST TO THE MUCH SMALLER NAVY of the German Third Reich (1933-45), the warships of the Second Reich (1871–1918) have been poorly served in the Anglophone world, the principal available sources being sections within works of international scope (e.g. Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships) and/or focussing on the dreadnought/First World War era. The main exception has been a partial English translation of Erich Gröner’s monumental work on all German warships down to 1945¹ but although a mine of technical data, it says little about ships’ careers, with information about modifications often sketchy as regards both detail and date.

In addition, many of these works contain significant errors, some going back to erroneous Allied intelligence during the First World War, others from evident misunderstandings of the original German editions of Gröner, compounded by often copying earlier English-language sources without taking into account more recent German scholarship. The latter now includes detailed monographs on the origins of dreadnought-era capital ships by Axel Grießmer² and a series of papers on the genesis of earlier generations of such vessels, which had reached the Nassau class at the point where the present volume went to press.³

While some of the First World War era capital ship material has recently become available in the works of Gary Staff⁴ and Norman Friedman,⁵ no attempt has been made to produce a English-language monograph covering the full sweep of the detailed design and operational history of capital ships from the establishment of the German Empire in 1871 to its dissolution in 1918. This volume is an attempt to do so, covering all ships that were (or would have been, if still extant), classified as Linienschiffe (‘battleships’ – see p.10) or Große Kreuzer (‘large cruisers’ – including what the British would later term ‘battlecruisers’) under the German 1900 Fleet Law, starting with the first ironclads ordered by the then-Prussian Navy through to the last paper-projects produced by the Imperial Navy during the final year of its existence.

In doing so, a conscious attempt has been made to avoid a dry class-by-class structure in favour of one that essentially tells the story of the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserlich Marine) through the prism of its capital ships. This includes the political and strategic backgrounds to the various classes and their evolution and modifications, the narrative structure considering the way in which new construction and the refitting and rebuilding of existing vessels was tied together in maintaining and enhancing the fleet’s capabilities. In addition, there are overviews of the ships’ operational use, with accounts of the relevant operations specifically highlighting the activities of, and damage suffered by, the battleships and large cruisers, complemented by photographs showing the ships, their modifications and aspects of their operation. The small number of capital ships built and/or designed for foreign powers are also included to give a fully rounded impression of German capabilities.

This core narrative is accompanied by a second part that comprises summaries of the technical details of the ships involved, tabulations of their building history and final fates, and brief digests of their careers. It is illustrated with sketches showing the arrangements of armour and machinery spaces, and the evolution of ships’ external appearances. It should be emphasised that these are indeed sketches, and do not pretend to be formal technical drawings. In particular, the details of some ships armouring remains to a degree obscure, with differences between published sources (with some major demonstrable errors in certain standard works).⁶ As in all other aspects of this book, where contradictions exist, the data given is that which comes from what appear to be the most authoritative sources (and in some cases discussed in the notes): however, it is quite possible that further research may lead to detail changes.

My thanks go to various people for the provision of information, images and other help, in particular to Ian Buxton, Stephen Dent, Geirr Haarr, Christian Jentzsch, Stuart Lythgow, Innes McCartney, Stephen McLaughlin, Brian Newman, Dirk Nottelmann and Richard Osborne, but also to all others who have aided me in various ways. Finally, I must thank my wife, Dyan Hilton, for final proof-reading and putting up with me while I was writing this book (and rather foolishly two more in parallel!); responsibility for errors and any unsound reasoning remains, however, wholly mine!

University of Bristol

August 2015

1. E Gröner, German Warships 1815-1945, I: Major Surface Vessels, revised and expanded by Dieter Jung and Martin Maass (London: Conway Maritime Press, 1990).

2. A. Grießmer, Große Kreuzer der Kaiserlichen Marine 1906–1918: Konstruktionen und Entwürfe im Zeichen des Tirpitz-Planes (Bonn: Bernard & Graefe, 1996) and Linienschiffe der Kaiserlichen Marine 1906-1918: Konstruktionen zwischen Rüstungskonkurrenz und Flottengesetz (Bonn: Bernard & Graefe, 1999).

3. P Schenk, D Nottelmann and D M Sullivan, ‘From Ironclads to Dreadnoughts: The Development of the German Navy 1864-1918’, Parts I–II, Warship International 48 (2011), pp 241–73; 49 (2012), pp 59–84; D Nottelmann, ‘From Ironclads to Dreadnoughts: The Development of the German Navy 1864-1918’, Parts III–VI, Warship International 49 (2012), pp 317–55; 50 (2013), pp 209–49; 51 (2014), pp 43–90; 52 (2015), pp 137–74, 304–21.

4. G Staff, Battle of the Baltic Islands 1917: Triumph of the Imperial German Navy (Barnsley: Pen and Sword Maritime, 2008); German Battleships 1914-18, 2vv (Oxford: Osprey Publishing, 2010); Battle on the Seven Seas: German Cruiser Battles 1914–1918 (Barnsley: Pen and Sword Maritime, 2011); German Battlecruisers of World War One: their Design, Construction and Operations (Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing, 2014).

5. N Friedman, Fighting the Great War at Sea: Strategy, Tactics and Technology (Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing, 2014).

6. E.g. the fictional horizontal armour-layout for the Helgoland class given by S Breyer in Battleships and Battle Cruisers, 1905-1970: Historical Development of the Capital Ship (London: Macdonald, 1973), p 268.

INTRODUCTION

BETWEEN 1871 AND 1919, the German navy grew from an at-best second-rate force to the second largest in the world – before being reduced once more to second-rate status in the wake of Germany’s defeat in the First World War. However, unlike the other navy that underwent similarly spectacular growth during the same period, that of the United States, the huge German fleet’s purpose was often difficult to define in utilitarian terms. Unlike the vast coastlines of the United States, the defence of which gave a clear purpose for a significant naval force, the short German home coastline did not require deep-sea protection, while Germany’s colonial empire (principally in South-West and East Africa and Pacific archipelagos) was entrusted to a small subset of the fleet and, as events proved, was indefensible in any war involving the United Kingdom.

Rather, its purpose for most of its existence was ‘to be’ – not so much to achieve victory in battle but to exert a politico-strategic role directly linked to Germany’s position in the world. The fleet was ‘against England’ (as Alfred von Tirpitz stated), but not so much as to fight the Royal Navy, but to attract Great Britain into alliance with Germany under the ‘risk theory’ that, although inevitably weaker than the Royal Navy, what became the High Seas Fleet might maul the British fleet so badly that it would risk losing its command of the sea and thus be threatened by Britain’s historic enemies, France and Russia. As history was to show, however, this concept was a chimera, and in the event German bluster and attempted bullying drove Great Britain into rapprochement with her former rivals – exactly the opposite of the desired Anglo-German alliance.

The nature of the navy as a ‘fleet in being’ is emphasised by its size and composition being set through most of its existence by central fiat – first the Fleet Plans that went back to Prussian days, later the Fleet Laws – which enumerated each high-level type to be built, rather than by any kind of ongoing requirement-analysis: the ‘requirement’ was essentially frozen in the 1890s. By enshrining such an approach into law after 1898, all flexibility was removed, with the ultimate ludicrous result that when war experience indicated that the division between battleship and large cruiser was now an obsolete concept, a ship combining the two types had to be deemed illegal! It also led the way towards bankruptcy as the advent of the dreadnought era fundamentally changed the nature of the both battleships and large cruisers, with the result that the legally-defined building programme was becoming unaffordable.

Nevertheless, the designs produced within this regime were often interesting and capable, although often overestimated by their potential and actual opponents. An aspect of the design-process not present in other countries was after 1888 the active participation of the Emperor, a naval enthusiast and amateur designer of warships. This was a double-edged sword, as while it meant that the Navy had the active support of the head of state, designers were often faced with the need to find a tactful way to point out the impracticability (e.g. inability to float) of an Imperial ‘suggestion’ and, more significantly, deal with delays caused by Wilhelm II’s interventions at key points.

In the following chapters, we will first follow the story of the German capital ship from the dawn of the ironclad era, through the gradual build-up of the fleet under the first decades of the Empire, to its exponential growth following the accession of Wilhelm II, and on to its ultimately futile part in the First World War. The penultimate chapter will act as a coda, looking first at the destruction of most of the ships at the hands of their crews and the shipbreaker in the years immediately following 1918, and then at the twilight years of the handful of survivors. Although in most cases this was little more than peacetime service followed by the shipbreaker’s yard, one would have the fate of firing the first shots of the Second World War, and one that of being the last of all the German navy’s operational battleships, sunk only days before the end of that war.

THE NAMING OF GERMAN WARSHIPS

BY THE 1890s, a pattern had been established regarding the designation of warships of the German navy.

Battleships

Names evoked the German Empire, its constituents and rulers. The first German ironclad, Arminius, was named for the chieftain of the Germanic Cherusci tribe, who defeated a Roman army at the battle of the Teutoburg Forest in ad 9, while other early ironclads included Kronprinz (Crown Prince), König Wilhelm (for Wilhelm I as King of Prussia), Kaiser (Emperor) and Deutschland (Germany). The Preußen (Prussia) and Sachsen (Saxony) classes introduced the names of the constituent parts of the Empire into the mix (as did Oldenburg), as well as remembering the eighteenth century Friedrich II of Prussia (Friedrich der Große) and the seventeenth century ‘Great Elector’, Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg (Großer Kurfürst), who was also recalled by the Brandenburg class Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm.

The Brandenburgs (their nameship evoking the core province of Prussia) introduced the commemoration of battles into the naming system, Wörth and Weißenburg both being named after victories in the Franco-Prussian War, but this theme was not continued subsequently. Likewise not perpetuated was the theme of Nordic gods and heroes used for the Siegfried class – in this case probably because of the termination of the coast defence armourclad as a type.

Subsequent classes all followed the ‘Empire’ theme, the Kaiser Friedrich III class being named for the present emperor, his father and grandfather (Kaiser Wilhelm der Große – so that the navy possessed during the twentieth century two ships commemorating the same man), plus the Holy Roman emperors Charlemagne (Kaiser Karl der Große – eighth/ninth centuries) and Friedrich I Barbarossa (twelfth century), the class thus conceptually linking the First and Second German Reichs. The Wittelsbachs were named for German royal and grand-ducal houses (Wittelsbach – Bavaria; Zähringen – Baden; Wettin – Saxony; Schwaben – Württemberg; Mecklenburg – Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz), the Braunschweigs for constituents of the empire and the Deutschlands (except for the name-ship) for provinces of Prussia.

The ‘Prussian province’ theme was continued with the Nassau class, the Helgolands mixing the eponymous island with a grand duchy (Oldenburg) and Prussian provinces. The Kaisers mixed imperial titles with the names of the recently-deceased Regent of Bavaria (Prinzregent Luitpold) and King of Saxony (König Albert), as well as once more remembering Friedrich the Great. The following König class again mixed titles with an historical figure (Kronprinz being then renamed in 1918 to honour the current Crown Prince), before the Bayerns reverted to the theme of constituents of the empire.

Cruisers

Down to the 1890s, cruisers had employed a wide variety of names, including battles, royal and mythological female figures, and political and military leaders. The latter groups of themes were applied to the first of the ships that were to be classified as large cruisers in 1899, Kaiserin Augusta being named for William I’s empress, Victoria Louise for Wilhelm II’s only daughter, the rest of the Victoria Louise class for mythological figures, and Fürst Bismarck for the former German chancellor.

Subsequent large cruisers, however, moved to the theme of military and naval leaders, both living (Prinz Heinrich [the Emperor’s brother and sometime naval CinC], Prinz Eitel Friedrich, Hindenburg and Mackensen [First World War soldiers]) and dead (mainly army: Friedrich Carl, Roon, Yorck, Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, Blücher, Von der Tann, Moltke, Goeben, Seydlitz, Derfflinger, Lützow; Graf Spee remembered the victor of the battle of Coronel, killed at the Falklands).

Smaller cruisers continued the mythological theme (plus some ‘traditional’ ones) until the end of the century, when the Bremen class initiated the use of town names, which henceforth became standard for small cruisers, with the exception of the cruiser-minelayers Bremse (Horsefly) and Brummer (Growler – both former armoured gunboat names) – and Frauenlob, which commemorated the Gazelle class cruiser sunk at Jutland. The cruiser naming-pattern was carried over into the Weimar Republic and Third Reich, the ‘large cruiser’ system now being used for battleships as well.

Provisional Names

From the inception of the Imperial German Navy down to the Second World War, a ship’s name would not be revealed until her launch. Prior to this, vessels would be known by a provisional name. This depended on whether the ship in question was being programmed as a replacement for an existing ship – either coming to the end of its ‘legal’ life (cf. pp 23, 55), or lost – or if she represented an addition to strength (in particular as a result of the Fleet Laws – pp 55, 59–60, 72, 80, 90, 92–4). The latter category would be known by a serial letter within its classification – e.g. Battleship A or Large Cruiser A. The sequence might be re-started after a programme had been completed: there were thus two of each of Armoured ships A to D (Bayern (i)/Brandenburg; Sachsen (i)/Wörth; Baden (i)/Weißenburg; Württemberg (i)/Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm).¹

For ‘replacement’ ships, they were designated Ersatz-X, where X was the name of the ship for which they were a replacement. As generation followed generation, and with the perpetuation of name-themes, a number of Ersatz-names repeated over time, particularly amongst cruisers. One curious example, was Ersatz-König Wilhelm, which was first used for the future battleship Kaiser Wilhelm der Große, on König Wilhelm’s reclassification as a large cruiser, and again four years later, when that ship was replaced in the cruiser category by the future Friedrich Carl (ii). In only one case was a ship replaced by one of the same name: the corvette Freya (i) was replaced by the large cruiser Ersatz-Freya, which was then launched as Freya (ii).

Requisitioned vessels of course fell outside this scheme, but as most were of types numbered only in German service (torpedo boats and lesser vessels), this was not a major issue. The ex-Russian light cruisers of the Pillau class were apparently given their new names on seizure (although Elbing, ex-Admiral Nevelskoy had not yet been launched), although during the Second World War the ex-Dutch KH1 (ex-De Zeven Provincien, completed post-war as De Ruyter) and KH2 (ex-Eendracht, ex-Kijkduin = De Zeven Provincien, ex-De Ruyter) appear to have been designated Ersatz-Emden and Ersatz-Königsberg(?) while on the stocks.

It should be noted that on their surrender under the Treaty of Versailles, major German prizes were designated by letters, the battleships being B, D, F, G (Westfalen class), H, K, L and M (Helgoland class). The missing letters belonged to small cruisers (see p 144, n 5).

The post-Second World War German navies ended the tradition of provisional naming, ships having since been named while still on the stocks or even as soon as they are projected, in the same way as in other navies. Thematically, the six frigates acquired from Great Britain in the early years of the West German navy were named for military/naval leaders (most of them [Gneisenau, Scharnhorst, Hipper, Graf Spee and Scheer] also implicitly for their previous ship-namesakes),² while six ex-US destroyers had been numbered only (as Z1 to Z6, reusing Kriegsmarine numbers). The military/naval leader theme was also used for the Lutjens class guided-missile destroyers (one for each of the military environments), but subsequently all major warships have been named for an indiscriminate mixture of federal states and major cities. The East German navy also made an extensive use of toponyms, plus a few names of German Communist leaders and thinkers.

1. Indeed, there were three, as the armoured ships of the Reichsmarine were given both letters and replacement designations.

2. The other two were named Raule (for the late seventeenth-century General Director of the Navy of the Electorate of Brandenburg) and Brommy (CinC of the 1848 Reichsflotte), and thus two of the ‘fathers’ of the German navy who had not, however, previously given their names to major warships – only a pair of old ex-minesweepers converted to MMS parent ships.

CONVENTIONS IN THIS BOOK

IN GENERAL, German terms are translated into their closest English literal equivalents. Reich is not translated, recognising the lack of a straightforward English word for the term (which is perhaps best explained as ‘empire without the necessity of an emperor’), the translation ‘Imperial’ being reserved for Kaiserlich.

This includes ship designations – in particular, Große Kreuzer is translated as ‘large cruiser’ throughout. Unlike the British from 1912, the Germans did not distinguish between pre-dreadnought ‘armoured cruisers’ and dreadnought ‘battlecruisers’ (the term Schlachtkreuzer – ‘battle-cruiser’ – was used for the first and only time in 1939 for the abortive ‘O’ class). Likewise, it was not until the 1930s that the classification ‘destroyer’ was first used for fleet flotilla craft: previously they were formally ‘torpedo boats’ or ‘large torpedo boats’.¹

The only significant exception is that the term ‘battleship’ is used for Linienschiff. This is because the literal translation, ‘ship of the line’, is used with the specific meaning of a First to Third Rate wooden fighting ship of the eighteenth/nineteenth century in British naval terminology, with the resulting scope for confusion (Schlachtschiff – ‘battleship’ was first officially used in Germany for the Scharnhorst class of 1935).²

Turret designations are given according to German practice, which started with ‘A’ at the bow, and then moved aft, along the starboard side to the stern, and then back towards the bow along the port side. Thus, apart from the forward (‘A’) turret, the position of a given lettered turret can only be deduced if the number and layout of turrets in a given ship is known. In contrast, in the Royal Navy, turrets were lettered according to an scheme that usually made the foremost turret ‘A’, any superimposed forward turret ‘B’, any superimposed (or only) aft turret ‘X’ and the aftermost one ‘Y’. A single midships turret was ‘Q’, and any second midships one ‘P’. Secondary batteries are given as alphanumerics, such that ‘S3’ is the third mounting from the bow on the starboard side, ‘P5’, the fifth from the bow on the port.

Turret designations in German capital ships.

Gun calibres are generally given as cited by the owning navy, translated where necessary into metric. Thus, German larger gun calibres are given in centimetres, but French are given in millimetres, while British and American ones are in inches, with the metric equivalent in millimetres (e.g. 13.5in [343mm]). Armour thicknesses are given consistently in millimetres, with varying thicknesses of belt armour given from the stern forward.

Place names are given as per German usage during the period covered by the book, with modern equivalents in parentheses where appropriate. For other German terms, the following translations/abbreviations are used.

Abbreviations

1. Although a series of particularly large vessels requisitioned from foreign contracts at the outbreak of the war were referred to colloquially as ‘torpedo boat destroyers’, albeit officially still ‘large torpedo boats’ – as were even the 2000t, 15cm-armed, S113 class.

2. Although frequently erroneously called ‘battlecruisers’ in English-language sources.

PART I: RISE AND FALL OF THE BATTLEFLEET

Moltke during her visit to the United States in 1912. (Harris & Ewing, via Library of Congress)

UNTIL THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, ‘Germany’ was simply a large number of separate political entities, whose status and combinations changed over time, and ranged from city-states through to a number of fully-fledged kingdoms. Until 1805, most had belonged to the increasingly-nominal Holy Roman Empire, which had been replaced during 1815 the Congress of Vienna by a loose German Confederation (Deutsches Bund) of thirty-nine states, to which six more were subsequently added. A progressive customs union (Zollverin) gradually brought the states closer together, and the short-lived Frankfurt National Assembly that had been established in the wake of the 1848 revolutions attempted to make this into a formal empire. The failure of this initiative, and the ephemeral Erfurt Union, which foundered through Austrian opposition, led the loose Confederation to continue to exist until 1866.

That year, the Austro-Prussian War led in 1867 to the winning Prussian-led alliance forming the North German Confederation (Norddeutscher Bund), excluding Austria, Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and their allies. In 1870, the Franco-Prussian War led to Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden joining the grouping, which was proclaimed the German Reich at Versailles on 18 January 1871, comprising twenty-seven constituent territories, with the imperial dignity vested in the kings of Prussia.

Of the German states, only Prussia had made intermittent attempts at maintaining a navy.¹ These were consolidated after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, while 1848 and 1852 there existed a Reichsflotte, created under the auspices of the Frankfurt National Assembly, which was, however, dissolved in April 1852; although most ships were sold into merchant service, two frigates (one steam, one sail) passed to the Prussian Navy. The latter force was then developed by Prince Adalbert of Prussia (1811–73), Commander-in-Chief from 1854 to 1870, including the establishment of the naval bases of Kiel in 1865 and Wilhelmshaven (in an enclave within the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg) in 1869, and the steady purchase of frigates and smaller vessels. It was as the sole naval force within the new North German Confederation that the Prussian Navy transitioned to being the new (albeit Prussian-led) Federal Navy on 1 October 1867, the navy henceforth remaining a ‘German’ institution, in contrast to the armies at the disposal of the Confereration and later Empire, which remained in the ownership of the individual states.

The ‘new’ fleet was accompanied by a new Fleet Plan, a modification of plans put forward by the Prussian Navy in 1862 and 1865 (and rejected by the Prussian Landtag [State Parliament]). The 1867 Plan, however, was approved by the new Reichstag [Reich Parliament], and envisaged a fleet of sixteen armoured ships, twenty unarmoured corvettes and eight avisos, plus twenty-six gunboats and auxiliaries, by 1877, to provide both a home and a foreign force. As compared with the 1865 iteration of the Plan, there were four less armoured ships and six more corvettes, a change opposed by Prince Adalbert, and reflecting what would be an ongoing debate regarding the balance to be struck between building and maintaining a home battlefleet and doing the same for a cruising force capable of world-wide deployment.

Arminius

A number of other lesser naval powers acquired armoured vessels in the wake of the adoption of the type by the French and British navies, and the proof of the concept of armoured warships during the American Civil War.² Like her particular rival at the time, Denmark (against whom wars were fought over the ownership of Schleswig-Holstein during 1848-51 and again in 1864), Prussia bought a small twin-turreted ironclad from a British shipyard, in this case Samuda Bros. of Poplar, on the Thames; the very similar Danish Rolf Krake³ came from Napier, on the Clyde.

The Prussian vessel, named Arminius, had been laid down in 1863 on speculation by the shipyard (perhaps with an eye to the Confederate States of America [CSA], which was attempting to acquire ships in Europe at the time),⁴ her purchase by Prussia being partly financed by popular contributions. Her design was by Captain Cowper Phipps Coles, RN (1819–70), and mounted two examples of his pattern of turret, apparently intended to be equipped with a pair of Armstrong 68pdr/8in [20.3cm] MLRs. However, she was actually armed with Krupp BLRs, possibly first with 21cm/12.25s before finally receiving 21cm/19s. The protection of her iron hull was mounted on a 229mm teak backing, and comprised wrought iron 114mm thick, tapering to 76mm fore and aft. The turrets varied from 114mm to 119mm in thickness, while the conning tower carried 114mm plate. Arminius had four transverse trunk boilers, with a 2-cylinder horizontal engine, rated at 1200ihp, giving a speed of around 10kts. Although it had been hoped that she would be ready by September 1864, Arminius was not delivered in time owing to the Second Schleswig War with Denmark. On 3 October 1866, the ship undertook a comparative trial with the visiting US monitor Miantonomoh in Kiel, Arminius proving the faster by two knots.

Arminius as completed, with her bulwarks raised. (BA 134-B0164)

The monitor USS Miantonomoh at Kiel at the time of her trial run against Arminius. (NHHC NH 46259)

The ship was given a topsail schooner rig, with masts at the extremities of the hull, they and their shrouds obstructing the firing arcs of the turrets. However, it proved impossible to steer the ship under sail, and the rig was removed at her first refit.

Prinz Adalbert

The year after Arminius had been ordered, the opportunity arose to buy another ironclad when the French shipbuilder Lucien Arman was ordered by Emperor Napoleon III to put up for sale two ships allegedly being built for Egypt – but really ordered by the CSA, and under an embargo since February. Initial negotiations for their disposal had actually begun in December 1863, when the Danes were approached by the French.⁵ Denmark initially intended to buy both ships,⁶ but in the event sufficient funds were available for only one, ‘Sphinx’, a contract being agreed on 31 March 1864. Two months later, on 25 May, the Prussians purchased ‘Cheops’, ships belonging to each of the combatants in the Second Schleswig War (February–August 1864) thus being built alongside each other at Bordeaux.

The Confederate ram that Prussia did not buy: ‘Sphinx’, which briefly flew the Danish flag as Stærkodder, before being transferred to her original owners, taken over by the United States at the end of the Civil War (and laid up at Washington, where she is seen here) and finally sold to Japan as Kötetsu, later Azuma. (NHHC NH 43994)

The Danish half-sister, now named Stærkodder, was subject to various contractual terms that the builders found difficult to fulfil, and negotiations continued even after the ship had sailed from the shipyard in October, arriving at Copenhagen on 10 November. Although some trials were carried out, the ongoing negotiations broke down, possibly influenced by the technical assessment of the ship by the Danes, not to mention the end of the war with Prussia, and in January she was handed over to the CSA in Danish waters, becoming CSS Stonewall.⁷

Prinz Adalbert in 1870. (BA 134-C0066)

The Prussian purchase was at one point cancelled, but reinstated in January 1865, and delivered as Prinz Adalbert in October. She was very different from Armenius, being wooden-hulled, with tumblehome sides and a huge ram. In contrast to the revolving turrets of the British-built vessel, there were fixed box-batteries at the bow and on the after deck, with guns (one in the forward battery, two in the mid-ships one) on mountings that allowed them to fire through a chosen port. On the other hand, there were twin shafts and rudders to ensure good manoeuvrability.

When the ship arrived in Prussia, she was immediately rearmed with Krupp guns. She also proved to be in poor material condition, with significant leakage, her defects requiring a reconstruction at Geestemünde during 1868/69, including re-fitting the armour. Other changes carried out in Prussia included moving the mainmast further aft (the ship was in any case useless under sail). However, unsound timber severely truncated her service life, being outlived by Arminius by a quarter-century.

Friedrich Carl and Kronprinz

Both Arminius and Prinz Adalbert were primarily suitable only for coastal waters. In contrast, the next ironclads acquired by the Prussian Navy were fully seagoing vessels, which in the context of the 1860s meant rigged vessels armed on the broadside, the type that comprised the bulk of new construction by Great Britain and France.

It has been recognised

Reviews for The Kaiser's Battlefleet

[shrike58 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

The title of this work is really all you need to know, as the the author provides you first with an extended examination of how the force structure of the Second Reich's naval effort evolved before moving on to an overview of how that force performed in wartime (up to and including the service of the last of these ships during World War II) and winding up with a technical overview of all these classes; including the alternate proposals for each ship; highly recommended.