Prince Bismarck (ship, 1891–1924)
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The first Fürst Bismarck of the Hamburg-American Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG) was the company's fourth express steamer after the two slightly smaller sisters Augusta Victoria and Columbia and the sister ship Normannia built by the Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company , Glasgow . When it was completed by AG Vulcan Stettin , it was the largest German passenger ship at 8,874 GRT .
HAPAG's express steamer fleet
The four twin-screw express steamers operated from Hamburg via Southampton and Cherbourg to New York . On the way back they started at Plymouth instead of Southampton. Concerned about the safety of the large ships on the Elbe, the steamers actually did not go to Hamburg in the liner service, but the passengers were handled on the outward and return journey in Cuxhaven , where they were brought on board or picked up with the Tender Blankenese . This only changed in 1897 with the completion of the New Harbor in Cuxhaven, which allowed the mooring of the express steamers and was first used by Prince Bismarck . The ships then ran on to the level of Brunshausen (today Stadersand). There the cargo was unloaded with barges and new coal and cargo were taken up.
With the express steamers, HAPAG offered a weekly express service between the USA and Europe, which usually took five or six days for the crossing.
technical description
The Fürst Bismarck had five teak- clad steel decks and two masts without a sailing device and, like her sister ships, three chimneys. Like the sister ships, it was divided lengthways in the hull and each half had transverse bulkheads. Each half housed a machine with its own boiler system. This was also highlighted as a security element in the advertising. The double floor was also divided into multiple sections and could partly be used as a ballast tank.
The first class cabins were amidships; There were lounges for men and women and a smoking room just for them. The smaller and more simply equipped cabins for the second class were partly at the same height, but in the front and back of the ship and had their own lounges. In the intermediate deck below there were rooms for single men, women and families.
The ship had facilities for 420 passengers in the first class, 172 in the second class and 700 people in the tween deck.
In the service of HAPAG
Launched on November 29, 1890, Fürst Bismarck was handed over to HAPAG on April 25, 1891 and began her maiden voyage from Hamburg via Southampton to New York on May 8. She was faster than her sister ships and some people claim that she won the Blue Ribbon . In fact, it only held the route record on the route traveled by the German and French ships.
From August 1892 the HAPAG ships had a problem because of the cholera epidemic in Hamburg and the strict quarantine regulations in New York. The express steamers only ran to Southampton during this time. When cholera cases increased again briefly in September 1893, Wilhelmshaven became the end of the traffic for the express steamers for a while.
In 1893, the Fürst Bismarck was recorded as the fourth fastest mail ship on average on the North Atlantic, while the sister ship Normannia achieved the fastest average times off Columbia . The Augusta Victoria as the slowest of the quartet was in ninth place. All NDL ships were much slower. On May 22, 1894, the Fürst Bismarck rammed the French schooner Louise in the middle of the Atlantic , whose crew abandoned their ship. Volunteers of the express steamer sailed the almost undamaged ship back to Falmouth (Cornwall) by June 11th . The Maritime Administration decided that the accident was due to the sailor's faulty lighting.
By the summer of 1894, the ship had made 14 trips, mainly with emigrants to the USA. The Daughters of the American Revolution awarded the ship a copy of the Liberty Bell on July 4, 1894 for its fast crossings , in order to commemorate prominent German emigrants at the same time. The captain promised to ring them whenever the Navesink Highlands or the beacon there came into view.
The Bismarck and her sisters seem 1892-1894 on the outward part of Queenstown, Ireland (since 1922: Cobh ) to have begun. The Fürst Bismarck stayed on the North Atlantic route until the start of her last tour on November 5, 1903.
The Bismarck and her sisters performed their job reliably and quickly. However, there was not enough public interest in crossing the North Atlantic in winter. From January 22nd to March 21st, 1891, the Augusta Victoria had therefore carried out a Mediterranean cruise to and from Cuxhaven. These “pleasure trips” to the Mediterranean Sea, north to Spitsbergen or the West Indies have become an integral part of HAPAG's range of services alongside regular services. The Bismarck led early in 1894 by a Mediterranean tourist trip from New York.
The North German Lloyd (NDL) used its express steamers from Mediterranean ports to New York in winter. HAPAG joined this in 1893 and Fürst Bismarck ran for the first time on March 27, 1894 on the route Genoa - Naples - Gibraltar - New York. It was probably the return trip from the aforementioned Mediterranean cruise. It was used regularly in the following years in winter on this route and left Naples for the last time on January 26, 1902 for New York. HAPAG and NDL worked together as partners on this route from 1894 until the winter of 1900/1901.
Russian auxiliary cruiser Don
In 1904 ( Russo-Japanese War ) Russia acquired four older twin-screw high -speed steamers from Germany : Empress Maria Theresia des NDL and Auguste Victoria , Columbia and Fürst Bismarck from HAPAG. They should be used as auxiliary cruisers .
The Fürst Bismarck arrived in Libau on March 14, 1904 as the first of the express steamers to be bought . In the acceptance test, she reached 20.09 knots. The conversion was started immediately. As on the other ships, the space for the tween deck passengers was converted into additional coal bunkers and hatches were cut for a coal takeover at sea. Two 12 cm L / 45 guns, five 7.5 cm L / 50 guns, eight 57 mm Hotchkiss guns and two machine guns were installed as armament . July 13th jul. / July 26th greg. which was Bismarck as Don , along with the Empress Maria Theresa as the Urals , in service asked. The Russian high command planned to send the four auxiliary cruisers one after the other to the Atlantic in order to check which ships were on their way to Japan with war material.
At the end of July, the Don and the Urals left for a control voyage in the Atlantic. As far as Skagen they were accompanied by two destroyers , who supplied them with coal for the return journey. Initially, the Urals struggled to maintain the planned speed and forced the Don to make several stops. Later she also had problems, as it turned out that the stokers were not familiar with the boiler system. In addition, a boiler was not tight. On July 25, the ships parted at Lisbon . The Urals ran towards Gibraltar and Cape Finisterre , while the Don went further south off the African coast. She ran as far as the Canary Islands , but constantly had engine problems when she wanted to chase a ship in order to control it. So she ran back to Vigo to get coal and spare parts. The auxiliary cruiser Ural had already started its return journey and the Don was also ordered to return because the auxiliary cruiser Terek left . Despite repeated problems with boiler no. 4, the Don , which left Vigo on August 17th, reached the Pas de Calais on the 20th and Libau on August 24th. She had covered 7038 nautical miles and consumed 3932 tons of coal.
It was immediately sent for repair, but was not ready in time to leave for the Far East with the Second Pacific Squadron.
In January 1905, another consideration was given to sending the Don to the North Sea, but the condition of its boiler prevented it from being used. In October the disarmament of the auxiliary cruiser began and on October 13 the Don was removed from the list of warships.
The plans to use the three remaining former HAPAG express steamers for civilian use were only realized by the former Fürst Bismarck . She was converted back into a passenger ship and was used as the Moscow of the Russian Volunteer Fleet on April 30, 1907 on the Libau-Rotterdam-New York route. After only four round trips, it was shut down again as it was not economically successful.
Service in the Austrian Navy
On July 8, 1909, the Austro-Hungarian Navy took over the ship in Stettin as SMS Gäa and equipped it with four 7 cm L45 guns before the conversion to a torpedo depot ship began on August 3, 1909. The armament was expanded to include four 12 cm L35 guns and cargo space was created for 81 torpedoes and 100 mines . Returned to service on May 14, 1910, the Gäa took an active part in summer maneuvers until 1912. After that, in reserve, it was reactivated on July 31, 1914. She moved to the Bay of Kotor to support the cruiser flotilla. In 1915 she became the mother ship for submarines in Cattaro , including the German submarines of the Mediterranean submarine .
During the sailors' uprising in Cattaro in February 1918, the Gäa was one of the main ships of the rebels.
In November 1918 she transported Czech and Austrian sailors from the navy, which had since been taken over by the South Slav National Council , to Fiume and Pola , where the Italians confiscated the former express steamer.
Last use
As San Giusto , she made one last trip for the Cosulich Line from Trieste via Naples to New York in January 1921 . It turned out that the hull of the ship was in poor condition.
No further missions were made and in 1923-24 the ship was demolished at the Breda company in Trieste. Reports of trips to South America are unconfirmed.
literature
- Arnold Kludas : The German Schnelldampfer II. The "Augusta Victoria" class . In: German Shipping Archive . Volume 4 (1981), ISSN 0343-3668 , pp. 93-108.
- Arnold Kludas: German ocean passenger ships 1850 to 1895 . Transpress, Berlin 1983, pp. 82-83.
- Arnold Kludas: The History of German Passenger Shipping 1850 to 1990 . Ernst Kabel Verlag, 1986.
- Arnold Kludas: Pleasure Trips to the Sea, Volume 1: 1889-1939 . Convent Verlag, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-934613-21-7 , pp. 21-28.
- Herbert Kuke : Helgoland course: a history of the seaside resort, the seaside resort service and the seaside resort ships since 1829. Verlag Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg 1974, ISBN 3-7979-1839-9 .
- Bernhard Gomm: The Russian Warships 1856–1917, Volume VI: Auxiliary Cruisers, Avisos, Yachts, Appendix: The Voluntary Fleet. Self-published, Wiesbaden 1996
Web links
- Report on the ship with travel data and a. (English)
- Johannes Gerhardt: Albert Ballin , Hamburg University Press, Hamburg 2009, as an online edition
- Russian article on the CV and the use as an auxiliary cruiser
Individual evidence
- ↑ Paddle steamer with two chimneys, 462 GRT, 70.4 m long, 800 HP, 12 kn, 530 day guests, built in Glasgow in 1866 as Albert Victor , service on the Thames , February 1870 acquisition by HAPAG, renamed Helgoland , from 1872 Blankenese , also Helgoland and Lower Elbe service, sold for demolition in September 1912.
- ↑ Hamburg America Line , Norway Heritage website, excerpts from an advertising brochure 1896
- ^ Image of Prince Bismarck
- ↑ Article on the historic beacon over Sandy Hook Bay in the Engl. Wikipedia
- ↑ A LIBERTY BELL FOR THE BISMARCK
- ↑ List of some crossings and picture
- ↑ Report on the travels of prominent Americans ( Memento of the original from January 11, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Pictures of the Gäa with submarine
