Coal station

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During the steamship period, coastal locations were referred to as coal stations that were set up to supply civilian and military steamships with coal as well as with provisions and drinking and service water. Coal stations were located around the world along the shipping routes on the mainland and on islands or were set up by the military at strategic points. The coal stations were necessary because the steamships consumed a lot of coal and the coal bunker capacities were limited. With the conversion of ship propulsion from coal to oil and the associated increase in range, the coal stations became superfluous over the years.

Coal stations on a British world map from 1914

German Navy until 1918

Coal takeover at the Tsingtau shipyard , photo 1897–1914

Until the emergence of the German colonial empire , the Imperial Navy did not have its own coal stations overseas. However, in the friendship treaty with Tonga (1876), on Jaluit (1878) and on the Spanish Caroline Islands (1885) coal stations were granted to the German Reich . Little use was made of these rights, however. The coasts in the German colonies, which Germany had from 1884/85, had few safe harbors and hardly any local coal deposits. The Kiautschou leased area in China, which was also founded in 1898 with this in mind, was an exception . A German coal station briefly existed around 1900 on the Arab Farasan Islands , but it was not used and was completely abandoned in 1902. In the event of war, all overseas coal depots of the German Navy were threatened by the rapid elimination, especially with Great Britain as an opponent of the war. Germany therefore developed a more flexible stage system using German merchant ships, which were used for supply tasks in the event of war. Since these ships had to operate mainly from foreign ports, they were, however, dependent on the goodwill of neutral states.

See also

• Coaling plant

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Willi A. Boelcke: This is how the sea came to us - The Prussian-German Navy in Übersee 1822 to 1914. Ullstein, Frankfurt a. M./Berlin/Wien 1981, ISBN 3-550-07951-6 , p. 207.
2. ↑ John Walter: Pirates of the Emperor. German trade troublemakers 1914–1918. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-613-01729-6 , p. 33ff.