SMS Hansa (1898)
.jpg&filetimestamp=20070810235155&) |
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
.svg){kind=small}
The SMS Hansa was the last ship of the Victoria Louise class , a class of five cruisers II. Class ( armored deck cruiser ) of the Imperial Navy .
construction
For the cruiser II. Class N , the Kiel was stretched in April 1896 by AG Vulcan in Stettin . Almost two years later, the new building was ready for launch on March 12, 1898. The then mayor of the Hanseatic City of Hamburg , Johann Georg Mönckeberg , christened the ship in the Latinized name of the Hanseatic League .
After completion, the Hansa was transferred from the shipyard to Kiel at the beginning of 1899 and put into service there on April 20 after the final equipment. The subsequent test drives dragged on until August 11th. During this, the Hansa ran aground on June 6th in the Great Belt , but could be towed free by the coastal armored ships Aegir and Odin and suffered only minor damage.
Service in the East Asia Squadron
Due to the aging of the East Asia Squadron ship material used a deployment of new units to the East Asian was station urgently needed. So on August 16, 1899 , the Hansa embarked on the journey to East Asia, although not all trials had been completed. This particularly affected the machine and boiler systems, which had a negative impact on the journey. After some gifts from Kaiser Wilhelm II for the holy places in Jerusalem were brought to Haifa at the beginning of September , the Hansa ran through the Suez Canal and the Red Sea into the Indian Ocean , where surveying work was carried out in the Maldives group. During the whole voyage there were problems with the machinery, which even failed completely in the Indian Ocean and forced anchoring in front of sea anchor and under emergency lighting for several hours . Finally, on September 29th, Colombo was called, where a long stay was made due to the exhaustion of the machine personnel.
On October 7th, the Hansa left Colombo for Singapore , where it arrived on October 13th. After a four-day stay in the local port, the ship left Singapore again, but had to return to the city after a boiler explosion in which two stokers were fatally scalded. After the burial of the two crew members, the Hansa continued its voyage, but had to call at Xiamen as an emergency port on October 26th , as the condition of the boiler system did not allow a further journey. There, met on November 2, Hertha and two days later the Germany one. The second admiral of the cruiser squadron, Rear Admiral Ernst Fritze , switched from Hertha , which was intended as the new flagship of the squadron, to the Hansa . The cruiser started its onward journey to Shanghai on November 11th , but had to return to Hong Kong at the beginning of December to have the machinery overhauled. It was not fully operational until December 28, 1899.
After the previous chief of the cruiser squadron, Prince Heinrich of Prussia , had started the journey home on January 4, 1900 , the Second Admiral led the squadron until Vice Admiral Felix Bendemann took over command on February 17 . The Hansa left Shanghai on February 20th and arrived in Tsingtau on March 15th . From there, the ship made a few cruises through the station area. On April 8th, the Second Admiral returned to Germany, his successor was Rear Admiral Hermann Kirchhoff in mid-July .
Use during the Boxer Rebellion
After the outbreak of the Boxer Rebellion, the Hansa went to the roadstead at Tanggu , where they arrived on June 7, 1900. Several ships from the United States were already present there, and more were added in the following days. The longest-serving officer of the ships present, Vice Admiral Edward Hobart Seymour , decided to immediately deploy the landing corps of his ships due to the location of the threatened legation district in Beijing and asked Vice Admiral Bendemann to support him in his project with the German troops. Bendemann had reservations about this measure, but complied with Seymour's request and disembarked the landing corps of the German ships, a total of 20 officers, two doctors and 487 men. 123 men from the Hansa were involved in the operation under the leadership of the first officer, Lieutenant Schlieper. However, this did not achieve its goal, the total of 2,129 men of the international federation had to retreat along the Peiho on June 19 after several attacks by the boxers and the threat to their supplies . During further skirmishes during the retreat, Seymour gave the commandant of the German troops, Captain Guido von Usedom , the now well-known order The Germans to the front! whereupon the Germans took over the front line of battle. The future British commander of the Grand Fleet in the Battle of the Skagerrak , John Jellicoe , was wounded in the same battle.
During the advance, preparations were made for the storming of the Taku forts , which posed a threat to both Seymour's international troops and the foreign quarters in Tientsin , after it became known on June 15 that reinforcements for the forts were on their way. The reserve landing corps of the German ships present were landed accordingly, as were other troops from the other navies. The commandant of the Hansa , Hugo Pohl, took over the command of this second international force . After the Chinese fort commander an ultimatum was presented on June 16, the Chinese opened a little over an hour before the ultimatum expired on 17 June 12:50 firing at the present on the Peiho gunboats , including the Iltis . The ships returned fire and at 4:45 a.m. were able to put most of the Chinese rapid-fire guns of the Northwest Fort out of action. Thereupon the landing corps stormed the fort. Little by little it was possible to fight down and take the other forts and the beach battery . The final capture of all forts and the expulsion of the last Chinese troops succeeded on June 21, also under the command of Captain von Pohl. He also led the German department during the relief of Beijing, which began on August 4, with a 20,000-strong international force. In addition, in August he commanded an international cruiser association to which the Hansa also belonged and which had the task of bombarding several Chinese coastal forts. This ended the use of the Hansa during the Boxer Rebellion. Of all the German ships used, she had suffered the highest losses with 13 dead and 24 wounded.
Further use in East Asia
The Hansa first visited Nagasaki in October and was overhauled in Hong Kong on December 30, 1900. The ship was back in Tsingtau on March 5, 1901, and at the end of the month received orders to represent the German Empire at the celebrations for the founding of the Commonwealth of Australia . About Hong Kong, Batavia and Fremantle which reached Hansa finally on May 1, Melbourne , where even the light cruiser Cormoran was ordered. Ships from other countries were also present and on May 18th they guided the British heir to the throne to Sydney , where the celebrations took place. After a brief meeting with the survey ship Möwe , the Hansa returned to Tsingtau, where she arrived on June 19.
In the following time, the ship made several visits to the station area. On August 26, 1902, Rear Admiral Hunold von Ahlefeld , who had become second admiral of the squadron in November 1901, took down his flag on the Hansa . His successor was on November 19, 1902, Rear Admiral Friedrich Graf von Baudissin . In November 1902 and March 1903 the Hansa sailed the Yangtze to Nanjing and visited Japan in April 1903 , where the Second Admiral had an audience with Emperor Mutsuhito and then represented the German Empire at the fleet revue in Kobe . On October 20, 1903, Count von Baudissin took down his flag and was replaced on November 22 by Captain Henning von Holtzendorff . After a few cruises in the station area, the Hansa was overhauled in Uraga from December 27, 1903 to January 1904 .
In connection with the Russo-Japanese War , the Hansa had to bring German nationals from various cities, including Seoul and Port Arthur , to Tsingtau. After Rear Admiral Heinrich von Moltke had become the new Second Admiral of the squadron on December 16, 1904 , this service was closed on July 27, 1905, as it was no longer required. On May 20, 1906, the Hansa was used to tow the stranded NDL steamer Roon , which was brought to Nagasaki. On July 4, the cruiser finally received the order to travel home and returned to Germany. On October 26th he was finally decommissioned in Gdansk.
Service as a training ship
The age of the cruiser frigates of the Bismarck class used as training ships meant that the ships had to be replaced by newer units. Since the financial means were lacking for special ships, the ships of the Victoria Louise class were used. These had only been in service for a few years, but had already been overtaken by technical developments. Accordingly, from April 1907 to March 1909 , the Hansa was rebuilt and modernized by the Imperial Shipyard in Danzig . Among other things, the armament was changed and a chimney was removed, which gave the ship a new silhouette.
On April 1, 1909, the Hansa was put back into service as a midshipman and ship boy training ship. Initially, the ship made a few trips in home and Norwegian waters. On August 23, the ship began a long training voyage in the Mediterranean , from which it was back on March 15, 1910. After the annual repairs carried out in June, shorter trips were made, as in the previous year, until the second long training trip followed again on August 23, this time to the Caribbean and the American east coast. The Hansa was back home on March 14, 1911 and again made a few shorter trips during the summer. From August 26 to March 7, 1912, the third training voyage followed, calling at US ports. After another repair, a trip to the Baltic Sea followed on June 4th, calling at Karlskrona and Saint Petersburg . The fourth great training trip led again from August 30, 1912 to March 11, 1913 to the United States and the Caribbean. The fifth took place after the usual shorter voyages in the summer of 1913 from August 11 to March 17, 1914 and led to the Mediterranean for the second time.
Use in the First World War
The outbreak of World War I prevented the planned sixth training trip, which was to lead to the Atlantic . Instead, the Hansa became the flagship of the newly formed V Reconnaissance Group under Rear Admiral Gisberth Jasper on August 12, 1914 , to which the sister ships Vineta , Victoria Louise and Hertha also belonged. Guarding tasks were initially taken over in the western and central Baltic Sea. Until September 21, the reconnaissance group was under the command of the high seas fleet , after which it was subordinated to the Commander in Chief of the Baltic Sea Forces, Grand Admiral Prince Heinrich of Prussia. On October 20, the Hansa and her sister ships set out on the march into the eastern Baltic Sea, but had to visit the shipyard in Gdansk the following day and could therefore not take part in the planned advance into the waters around Gotland . Already on October 28th, Rear Admiral Jasper was able to switch from Hertha to his flagship again in Swinoujscie . The Hansa then went to Kiel, where preparations were made for the decommissioning on November 16, 1914. On the same day, the V Reconnaissance Group was also disbanded. This happened because there was a shortage of personnel in the Navy and the ships of the Victoria Louise class were only very conditionally suitable for service at the front due to their poor armor and lack of underwater protection.
Whereabouts
The Hansa served during the war in Kiel as an accommodation ship for torpedo boat crews . On December 6, 1919, the ship was finally deleted from the list of warships and the following year it was scrapped in Audorf near Rendsburg .
Commanders
| April 20 to July 13, 1899 | Sea captain Emil von Lyncker |
| July 14, 1899 to February 23, 1901 | Frigate captain / sea captain Hugo Pohl |
| February 24, 1901 to December 10, 1902 | Frigate captain / sea captain Adolf Paschen |
| December 11, 1902 to February 16, 1903 | Frigate Captain Ernst van Semmern |
| March to June 1903 | Corvette Captain Lothar Persius |
| May 11, 1903 to June 15, 1904 | Frigate captain / sea captain Johannes Schröder |
| June 16, 1904 to April 22, 1906 | Frigate captain / sea captain Eugen Weber |
| April 23 to October 16, 1906 | Sea captain Friedrich Marwede |
| October 1906 | Corvette Captain Otto Meinardus |
| April 1, 1909 to March 31, 1910 | Sea captain Otto Back |
| April 1, 1910 to March 31, 1912 | Frigate captain / sea captain Constanz Feldt |
| April 1, 1912 to March 31, 1914 | Frigate captain / sea captain Friedrich von Kameke |
| April 1 to November 16, 1914 | Frigate Captain Karl von Hornhardt |
literature
- Gröner, Erich / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . tape 1 : Armored ships, ships of the line, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, gunboats . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 , p. 73-75 .
- Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 4 : Ship biographies from Greif to Kaiser . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S. 92-96 .
