SMS Augusta
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SMS Augusta was a corvette (so-called smooth-deck corvette) of the Prussian Navy , which was taken over into the Imperial Navy when the Empire was founded in 1871 . In 1884 she was reclassified as a cruiser corvette . It sank in a cyclone in 1885 .
CV and whereabouts
The Confederate States had ordered two ships for use in the Civil War from L'Arman Frères in Bordeaux . In order to disguise this and to prevent international entanglements, the ships were built under the (apparently Japanese) names Yeddo and Osakka . The actual name of the Yeddo would have been Mississippi . The delivery was due to the personal intervention of Emperor Napoleon III. prevented, who wanted to avoid French involvement in the war.
When the delivery to the client was no longer possible, the ships were purchased by the Kingdom of Prussia on May 13, 1864 during the German-Danish War . The Yeddo was commissioned as Augusta , named after the Prussian queen and wife of Wilhelm I Augusta , and the Osakka as Victoria . However, the Augusta did not arrive in the North Sea until July 1864, after the end of the war, and remained on duty until spring 1865 to brief the crew.
Use on the West Indian Station (1867–1868)
Although the limited resources of the Prussian Navy did not actually allow a permanent stationing of a ship in the West Indies , the Foreign Office and the Navy Ministry had to respond to urgent requests for the protection of German residents and representations of the Hanseatic cities from 1867 onwards. The requests concerned Mexico , on the one hand , where both the Imperial Maximilian and the liberal rulers put pressure on German merchants, and on the other, Barranquilla in Colombia and Venezuela , where revolutionary turmoil allegedly endangered German trade. Roon refused the permanent stationing of a ship in the Navy Ministry initially due to a lack of capacity, but assured the temporary dispatch of the Augusta to the Caribbean, which the Foreign Ministry agreed to. Under her commandant Franz Kinderling , the corvette was put into service for the West Indies on August 27, 1867 for the winter of 67/68.
The main area of operation should be the Gulf of Mexico . Since the now new Mexican government under Benito Juárez had not yet been recognized by Prussia (or by the German Confederation ), Kinderling was recommended to deal with the new Mexican rulers more carefully but amicably, the government should be recognized as a fact in dealings with the authorities . The destination was Veracruz . Kinderling was free to choose the other ports to be called.
In addition to the request of the Foreign Ministry, Kinderling received from the Navy itself through Prince Adalbert the further order to carry out preliminary investigations for the possible establishment of a Prussian naval base in a little-known bay called Limón on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica . The background to this was the efforts of a former Prussian national and now Costa Rican State Councilor Estreber (alias Friedrich E. Streber) who was considered obscure and corresponded with Bismarck in 1866. Bismarck reacted cautiously and handed over the correspondence to the Navy Ministry. This gave Prince Adalbert and Roon the opportunity to return to Estreber's offer as a result of Augusta's trip .
Only after numerous delays of a technical nature did the corvette reach its area of operations in March 1868. This began the presence of the (north) German navy on the West Indian naval station .
After brief visits to Venezuela and Colombia, the Augusta called Aspinwall on April 1, and ten days later the Bay of Limón, today's Puerto Limón . To negotiate with the President of Costa Rica, Castro , Kinderling, accompanied by an Indian guide and some crew members of the Augusta , set out on the journey to San José on April 17, 1868 , which the group reached through the jungle by mule and canoe on April 24 . Kinderling met with President Castro on April 25, but negotiations with the Costa Rican government were non-binding. Kinderling himself assumed that out of consideration for the USA, a land assignment to a private company, but not to a foreign government, would be possible. From May 7th to 9th, 1868, the Germans rode to Puntarenas, accompanied by a Costa Rican officer, and visited the San Lucas Island in the Gulf of Nicoya , which was thought to be suitable for a naval base, by boat . After his return via Aspinwall, where the Augusta was waiting for him in the meantime, Kinderling sailed north again to resume his actual mission of protecting the Germans in Mexico. On May 30, 1868, the Augusta reached Veracruz, but the authorities refused to communicate. In the roadstead of Sacrificios he received the recall order (for budget reasons) of April 30th. The Augusta returned to Europe via New Orleans and entered Kiel on July 20, 1868 .
Trade war in the Franco-Prussian War
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In the Franco-Prussian War , the Prussian Navy planned to start the cruiser war against French arms and ammunition deliveries. The Augusta then put into service on October 26, 1870 and, manned by the experienced crew of the nymph , ran from Danzig to Kiel. Corvette Captain Johannes Weickhmann was in command . The deployment order was delayed because Bismarck initially feared that the cruiser war would disrupt relations with Great Britain and the United States , but was ultimately changed. Logically, Augusta left Kiel on December 12, 1870.
She circumnavigated the British Isles under the flag of a merchant ship and met in Castletownbere on December 22nd . There the Prussian naval flag was set and the coal stocks from a German steamship were added. On the night of December 25th, the Augusta left Ireland in search of merchant ships illegally transporting weapons from the United States to France. Captain Weickhmann, who assumed that such ships would be unloaded in Brest, began to patrol off the island of Ouessant , west of the port. The next day, the Augusta crew inspected two neutral ships, found no contraband and allowed them to continue their voyage. Storms prevented the search for more ships for the next few days. On January 2, 1871 Find decided Weickhmann in hopes of ships with war material in the area off the Gironde estuary to patrol. Two days later, she stopped the French brig St. Marc , which was transporting food for the French army to Bordeaux . A naval cadet and five crew members boarded the ship, which was confiscated as a prize , and took the ship north around Scotland to a German port. Shortly afterwards, Augusta stopped the French barque Pierre Adolphe , which had also loaded food for the army. Another cadet and five sailors took the ship as a prize. On both ships, the French crews continued to operate the ships under the direction of the Prussian navy. On January 4, Augusta also stopped the French government's steamship SS Mars , which was carrying war weapons as cargo. Since the Augusta could not provide any more prize crew for the third ship, the ship's crew was captured and the ship sunk.
Since at this point the coal supplies were running low and the risk of encountering French warships increased due to her successes in the region, the Augusta sailed on to Cape Finisterre , where she inspected three neutral ships. On January 7th, she called at the Spanish port of Vigo to replenish her coal supply. However, the coal supply only began on 12 January and then met French warships, including the ironclad Héroïne that block the harbor and the Augusta holing it. The blockade was only lifted with the preliminary peace at Versailles on January 26th. Augusta left Vigo on February 7th and arrived in Wilhelmshaven on February 21st via a coal stop in Mandal . In the meantime, Pierre Adolphe's prize had dodged the French warships and reached the Norwegian coast. On February 13th she ran aground there and the crew was rescued by Norwegian fishermen. After the Frankfurt Peace Treaty was signed , the French crews were returned to France on board the St. Marc . Weickhmann received the Iron Cross 2nd class for the Augusta mission .
Further missions
On December 18, 1871, the Augusta was supposed to leave for another mission in the West Indies, but the voyage was canceled and on January 26, 1872 the ship was decommissioned for another overhaul. During this time their armament was replaced by more modern guns. After the work was completed in 1873, the Admiralty planned to send them to the Mediterranean in November that year, but that deployment was also canceled. She remained out of service until March 1, 1874 and was finally put back into service for another overseas mission to Central and South America. She left Wilhelmshaven on March 19 under the command of Corvette Captain Max von der Goltz. After arriving in their station area, Augusta began a tour of South American ports, including a stopover in Montevideo on January 5, 1875. The unrest in Spain during the Third Carlist War prompted the Admiralty to cancel the Augusta in the West Indies and the ship to the Spanish To send to the coast to protect German interests on the ground. She arrived there on January 29th. Within the next three months the situation calmed down, so that the presence of the gunboats Nautilus and Albatross was considered sufficient for the task. As a result, Augusta returned to the West Indies after a visit to Lisbon from May 5th to 25th. Augusta visited Haiti in July and then traveled on to Uruguay , where unrest made her presence necessary. She went to Colombia in August and September for the same reason . Her sister ship Victoria arrived on November 25 to replace her at the West Indian station. Augusta began her return journey to Germany and arrived in Wilhelmshaven on January 6, 1876. There it was decommissioned for another overhaul, which also included replacing its boiler.
On September 20, 1876, the Augusta was put back into service and the ship set out for the South Pacific on October 3. On March 25, 1877, the ship reached the port of Apia . The ship's commander and the German consul Weber there signed a trade agreement with the Samoan chiefs that guaranteed German merchants equal treatment with British and American traders. Augusta then went to Nuku'alofa on Tongatapu , the capital of Tonga . The ship stayed there from April 4-11. When Augusta returned to Apia, she was ordered to transfer to the East Asian station. On February 21, 1878, the ship left Apia and joined the two gunboats on the Chinese coast, Nautilus and Cyclop . The three ships were tasked with enforcing trade deals with the Chinese government. Augusta's stay at the station was short-lived and after the arrival of her replacement, the corvette Leipzig , she left Chinese waters on July 5 to return to Germany. Her way home led across the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea and she arrived in Wilhelmshaven on October 14th. She was decommissioned two weeks later. From August 1879 to December 1881, the ship was overhauled and her rigging was reduced.
In the mid-1880s, the Augusta was completely out of date, also in terms of the space required for the crew. On April 14, 1885, the Augusta was therefore only put back into service to transport replacement crews to ships at foreign stations. On April 28th she embarked under the commandant Captain Falkow von Gloeden crews for the corvette Gneisenau and the gunboats Albatross and Hyäne and left Germany for Australia . It passed the Suez Canal and reached the island of Perim on May 31 , where it coaled for the further journey. She left on the night of June 1st to June 2nd. This was the last contact with the ship. She was supposed to be in Albany , Australia, on June 17 , but four weeks after leaving Perim, Augusta had still not arrived, leading to an investigation into the disappearance of the ship and its 222-strong crew. Merchant ships sailing the route Augusta was supposed to have taken did not report a sighting of the ship, and German warships from the East African station were dispatched to search for debris. However, no trace of the ship or its crew was found and on October 13th she was officially declared lost. The investigation revealed that a cyclone had apparently sunk the ship, which was not built strong enough to withstand a strong storm, in the Gulf of Aden . The cyclone also sank the French Aviso Renard along with a British and an Ottoman steamer. The loss of the Augusta was the third loss of a ship in German naval history after the schooner Frauenlob in 1860 and the corvette Amazone in 1861.
literature
- Mirko Graetz: Prince Adalbert's forgotten fleet. The North German Federal Navy 1867–1871. Lulu Enterprises Inc. Morrisville, NC (USA) 2008, ISBN 978-1-4092-2509-6 , pp. 46-48.
- Hans Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships. A mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present day . Volume 1. Mundus Verlag. Ratingen. 1993. ISBN 3-78220-237-6 .
- Victor Valois . From the experiences of an old naval officer. Potsdam [1907]
- 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. 47–60, ISBN 3-8258-6306-9
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hans Jürgen Hansen: The ships of the German fleets 1848-1945. Bechtermünz publishing house. Approved license issue for Weltbild Verlag GmbH. Augsburg. 1998. ISBN 3-86047-329-8 . Page 46.
- ↑ Gerhard Wiechmann: The Royal Prussian Navy in Latin America 1851 to 1867. An attempt at German gunboat policy , in: Sandra Carreras / Günther Maihold (ed.): Prussia and Latin America. In the field of tension between commerce, power and culture (Europa-Übersee Vol. 12), Münster 2004, pp. 48–49.
- ↑ Gerhard Wiechmann: The Royal Prussian Navy in Latin America 1851 to 1867. An attempt at German gunboat policy , in: Sandra Carreras / Günther Maihold (ed.): Prussia and Latin America. In the field of tension between commerce, power and culture (Europa-Übersee vol. 12), Münster 2004, p. 53.