SMS Habicht (1879)
 SMS Habicht of the Imperial Navy |
|
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Type | Aviso (until 1881), gunboat (until 1884), cruiser (until 1893), again gunboat (until end of service) |
| Shipyard | |
| Keel laying | 1878 |
| Launch | May 13, 1879 |
| 1. Period of service |
.svg){kind=small}
|
| Commissioning | October 1, 1880 |
| Decommissioning | probably October 1905 |
| Whereabouts | Sold in 1906 to Hamburg-Harburg , scrapped |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
Construction: 840 t |
| length |
KWL : 53.8 m |
| width |
8.9 m |
| Draft |
3.52-4.18 m |
| crew |
6 officers and 121 men |
| drive |
|
| speed |
11.7 kn |
| Range |
1230 nm at 11 kn |
| Armament |
from 1882 onwards:
|
| Measurement (volume) |
|
| Shaft speed |
130 / min |
| stock |
100 tons of coal |
| Rigging | |
| Sail area |
847 m² |
The SMS Habicht was a gunboat of the Imperial Navy and from 1880 to 1905 was continuously active in foreign service. It was involved several times in punitive expeditions against indigenous peoples in the South Seas and Cameroon . In 1904 it was used to combat the Herero and Nama uprising in German South West Africa .
period of service
Australian station 1880–1882
From 1880 the gunboat served as a stationary on the Australian station in the South Pacific . The Habicht left its home port in Wilhelmshaven on October 13, 1880 and arrived in Melbourne on February 27, 1881 . Together with the sister ship SMS Möwe and SMS Hertha she took part in the world exhibition there.
An important task of the hawk was surveying. In the spring / summer of 1881 she was used by the German consul Otto Zembsch (1852-1922, later diplomat in Korea and Peru ) to prosecute murders of the German traders Studzinka and Theodor Kleinschmidt. The Hernsheim dealer Studzinka was allegedly killed by the worker Tom in the north of New Mecklenburg ; the background was unknown. Zembsch asked the commandant of the Habicht , Korvettenkapitän Franz Kuhn (1838–1890), to call at the coastal village of Tubtub and to demand that Tom be extradited. When the hawk reached the village, the residents fled. Kuhn then had the settlement set on fire and then fired some grenades into the ruins. On this the German historian Alexander Krug:
“In terms of international law, Zembsch and Kuhn were thus in a gray area, because at that time there was neither a German 'protected area' nor an 'Imperial letter of protection'. But morally, too, the attack was anything but justified. Because the alleged murderer Tom was not a member of the Tubtub village. Tom came from the Solomon Islands and was only accepted by the village. Possibly the residents did not know anything about his act. Zembschs justified the punitive action by stating that the German authority should not be undermined. "
Shortly afterwards, the Habicht went to the Bismarck Archipelago to investigate the murder of Kleinschmidt. Here the use of force was avoided and the clan leaders were warned against attacks on whites. According to Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz, the Habicht also carried out a punitive expedition to the Admiralty Islands in July 1881 , but Krug was unable to verify this on the basis of the official files in the Federal Archives-Military Archives .
In Egypt 1882
On the return journey to Germany in 1882, the Habicht received the order in La Valletta on April 1 to call at Egypt in order to protect German interests during the British-Egyptian War . On July 10th of the year she took German residents on board in the course of the bombing of Alexandria and reached Wilhelmshaven on October 27th, where she was decommissioned due to massive renovations.
As a stationary at the West African station, 1885–1905
On January 19, 1885, she returned to service as a stationary at the West African station and was integrated into the so-called West African squadron in March of that year off Cameroon . In November / December she visited several coastal towns in Cameroon and Togoland .
In March 1886 the ship was in Cape Town for overhaul. The stays in Cape Town also served the crews of the stationaries at the West African station for recreation, as Cameroon's malaria area and Duala were completely unsuitable as station ports. For this reason, the goshawk ran at the British island of Ascension in the same year . On 12./13. July 1886, due to local resistance to the colonial authorities, a 63-man landing corps was deployed against the Duala . For this purpose, dinghies were brought up the Wuri and Abo . During the punitive expedition, 36 participants fell ill with malaria; two crew members died. During the rest of the station service, the commandant , Corvette Captain Burich, also fell ill with malaria. He had to be relieved and died on the return transport on a passenger steamer.
On 9/10 July 1891 the gunboat was used again in Cameroon, this time against the Bakoko . The residents of the village of Benjadeko under the chief Nsonge should be held responsible for assaulting a German merchant :
“… After a quarter of an hour's march we were in the village; the huts had been completely vacated, the residents fled into the bush. Through an interpreter it was announced on a palawertrommel that the inhabitants should return to their village immediately. But when no one appeared after ten minutes, the houses were destroyed, and we were effectively supported with their machetes by about 20 little Batanga people who had voluntarily followed us with their canoes ... After two hours of strenuous work between fire and water, the destruction was complete fully reached, so that the retreat could begin at 3:35 p.m. ... "
After another recreational trip to Cape Town, NCOs and chief seamen of the Habicht trained the so-called Dahomey police officers in Cameroon , who were to trigger the Dahomey uprising shortly afterwards . On 18./19. October 1891, a joint landing corps was deployed together with SMS Hyäne against the Duala am Abo, who also resisted German rule.
After eight years of service abroad, the Habicht arrived in Kiel on November 20, 1892 and was taken out of service again in order to receive new boilers. On December 16, 1896, she arrived again in front of Duala to replace SMS Sperber . In October 1897, parts of the crew were used to support the Cameroon Protection Force to fight insurgents near Kribi .
As part of the Second Boer War , the hawk and the hyena were sent to the Cape Colony because tensions between the Empire and Great Britain had arisen over the search of German ships. Since Cape Town was currently no longer available for maintenance, leaks in Cameroon had to be repaired, which was extremely time-consuming. In 1901, the work otherwise carried out in Cape Town was therefore carried out in Luanda in Portuguese West Africa ( Angola ). In 1902/03 the Habicht visited a number of West African ports.
Use in the Herero uprising in 1904 in German South West Africa and decommissioned
On January 10, 1904, the Habicht ran again in Cape Town for a routine overhaul. The news of the Herero uprising had already arrived here by telegram (the Habicht itself did not have a radio telegraph system ). On January 14th, the gunboat received a telegram from the Admiral's staff in Berlin to call at Swakopmund immediately with the proviso:
1. The Habicht Commandant, Corvette Captain Hans Gudewill (1866–1904) took over command of the German South West Africa Protection Force, since the governor of the colony, Colonel Theodor Leutwein , was in the south of the country,
2. Deployment of a landing corps of 54 men (including a doctor) under the leadership of the First Officer , Lieutenant Captain Hans Gygas (1872–1963),
3. Use of the landing corps in Karibib to secure the place,
4. Securing the railway line ( small railway ) Swakopmund - Karibib .
On January 18, the gunboat arrived in Swakopmund. The first squadron of the landing corps left the port by train in the evening and arrived in Karibib the next day. On January 20, the second season was landed. The landing corps was armed with five revolver cannons and two machine guns; the revolver cannons were part of the ship armor and were not actually intended for use on land. The machine staff supported the railway staff in repairing locomotives and other equipment. The railway line was in places badly washed out by heavy rains. The damage caused by the rebellious Herero, on the other hand, was rather minor. Apparently they did not have the tools to destroy the rails but contented themselves with removing the sleepers and undermining the tracks.
The landing corps held the positions it had taken and then operated together with the Marine Expeditionary Corps, which had arrived from Germany on January 21, and which consisted of marines from the sea battalions . On February 16, 1904, it took part in a battle against the Herero at Otjimbingwe , and also on February 20 at Groß Barmen . After that, the majority of the landing corps was ordered back on board; only a few sailors remained as railway guards. In April / May of that year, some crew members again served as railroad protection to free members of the protection force for a major operation. In the meantime, Gudewill fell ill and died on the return transport to Germany.
On May 7, 1904, the Habicht returned to Cape Town for repairs. After further routine service, she met the large cruiser SMS Vineta on December 16, 1904 off Luanda . Here the gunboat was taken over by Commodore Ludwig Schröder , head of the East American cruiser division, and traveled with him to the Congo in January 1905 . At the end of February / beginning of March 1905 the goshawk stayed again briefly in Swakopmund.
On August 3, 1905, the gunboat left the West African station and arrived in Kiel on September 21 . It was struck from the list of warships in Danzig on March 24, 1906 , sold to Hamburg-Harburg and scrapped there.
literature
- Report of the commander of the SM cruiser "Habicht", Korvetten-Kapitän v. Drewsky, on conditions in the Cameroon area. In: Marine-Rundschau , 2nd year, 1891, p. 483f.
- Report of the lieutenant captain Krause about the expedition of the landing detachment SM cruiser "Habicht" to punish Bakoko people. In: ibid., Pp. 484-488.
- Report by the Lieutenant zur See Czech on the expedition to the Wuri area. In: ibid., Pp. 548-551.
- Admiralty staff of the Navy: The activities of the landing corps SMS “Habicht” during the Herero uprising in South West Africa. ES Mittler & Sohn, Berlin 1905.
- Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships. Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present. Ratingen undated (one-volume reprint of the seven-volume original edition, Herford 1979ff.,) Vol. III., Pp. 34–36.
- Otto Mielke : SM Gunboat Habicht. Expedition against the Hereros ( SOS - Fates of German Ships No. 112). Munich 1957.
- Alexander Wolfgang Krug: "The main purpose is the killing of Kanaks". The German punitive expeditions in the colonies of the South Seas 1872–1914. Der Andere Verlag, Tönning 2005. (Phil. Diss. Humboldt University Berlin) ISBN 3-89959-396-0 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ (Krug, p. 35)