SMS Gazelle (1859)

SMS Gazelle

Ship data flag  Prussia North German Confederation German Empire     Ship type Covered corvette class Arcona class Shipyard Royal Shipyard , Gdansk building-costs 588,900 thalers Launch December 19, 1859 Commissioning May 15, 1862 Whereabouts Broken down in 1906

Ship dimensions and crew length 71.95 m ( Lüa ) 63.55 m ( KWL ) width 13.0 m Draft Max. 6.35 m displacement Construction: 1,928 t Maximum: 2,391 t   crew 380 men

Machine system machine 4 suitcase boiler 2-cylinder steam engine Machine performance 1,320 hp (971 kW) Top speed 12.0 kn (22 km / h) propeller 1 double-leaf ∅ 4.8 m

Rigging and rigging Rigging Full ship Number of masts 3 Sail area 2200 m²

Armament 6 × 68 pounder guns 20 × 36 pounder guns from 1870: 17 × 15.0 cm L / 22 Rk (1,692 shots)

SMS Gazelle was a warship of the Prussian Navy , then the Navy of the North German Confederation and later the Imperial Navy . In terms of ship type, she was a covered corvette of the Arcona class and, together with the Arcona , the type ship of this class, was part of its first construction lot.

The Gazelle was built at the Royal Shipyard in Gdansk and was launched on December 19, 1859. The commissioning took place due to machine damage on May 15, 1862. It was 73 meters long, almost 13 meters wide and had a draft of a good 6.5 meters. She reached a maximum speed of 13.5  knots . The armament of the Gazelle initially consisted of six 68-pounder guns and twenty 36-pounders, from 1870 onwards of seventeen ring cannons with a caliber of 15 cm.

history

Foreign assignment

From 1862 to 1864 the Gazelle undertook a trip to East Asia to occupy the local naval station and to replace its sister ship Arcona . During this time, the future Admiral Guido Karcher served as a midshipman on board. Adolf Mensing wrote a detailed report about this trip . During this voyage, the Prussian-Japanese State Treaty was ratified on board the Gazelle in early 1864 . On February 23, 1864, the ship was recalled to Europe because of the German-Danish War , but the fighting was over before arrival. In the autumn of 1866, the gazelle was sent to the eastern Mediterranean and provided humanitarian aid in an earthquake on the island of Lesbos . In 1872 the gazelle was stationed in the West Indies together with the SMS Vineta and a. German economic interests come true in Haiti .

In 1872 the Gazelle was commanded under the flagship , the tank frigate SMS Friedrich Carl, to the Reichsgeschwader , which was to carry out a circumnavigation of the world planned to strengthen the reputation of the German Empire founded in 1871 from 1872 to 1874 . The trip was planned over the West Indies and around South America to East Asia. These plans were then rejected on March 10, 1873 in Havana because of the outbreak of the Third Carlist War through the establishment of the First Spanish Republic . The Gazelle returned to Europe with the other ships with the exception of the new West India stationary Albatross and arrived back in Kiel on May 3, 1873. As a result, the Imperial Shipyard Danzig carried out a basic repair on the ship. The ship then served as the flagship of the German squadron off the Spanish coast.

Picture of a Timorese warrior marked “Exped. SMS Gazelle "

Research trip

From June 21, 1874 to April 28, 1876, the Gazelle undertook an almost two-year and 48,797 nautical-mile expedition under the command of the later Vice Admiral Georg Freiherr von Schleinitz , which it took from Kiel along the west coast of Africa to the Cape of Good Hope the Kerguelen , to Mauritius , into the South Seas, through the Strait of Magellan and across the Azores back to Kiel. For this expedition, the armament was cut in half and living and working rooms were created on the battery deck for scientific work. The expedition primarily served to research the soil profiles of the South Atlantic and the major ocean currents at the equator and near New Guinea . In addition, the zoologist Theophil Studer , the ship's doctor Friedrich Carl Naumann and the assistant doctor Carl Hüesker undertook extensive zoological, botanical and anthropological research. In addition, the Gazelle brought an astronomical expedition led by Karl Börgen to observe the transit of Venus on the Kerguelen and then to Mauritius. Other members of the expedition were the director of the Prague observatory, Ladislaus Weinek , deputy head of the astronomical expedition, the astronomer Arthur Wittstein , the lieutenant captain and later rear admiral Franz Strauch , the lieutenant captain and later admiral Felix von Bendemann , the later rear admiral Conrad Dietert , the chamber photographer H. Bobzin and the mechanic Carl Krille.

During her stay in the Pacific Bismarck Archipelago , the gazelle surveyed the natural harbor Blanchebucht in the northeast of the island of New Britain (New Britain, formerly New Pomerania) in August 1875 . On this occasion it was recognized that the eastern part of New Britain is a peninsula, accordingly it was named after the ship as the " Gazelle Peninsula ". This name has been preserved to this day ( English Gazelle Peninsula ). The passage between New Ireland and the island of Dyaul is also called the Gazelle Channel ( English Gazelle Channel ).

The entire Bismarck Archipelago was a German protected area from 1885 to 1899 and belonged to the German New Guinea colony from 1899 to 1919 .

Sixteen crew members died during the voyage due to illness or accident and the company thus had a relatively high mortality rate.

Whereabouts

After her return in 1876, the Gazelle served as a training ship for machinists and stokers as well as a fisheries protection ship . It was deleted from the list of warships in 1884 and then served as a residential hulk in Wilhelmshaven until it was dismantled in 1906 .

literature

• Adolf Mensing : On board the GAZELLE to Yokohama. A Prussian naval officer remembers . Edited and edited by Horst Auerbach. Hinstorff Verlag, Rostock 2000, ISBN 3-356-00883-8 .
• 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 , p. 63.
• Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 3 : Ship biographies from the Elbe to Graudenz . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen 1980, p. 175-182 .
• Volker Hartmann: Medical characteristics during the research trip of the covered corvette SMS Gazelle around the world in the years 1874–1876. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 13, 1995, pp. 371-390.

Web links

Commons : SMS Gazelle  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Ralph Anton: SMS Gazelle. In: deutsche-schutzgebiete.de , Blankenhain 2000. Retrieved on August 10, 2013.
• Thomas Menzel: The Imperial Navy and the Passage of Venus from 1874. In: bundesarchiv.de , June 15, 2013. Retrieved on August 10, 2013.
• Hydrographic Office of the Reichs-Marine-Amt (Ed.): The research trip SMS “Gazelle” in the years 1874 to 1876 under the command of the Captain of the Sea Baron von Schleinitz , Mittler, Berlin 1889 (edoc.hu-berlin.de). Accessed August 10, 2013:
  • Part 1: The travelogue , 1889
  • Part 2: Physics and Chemistry , 1888
  • Part 3: Zoology and Geology , 1889
  • 4th part: botany , 1889
  • Part 5: Meteorology , 1890

Footnotes

1. ↑ FL Herbig (ed.), 1867: Die Grenzboten (magazine for politics and literature) , 26th year, part 3, 1867, page 242.
2. ^ Adolf Mensing: On board the GAZELLE to Yokohama. A Prussian naval officer recalls , ed. vu edit v. Horst Auerbach. Hinstorff, Rostock 2000. ISBN 3-356-00883-8
3. ↑ Willi A. Boelcke: This is how the sea came to us: the Prussian-German Navy in Übersee 1822 to 1914 , Ullstein Verlag, 1981, p. 299
4. ↑ Department for War History of the Great General Staff (ed.): The German-Danish War 1864 . 2 volumes and map volume, 1886/1887. Reprint edition 2014 by Verlag Rockstuhl: Volume 1 ISBN 3867776563 , Volume 2, page 56. ISBN 3867776571 , map volume ISBN 3867777039
5. ↑ FL Herbig (ed.), 1867: Die Grenzboten (magazine for politics and literature) , 26th year, part 3, 1867, page 242.
6. ^ Volker Hartmann: Medical characteristics during the research trip of the covered corvette SMS Gazelle around the world in the years 1874–1876. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 13, 1995, pp. 371-390; here: p. 371.
7. ^ Hydrographic Office of the Reich Marine Office (ed.): The research trip SMS "Gazelle" in the years 1874 to 1876: under the command of Captain See Freiherrn von Schleinitz. Volume 1: First part: The travel report. Mittler, Berlin, 1889, p. 11.
8. ↑ Axel Wiese: The German Kerguelen-Venus Expedition 1874. In Frisian Homeland , number 11, June 29, 2012 (supplement to the Anzeiger für Harlingerland ).
9. ^ Hydrographic Office of the Reich Marine Office (ed.): The research trip SMS "Gazelle" in the years 1874 to 1876: under the command of Captain See Freiherrn von Schleinitz. Volume 1: First part: The travel report. Mittler, Berlin, 1889, p. 240.
10. ↑ keyword Djaul. In: Heinrich Schnee (Ed.): German Colonial Lexicon. Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1920, Volume I, p. 469 ( online ).
11. ^ Volker Hartmann: Medical characteristics during the research trip of the covered corvette SMS Gazelle around the world in the years 1874–1876. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 13, 1995, pp. 371-390; here: p. 387.