Kōtetsu
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|
|---|---|
 Kōtetsu as CSS Stonewall ca.1865 |
|
| Overview | |
| Type | Aries ship |
| Shipyard |
L'Arman Frères, Bordeaux |
| Order | 1862 |
| Keel laying | 1863 |
| Launch | June 21, 1864 |
| delivery | July 10, 1865 |
| Commissioning | October 25, 1864 |
| Decommissioning | January 23, 1888 |
| Whereabouts | Wrecked in 1888 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
Construction: 1358 t |
| length |
KWL : 50.48 m |
| width |
9.92 m |
| Draft |
4.94 - 5.02 m |
| drive |
|
| speed |
9.5 kn |
| Range |
1200 nm at 8 kn |
| Armament |
|
| Rigging |
Brigg |
| Sail area |
740 m² |
| stock |
95 tons of coal |
| Armor |
Material: wrought iron |
Kōtetsu ( Japanese 甲 鉄 , dt. "Armor"), later renamed Azuma ( 東 , "east"), was the first ironclad of the Imperial Japanese Navy . It was built in France in 1864 for the Navy of the Confederate States of America and was taken over by the United States of America in February 1869. Kōtetsu was a steel armored Aries ship . She played a crucial role in the May 1869 naval battle of Hakodate , which marked the end of the Boshin War and led to the success of the Meiji Restoration .
Her sister ship Cheops was sold to the Prussian Navy and put into service there as SMS Prinz Adalbert .
history
_Side.jpg)
The Kōtetsu was built under the name Sphynx at the L'Arman shipyard in Bordeaux for the Navy of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War .
In June 1863 the Confederate envoy John Slidell asked the French Emperor Napoleon III. during a private audience about the possibility of having ironclad ships built in France for the Confederate government. French law banned the equipment of warships of a conflicting party such as the Confederate States of America, but Slidell and Confederate agent James D. Bulloch were confident that the French Emperor would be better able to circumvent his own laws than the British government. Napoleon III agreed to the construction of the ships on condition that their destination be kept secret. The following month Bulloch signed a contract with Lucien Arman, a shipbuilder and personal confidante of the Emperor, to build two armored ramships that would be able to break the Union's naval blockade. To avoid suspicion, the guns were made in England and the ships were christened Cheops and Sphynx to confirm rumors that the ships were being built for the Egyptian Navy.
Before the extradition, an employee of the shipyard visited the US representation in Paris and handed over documents that uncovered the illegal equipment of the ships. The French government stopped sales under pressure from the United States, but L'Arman was able to illegally sell the ships to Prussia and Denmark, who faced each other in the German-Danish War . The Cheops was sold to Prussia and put into service as SMS Prinz Adalbert , while the Sphynx of Denmark was named Stærkodder .
With a Danish crew, the ship left Bordeaux on June 21, 1864 for a test and transfer voyage, while the final negotiations between the Danish Ministry of the Navy and L'Arman were taking place. Since there was no agreement on the final price and a compensation payment from L'Arman for the delayed delivery, L'Arman broke off negotiations on October 30, 1864 and withdrew from the sale. The Danish government refused to surrender the ship, justifying this with the confusion during the negotiations. The ship reached Copenhagen in November 1864, when the German-Danish War had already ended. Numerous deficiencies were found during the transfer trip. The armor was poorly fastened and the ship only reached a top speed of 10.8 knots instead of 12 knots. The Danish Ministry of the Navy then refused to accept the ship and the ship left Copenhagen on January 6, 1865. The shipyard's withdrawal from the purchase was not a misfortune. It was crucial that the ship was outside France and it could now be sold to the Confederate States of America as originally planned.
CSS stonewall
At the end of January 1865, the ship was taken over at sea by a Confederate crew under the command of Captain TJ Page, CSN and put into service as CSS Stonewall .
The arrival of the "mighty" Stonewall in America was feared by the northern states and several ships, including the USS Kearsarge and the USS Sacramento , tried to intercept it. After leaving Quiberon , the stonewall leaked and Captain Page went to Spain to do repairs. In February and March, the USS Sacramento and USS Niagara shadowed the Stonewall , which was anchored off A Coruña , from a distance . On March 24, 1865, the Stonewall set sail and challenged the US ships, which then turned. Captain Page drove to Lisbon in order to cross the Atlantic and attack Port Royal , Major General Sherman's base during the South Carolina campaign.
The Stonewall reached Nassau on May 6, 1865 and drove from there to Havana , where Page learned of the end of the war. He decided to hand the ship over to the Spanish captain general of Cuba for the sum of $ 16,000. The ship was later given over to the United States for a refund of the same amount. It was temporarily taken out of service until it was offered for sale to the Japanese government of the Tokugawa Shogunate .
Kōtetsu
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The Kōtetsu was to be delivered to the Tokugawa Shogunate in 1868 as part of the ongoing modernization of the army and navy. $ 30,000 was already paid and the remaining $ 10,000 was to be paid on delivery. When the Boshin War broke out between the shogunate and pro-imperial forces, the western states behaved neutrally, called back their military advisers and stopped the supply of war materials. The Kōtetsu reached Japan under the Japanese flag, but the US envoy Robert B. van Valkenburg ordered the American flag to be raised again.
Kōtetsu was delivered to the new Meiji government in February 1869 . She was immediately put into service and moved with seven other steam-powered warships to Hokkaidō to fight the forces of the shogun, who founded the Republic of Ezo there . During the naval battle of Miyako on March 25, 1869, the Kōtetsu fought off a nocturnal attempt at capturing by the Kaiten with the Gatling on board .
She then took part in the invasion of Hokkaidō and the naval battle of Hakodate .
In 1871 the Kōtetsu received new guns and was renamed Azuma . She was then used as a guard ship and removed from the fleet list in 1888. The last use was as a depot and barracks ship.
As the only ironclad in Japanese waters, the Kōtetsu was considered a well-armed ship with casemate guns and was viewed as "impressive" and "unsinkable". She could withstand direct hits and prevail against any wooden warship.
Thus, only ten years after the launch of the first deep-sea ironclad, the French La Gloire , Japan was in possession of an advanced ironclad.
Individual evidence
- ^ Register of ships of the US Navy, 1775–1990: major combatants Karl Jack Bauer, Stephen S. Roberts p. 47, limited preview in Google book search
- ^ Case and Spencer, pp. 429-33.
- ^ Case and Spencer, pp. 435-9.
- ^ Case and Spencer, pp. 437-9.
- ^ Letter from William H. Seward to Gideon Wells, July 18, 1865.
literature
- Hakodate no bakumatsu - ishin . France shikan Brunet no sketch 100-may (函館 の 幕末 ・ 維新: フ ラ ン ス 士官 ブ リ ュ ネ の ス ケ ッ チ 100 枚 ). Chūō Kōronsha, Tokyo 1988, ISBN 4-12-001699-4 .
- J. Thomas Scharf: History of the Confederate States Navy from its organization to the surrender of its last vessel . Rogers and Sherwood, New York 1887, reprinted: The Fairfax Press, 1977.
- Lynn M. Case, Warren F. Spencer: The United States and France. Civil War Diplomacy . University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 1970.
- R. Steen Steensen, Vore panserskibe , ( Marinehistorisk Selskab, 1968)