Strasbourg class

Strasbourg class
The Salier , the first imperial mail steamer to Australia
Launch :	April 24, 1872 - January 9, 1875
Commissioning:	September 1872 - March 1876
Builders :	Caird & Company , Greenock Robert Steele & Company , Greenock Earle’s Shipbuilding and Engineering Company , Hull
Passengers :	67–216 cabin seats 500–900 tween deck seats
Crew :	80-110 men
Sister ships :	from Caird: Strasbourg, Moselle, Field Marshal Moltke, Minister Roon, Neckar, or from Steele: Braunschweig, Nuremberg from Earle's: Hohenzollern, Hohenstaufen, Salier, Habsburg
Technical specifications
Measurement :	3,020 - 3,158 GRT
Load capacity :	2,217 - 2,683 dw
Length registered :	106.67 - 107.49 m
Width :	11.89 - 12.23 m
Draft :
Machinery:	Compound steam engine
Number of screws :	1
Power:	1230-3250 PSi
Top speed:	11–13 kn
Whereabouts
three losses in 1882, 1887, 1892, 1896–1912 canceled

The Strasbourg class was a series of steamers operated by the North German Lloyd (NDL).

The NDL ordered the thirteen steamers of this class from three British shipyards after the Franco-German War in expectation of significant increases in traffic. For the first time, these steamers had straight steamer stems , but had a rigging on both masts. They were delivered to the NDL from 1872 to 1876. From 1886, ships of this class were also used as the first imperial mail steamers.

Commissioning or differences

The ships delivered by Caird & Company were intended for traffic to the USA and the three with the personal names for the route to the West Indies. The two ships ordered from Robert Steele & Company were to come into service to Baltimore and also belonged to the German-American subsidiary for this line founded with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad . The four ships to be delivered by Earle's Shipbuilding and Engineering were intended for a new service to South America.

The Strasbourg was the first ship to be delivered and began her maiden voyage to New York on September 3, 1872 , like six other steamers of the class after her. With the exception of Field Marshal Moltke , all ships of the class were used on this main route of the NDL. The last trip was probably made by the Braunschweig in January 1896.

The Strasbourg with a device for 60 passengers of first class, 120 II. Class and 900 in steerage led in October 1872 trip through Baltimore to New Orleans by and made up to August 1893 twelve New York trips. In addition, there were further trips to Baltimore and trips to South America from 1881.

In 1873 five more steamers of the class came into service. The Moselle began its maiden voyage to New York on January 4, 1873, and remained on this route until its tragic end in 1882. As the only ship in the series, she was only used on one route. In September, the Braunschweig came into service as the first ship delivered by Steele with a first mission to Baltimore and the Field Marshal Moltke to the West Indies and Panama . The Minister Roon and supplied by Earle Hohenzollern led their maiden trips in October and December by also to the West Indies.

In 1874 another five steamers were delivered. The Nuremberg delivered by Steele belonged to the Baltimore Line , like the Braunschweig delivered last year, and began its maiden voyage there on February 17th. Both ships had a smaller passenger facility with 34 seats in the first class, 33 in the second class and 600 seats in the tween deck, as the freight volume played a greater role on this line. Hohenstaufen , Neckar and Oder made their maiden voyages to New York and stayed on this line. The Oder had an engine of 3250 hp and reached 13 knots. The old engine on the type ship Strasbourg was swapped and replaced by a new compound engine of 1600 hp, which made 12 knots possible.

In 1874 it became clear that the NDL had more ships than it needed at the moment. The utilization of the West India service was so insufficient that traffic on this line was stopped. General Werder , appointed for this service, was therefore sent on her maiden voyage to Baltimore and then launched until 1877. The other two West India ships ( Field Marshal Moltke and Minister Roon ) were withdrawn from service and could be sold to England in the autumn of the following year.

In 1875, the penultimate ship , the Salier , came into service and the Habsburg was launched, both of which also came into service in New York. The two aforementioned West India ships were handed over to the British Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company in September .

South American Service

In 1876, the Hohenzollern was finally able to start the long-planned South America service to Brazil and the La Plata ports on March 1st. It was followed at monthly intervals by the Salians and the Habsburgs , who had started their maiden voyage to New York on March 11th. The fourth planned South American ship, the Hohenstaufen , was only used on this line in September 1881 and in November 1881 the Strassburg as well . The two-class equipment (142 1st class, 800 between deck passengers) of the South America steamers quickly proved to be too big and was reduced in favor of a larger freight offer. The 1st class cabins were expanded.

But soon older former Central America ships ( Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm from 1876, Count Bismarck (I) from 1877, then also Hanover (I), Frankfurt (I) and Cologne (I)) and ships of the Baltimore line came on the line ( Berlin (I) from 1879, then Ohio , Leipzig , Baltimore ) used as cargo ships.

In 1877, eleven ships of the class were in service with the NDL. Three ran unchanged on the South America service, the rest to New York or Baltimore. General Werder , which had been in suspension since 1874 , also served the New York route from March.

In 1878, the NDL split its South American route because of the Argentine quarantine regulations and only offered departures to Brazil and the ports on the Río de la Plata every 14 days. The German-American subsidiary for the Baltimore line was also dissolved and incorporated into the NDL. The outstanding event of the year was the attack on the Moselle on December 11th in Bremerhaven. The perpetrator, who shot himself after the explosion, brought a time fuse on board, which exploded prematurely. 81 people died and about the same number were seriously injured. The perpetrator was planning an insurance fraud and wanted to leave the ship in Southampton, and his bomb would then sink the ship.

In 1882 the focus was again on the Moselle . She received a new 3500 hp machine from John Elder & Company in Glasgow, which made 14 knots possible. The NDL tested whether it was possible to accelerate the old steamers and operate them with lower speed differences compared to the new express steamship Elbe built by Elder . However, this test ended prematurely. On July 2nd, the Moselle ran for the last time from Bremerhaven to New York. On the return voyage, she stranded at Lizard Point on August 9, 1882 and was the first steamer in the class to be lost.

Reichspostdampferlinien

In 1885 and 1886 the steamers were then prepared for use on the Reichspostdampferlinien to Australia and China. The German Reich had prescribed that new steamers had to be built in Germany for operation. But it was agreed that the existing steamers could be used for the time being. The Oder was the first German imperial mail steamer to sail to China on June 30, 1886. On July 14th, the Salier then opened the line to Australia, which was completely identical around Europe and through the Mediterranean to Aden . Only then did the path become different. The East Asia steamers ran to China via Ceylon and Malaya, while the Australian steamers called directly at Australia via a bunker station in the Chagos Archipelago .

After the Oder , Neckar , Nuremberg and finally Braunschweig started their way to China. The first two had the most powerful machines in their class with a maximum output of 3,250 hp. The other two had received two additional boilers before they were used on the Reichspostdampfer lines in Bremerhaven in 1886 and then had 2200 hp and could run 13 knots.

The Salier , which offered space for 70 passengers in first class, 110 in second class and 480 in the tween deck, followed Hohenzollern in August and Hohenstaufen and Habsburg .

When the mail steamer service opened, the Braunschweig made the first voyage on the branch line from Trieste to Port Said in July 1886.

From 1886 to 1899, Strasbourg- class steamers were used on the branch line from Hong Kong to Japan . First the General Werder until 1892, which also served as a reserve ship for the main line. It was followed by the Nürnberg , which had traveled to both China and Australia from 1886-1891. At the beginning of 1892 she had been deployed to Baltimore again. And in 1895 the modernized Hohenzollern followed , last deployed to North America.

In 1887 there was the first and only total loss on the Reichspostdampferlinie until 1914. The Oder , which started its third voyage on March 9, reached Shanghai on April 26, according to schedule . On her return journey she ran into a reef off Socotra on May 30, 1887 . While investigating the situation, a lifeboat capsized and the third officer and three sailors were killed. The British freighter Cyclop was able to recover the 61 passengers and the remaining 111 crew members and bring them to Aden the following day. The passengers came to Alexandria on an Italian steamer and the steamer Adler of the Mediterranean branch line brought some of them to Trieste . The crew returned to Bremerhaven with the following steamer Neckar .

In 1890/91 the Australian mail steamers were rebuilt one after the other at the Vulcan in Stettin and equipped with a new, modern triple expansion engine. The new machines were not supposed to increase the speed, but to reduce the consumption of coal, since they worked much more effectively. At the same time, the passenger facility was modified because it was too large and left the ships too little cargo space. Hohenzollern and Hohenstaufen now had space for 44 passengers in 1st class, 18th in 2nd class and 558 in the tween deck. The Salier and Habsburgs , which were then rebuilt , offered space for 63 passengers in the first class, 30 in the second class and 641 in the tween deck. The four ships returned to service in Australia and gradually withdrew from the mail steamer service in 1894.

Of the ships going to China, Nuremberg and Braunschweig were also used in Australia during the conversion phase.

In 1892 the NDL was able to trade in the reserve ship of the mail steamer line, the General Werder , when purchasing the steamer HH Meier . She became a British cruise ship and remained in service the longest of any ship in the class until 1912. The Nürnberg was used as a reserve ship and for the branch line to Japan until 1895 .

In 1893 the steamers Braunschweig , Neckar and Nürnberg left the postal service on the main line for good. The NDL not only used the three Prussian- class imperial mail steamers on these lines , but increasingly also, with the approval of the imperial government, the city-class steamers built in Great Britain .

Last missions

In January 1894 the Braunschweig was deployed eleven times to New York until 1896, during the year the Hohenzollern and the Salier and in 1895 the Habsburgs twice .

This year, ships of the Strasbourg class were also used on another line. On February 14, the Neckar began the first of a total of nine journeys on the Naples-New York line (last start on March 23, 1895), which was followed by the Braunschweig . Up until May 30, 1896, they made a few trips on this route. The ships were largely superfluous on the Reichspostdampferlinien because the Prinzen mail steamer came into service. After South America, the Strasbourg had been in service for years , most recently in January 1896.

In 1895, Habsburg and Salier returned to the South American service. On December 7, 1896, there was a terrible accident when the Salier went down in a storm off Villagarcía de Arosa with all 279 people on board.

Until this serious accident, only Hohenzollern , Hohenstaufen and Habsburg were left , of which only the Hohenzollern was still used on the Hong Kong-Japan line. The other two were launched in 1896 and sold for demolition in 1898.

With the sale of the Hohenzollern in Hong Kong in 1899, the last Strasbourg- class ship also disappeared from the service of the NDL.

The former Minister Roon served in Japan until 1901. The former General Werder , who had spent her first three years of service as a trailer, was only scrapped as the British cruise ship Midnight Sun in 1912.

Overview of the Strasbourg class

year	Surname	tonnage	shipyard	Status / fate
1872	Strasbourg (I)	3025 GRT	Caird & Co. Ltd. , Greenock	Sold for demolition in 1896
1872	Moselle (I)	3114 GRT	Caird & Co. Ltd., Greenock	1875 attack on the Moselle , stranded at Cap Lizard ( English Channel ) in 1882
1873	Braunschweig	3079 GRT	R. Steele & Co. Ltd., Greenock	September 1, 1873 North Atlantic service, July 13, 1886 1st mail steamer on the Trieste - Brindisi - Port Said branch , January 13, 1887, service as a mail steamer to East Asia ( Shanghai ), July 8, 1891 to Australia ( Sydney ), North Atlantic service again in January 1894 , Sold for demolition (Genoa) in 1896
1873	Field Marshal Moltke	3060 GRT	Caird & Co. Ltd., Greenock	Sold to P&O in 1875 , renamed Assam , sold to Nippon Yusen Kaisha in 1895 and renamed Kaijio Maru , canceled in 1899
1873	Minister Roon	3,066 GRT	Caird & Co. Ltd., Greenock	Sold to P&O in 1875 and renamed Siam , sold to Fukanaga Shoshichi in 1895 and renamed Yorihime Maru , canceled in Japan in 1902
1873	Hohenzollern (I)	3,092 GRT	Caird & Co. Ltd., Greenock	December 7, 1873 Maiden voyage from Bremen via Southampton to Panama , May 12, 1874 first voyage to New York (6 voyages), March 1, 1876 opening of a South America service, 1978 back on the North Atlantic, July 14, 1886 second mail steamer of the NDL to Australia, 1890 remodeling, 1895? on branch line Hong Kong - Japan, sold to Hong Kong in 1899, in 1900 to Russia Ussuri , stranded at Ikibsukishima on 5.1900
1874	Nuremberg (I)	3116 GRT	R. Steele & Co. Ltd., Greenock	February 17, 1874 North Atlantic service, August 25, 1886 third mail steamer of the NDL to East Asia, July 13, 1887 for the first time to Australia, 1892 to 1895 on the Hong Kong - Japan branch, sold for demolition in 1895
1874	Hohenstaufen	3090 GRT	Earle's SB & Eng. Co. Ltd., Hull	August 29, 1874 North Atlantic Service Bremen- Le Havre- New York (3 trips), from April 1880 also two trips via Christiania , 1881 also South America, January 26, 1887 on the post line to Australia, 1890 conversion, launched in May 1897, 1897 for cancellation sold
1874	Or (I)	3,158 GRT	Caird & Co. Ltd., Greenock	May 23, 1874 North Atlantic Service, June 30, 1886 first mail steamer of the NDL to East Asia, May 30, 1887 stranded near Socotra on its third voyage home, 4 dead
1874	Neckar (I)	3120 GRT	Caird & Co. Ltd., Greenock	April 17, 1874 North Atlantic service, July 28, 1886 second post steamer of the NDL to East Asia, 1887 also service to Australia, February 14, 1894 Naples - New York, 1895 North Atlantic service, 1896 demolition
1874	General Werder	3020 GRT	Caird & Co. Ltd., Greenock	September 16, 1874 North Atlantic Service, launched 1874–79, reserve ship Reichspostlinien, 1887–1892 on branch line Hong Kong - Japan, traded in 1892 for the new HH Meier building , 1893 to Albion Steamship Co; renamed Midnight Sun for cruises to Norway, including trips to North Africa and the Mediterranean, chartered by an American women's group in 1899 and made available to the British as a hospital ship during the Boer War under the name Princess of Wales ; from 1901 again cruises as Midnight Sun , 1912 abandoned
1875	Salier	3,084 GRT	Earle's SB & Eng. Co. Ltd., Hull	8 September 1875 North Atlantic service, 1876 also South America, 14 July 1886 first mail steamer of the NDL to Australia, 1891 conversion, December 1894 again Atlantic service, 8 December 1896 sunk off Cabo Correbudo (Spain) (279 dead)
1876	Habsburg	3,094 GRT	Earle's SB & Eng. Co. Ltd., Hull	March 11, 1876 North Atlantic service, May 1876 also South America, February 23, 1887 on the postal line to Australia, 1891 reconstruction, October 34, 1894 last trip to Australia, April 1895 again Atlantic service, March 10, 1896 last deployment to South America, 1898 sold for demolition

literature

• Noel RP Bonsor: North Atlantic Seaway. An Illustrated History of the Passenger Services Linking the Old World with the New. T. Stephenson & Sons, Prescott (Lancashire) 1955.
• Noel RP Bonsor: South Atlantic Seaway. An Illustrated History of the Passenger Lines and Liners from Europe to Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. Brookside Publications, Jersey 1983, ISBN 0-905824-06-7 .
• Arnold Kludas : The History of German Passenger Shipping. Volume 1: The pioneering years from 1850 to 1890. Ernst Kabel Verlag, Hamburg 1986, ISBN 3-8225-0037-2 ( publications of the German Maritime Museum 18).
• Arnold Kludas: The ships of the North German Lloyd. Volume 1: 1857 to 1919. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1991, ISBN 3-7822-0524-3 .
• Christine Reinke-Kunze: History of the Reichs-Post-Steamers. Connection between the continents 1886–1914. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1994, ISBN 3-7822-0618-5 .
• Claus Rothe: German ocean passenger ships. 1896 to 1918 . Steiger Verlag, Moers 1986, ISBN 3-921564-80-8 .
• Otto J. Seiler: Trip to Australia. Verlag ES Mittler & Sohn, Herford 1988, ISBN 3-8132-0270-4 .

Web links

• Image of the Salians
• Technical data and references to further literature ( Memento from August 17, 2000 in the Internet Archive )
• Summary of construction dates and brief description of the Salian disaster
• Excerpt from the Salier timetable in Norway Heritage, others are also available there
• HUNDREDS OF LIVES LOST (Report of the sinking in the New York Times, December 12, 1896)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ image u. History of Field Marshal Moltke
2. ↑ History of operations of the Assam ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 74 kB) 
3. ↑ History of the Siamese mission ( Memento of the original from March 4, 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. (PDF; 43 kB) 
4. ^ History of General Werder