SMS Arcona (1885)
 |
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
.svg){kind=small}
SMS Arcona was a cross chose Vette of Alexandrine class in the mid-1880s for the Imperial Navy was built. It was named after Cape Arkona on the island of Rügen , after which a corvette of the Imperial Navy was named. Besides the type ship SMS Alexandrine, she was the only other ship of the class.
The ships of the Alexandrine class were commissioned in the mid-1880s to expand the German foreign cruiser fleet and were supposed to serve as fleet scouts and on extended missions in overseas areas of interest of the German Empire . The keel laying of Arcona was in 1881, on May 7, 1885, was launching place and on 1 December 1886 was followed by the entry into service. The ship's main armament was a battery of ten 15 cm ring cannons and a complete sailing rig to supplement the steam engine that was also available on long missions overseas.
In order to fulfill her task, the Arcona completed a seven-year trip abroad, which took her to Central and South America, Africa, around Cape Horn to Asia, to the Persian Gulf and then back to Europe. During this time, the ship was used as a stationary or as part of German cruiser squadrons overseas. She returned to Germany in early 1899 and was decommissioned in June 1899. In January 1902 the ship was renamed Mercury and scrapped in 1906.
history
Construction and commissioning
The Arcona was in 1881 at the Imperial Shipyard in Gdansk laid down on and on 7 May 1885 a side slipway from the left stack . The Arcona was the first ship in Germany to use this method of launching.
Eleven days later, the ship was formally christened by Vice Admiral Eduard von Jachmann , and the ship was then equipped and armed. On December 1, 1886, it moved to Kiel and Wilhelmshaven for the first sea trials . The trials ended on 25 January 1887. The Arcona the reserve was initially assigned, because at that time after the defensive strategy of General Leo von Caprivi , chief of the Imperial Admiralty , the German colonies by the smaller gunboats should be protected, while the larger warships were kept in reserve or some were assigned to a so-called "permanent cruiser squadron" for crisis management.
The Arcona remained in reserve for a total of five years until it was put into service on April 20, 1892 to secure German interests in East Asia. For this planned mission, the ship was placed under the German East Asian Cruiser Division.
Assignments abroad until 1893
Before it could leave Germany, however, the ship was commanded as a stationary to Venezuela , where riots threatened German companies in the country. Under her commandant Paul Hofmeier, she left Wilhelmshaven on May 4th and arrived in La Guaira on June 9th . She then ran to Macuto , where attacks on German nationals had taken place. The presence of the ship forced a formal apology from the Venezuelan government. By mid-October the riots were over and Arcona left the area to join the permanent cruiser squadron that was stationed in East African waters at the time. On the way, she visited several islands in the Caribbean , including Trinidad , Grenada , Barbados and St. Vincent . She crossed the Atlantic and stopped after a stay in Gibraltar in Naples , where the captain left the ship due to illness. Under his successor, Arcona went on via Port Said and the Suez Canal to Aden and from there to Zanzibar , where she joined the cruiser squadron on February 6, 1893. At that time, her sister ship Alexandrine and the cruiser frigate Leipzig also belonged to the association.
Arcona's service time in this squadron was short-lived, as the association was disbanded in Cape Town on April 6th . The Arcona was then sent to German South West Africa to transport field artillery for the German protection force there. She reached Walvis Bay , the small British enclave on the coast of German South West Africa, to unload the guns on April 10th.
In mid-May, the Arcona left African waters to cross the Atlantic again. Her destination was Rio de Janeiro on June 1, 1893, and then Montevideo on June 25 , where she stayed until July 8. On July 27, she met her sister ship Alexandrine again in São Francisco do Sul . On September 18, 1893, the two ships from Buenos Aires arrived in Rio de Janeiro again, where insurgent marines in the so-called Revolta da Armada ( revolt of the fleet ) put on a coup against the Brazilian President Floriano Peixoto . The ships stayed in the city until January to protect foreign citizens and properties from the insurgents and to provide humanitarian aid. For example, the ships secured the release of the seized by the rebels on November 3, Hamburg Süd - steamer SS Santos and evacuated on 9 December German passengers from the Argentine steamer Paranahiva , who was shot at the expiry of the rebels and applied. Due to an outbreak of yellow fever and to give the crews much-needed vacation, the Arcona returned to Buenos Aires on January 31, 1894. She and Alexandrine were accompanied there by Corvette Marie , who had meanwhile arrived . The three ships sailed back to Rio de Janeiro on April 22nd and then on to Cabo Frio .
Service in the East Asian Cruiser Division
When tensions between China and Japan over Korea increased at the beginning of 1894 , the ships were relocated to East Asia as the "successors" of the permanent cruiser squadron as the so-called East Asian Cruiser Division . On March 7th, they circled Cape Horn and reached the Pacific Ocean . Storm damage forced Arcona to go to Valparaíso for repairs . After completing the work, the three corvettes met again on July 13 outside Callao . The three ships remained there until August 15, while in the meantime the first Sino-Japanese war had broken out to protect German interests during the riots that continued in Peru due to the presidency of Andrés Avelino Cáceres . The ships only crossed the Pacific after this mission was completed and did not reach Yokohama until September 26th . Arcona then drove alone to Shanghai and then to Tschifu . On November 25, the new commander of Rear Admiral Paul Hoffmann's division embarked in Shanghai on the Arcona , which thus served as the flagship. The ship ran into the Yellow Sea, where the Chinese and Japanese forces were operating. In mid-December she returned to Shanghai for maintenance work and was replaced there on February 14, 1895 as the division's flagship by the cruiser II. Classe Irene .
For the remainder of the war, which ended in April, Arcona and the division's other ships patrolled the Chinese coast individually. China's defeat led to unrest against foreigners in the country and so the association remained on the ground beyond the end of the war to prevent attacks on Europeans.
In December, the Arcona briefly sailed to Manila , where unrest against the Spanish colonial government threatened other Europeans in the country. She then returned to China, where on July 27 and 28 she helped salvage the gunboat Iltis , which ran aground on July 23, 1896 in a typhoon near Cape Shantung ( Shandong ) near Rongcheng and had to be given up. In early November, the unrest in the Philippines continued to increase, necessitating the return of Arcona there. Along with contingents of British and French warships, the Arcona also dispatched a division of marines ashore to protect the European consulates in Manila. Irene arrived on November 28th to replace Arcona on site.
In June 1897, was Arcona again part of the now Rear Admiral Otto von Diederichs commanded the East Asian Cruiser Division . In addition to Arcona , the association also included Irene , her sister ship Prinzess Wilhelm and the tank frigate SMS Kaiser as a flagship. In addition, the small cruiser Cormoran was on site as a stationary . The association first carried out target exercises in front of Tschifu and then Diederichs dispatched the Arcona to carry out measurements on the island of Sakhalin . In October, Arcona went to Shanghai again for maintenance. It was still being repaired when the East Asia Division occupied the Kiautschou Bay for the German Reich on November 14 by means of a concession . Arcona arrived there three days later and took part in a landing corps to protect the area from a feared Chinese attack. The attack did not take place, however, and the occupation of the bay proceeded without incident. As a result, more warships were sent to East Asia, so that the division was raised to a full squadron . Arcona and the other ships of the original association thus became the 1st division , while the three new ships together with the Cormoran formed the 2nd division .
Arcona then did duty as a guard ship in the harbor and was dispatched in July 1898 to survey the Caroline and Mariana Islands in the Central Pacific. During this operation, she stopped in Pohnpei to punish locals who had murdered a crew member of a German merchant schooner. She finished this mission in October and returned to the Philippines to replace Princess Wilhelm who was stationed there and who had been stationed there to protect German nationals after the Spanish-American War at the beginning of the year. However, she only stayed there a month and was replaced by the Irene in November .
On November 15, 1898, the emperors ran aground at Samsah Bay and Arcona and Cormoran were sent to provide assistance.
On January 31, 1899, the Arcona finally received the order to return to Germany. On her return trip she made a short tour of the Persian Gulf and stopped in Muscat , Basra , Bushehr and Bandar Lengeh . On May 27, 1899, after seven years in foreign service, the ship finally docked in Wilhelmshaven again.
Whereabouts
The Arcona was decommissioned on June 6th and assigned to the reserve in Kiel. On January 11, 1902, it was renamed Mercury so that its name could continue to be used on the small cruiser Arcona . The Mercur was then towed to Gdansk on August 13th, where it was used as a port ship with various tasks. On June 22, 1905, the ship was struck from the sea register and finally sold in 1906 for scrapping.
literature
- Hans Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships. A mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present day . Biographies, Volume 1. Mundus Verlag. Ratingen. 1993. ISBN 978 3 7822 0237 4 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Gerhard Wiechmann: The Royal Prussian Navy in Latin America 1851 to 1867. An attempt at German gunboat policy , in: Sandra Carreras / Günther Maihold (eds.): Prussia and Latin America. In the field of tension between commerce, power and culture (Europa-Übersee Vol. 12), Münster 2004, pp. 203–204, ISBN 3-8258-6306-9 .
- ^ Gerhard Wiechmann: The Royal Prussian Navy in Latin America 1851 to 1867. An attempt at German gunboat policy , in: Sandra Carreras / Günther Maihold (eds.): Prussia and Latin America. In the field of tension between commerce, power and culture (Europa-Übersee vol. 12), Münster 2004, p. 209, ISBN 3-8258-6306-9 .
- ^ Gerhard Wiechmann: The Royal Prussian Navy in Latin America 1851 to 1867. An attempt at German gunboat policy , in: Sandra Carreras / Günther Maihold (eds.): Prussia and Latin America. In the field of tension between commerce, power and culture (Europa-Übersee vol. 12), Münster 2004, p. 213, 84-173, ISBN 3-8258-6306-9 .
.svg){kind=small}