SMS Hertha (ship, 1897)
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The SMS Hertha was the second ship of the Victoria Louise class , a class of five cruisers II class ( armored deck cruiser ) of the Imperial Navy . In 1899 the ship was reclassified as a large cruiser . The Hertha was used especially in foreign service and from 1908 as a training ship .
Planning and construction
The plans for the Victoria Louise class date back to 1890. The first installments for the new buildings K (later Hertha ) and L (later Victoria Louise ) were requested in the budget for the budget year 1890/91 . The Reichstag granted the rate for K , she leaned for L on the other hand. Thereupon AG Vulcan Stettin was assured of the order for the ship. However, construction was not started because there were differences of opinion between the high command under the chief of staff, Captain Alfred Tirpitz, on the one hand, and the Reichsmarineamt under Admiral Friedrich von Hollmann, on the other hand, with regard to the type of cruiser to be built and the general orientation of the fleet. The high command was leaning towards a battle fleet and accordingly needed a reconnaissance cruiser for the fleet. On the other hand, the Reichsmarineamt wanted to build a fleet of cruisers , supported in this by Kaiser Wilhelm II. In addition to a smaller unprotected cruiser similar to the Schwalbe, a larger, lightly armored cruiser was planned. This should be based on the armored deck cruiser Kaiserin Augusta , which is currently under construction . When the Reichsmarineamt applied for the second installment for the new building K for the budget 1891/92 , it became known that construction had not yet started. As a result, the Reichstag not only refused the second installment, but also withdrew the approval of the first installment.
In the following two budget years, the new building K was included in the plans, but both times rejected again, and finally it did not appear in the budget for 1895/96. It was not until the 1896/97 budget that he was reinstated , together with L (later Victoria Louise ) and replacement Freya (later Freya ), and this time also approved, since the construction plans for the new class of ship were now available. The commitment of the chairman of the Polish parliamentary group in the Reichstag, Józef von Kościelski , also made a not insignificant contribution to the positive result both in the plenary session and in the budget commission. The former Chancellor Leo von Caprivi had granted the Poles various concessions, so that von Koszielski, as a thank you to the former head of the Admiralty, advocated naval issues in particular. In addition, the Pole was not without influence as rapporteur for naval issues in the budget commission. Ultimately, this earned him the nickname Admiralski , and Hertha was also called Koszielska in return .
The Reichsmarineamt had prevailed in its conception and the newbuildings were designed as armored deck cruisers , although the development in other navies was clearly towards armored cruisers . As had already been assured five years earlier, AG Vulcan was awarded the contract for the cruiser in Stettin and put it on keel in October 1895 as the first ship of its class. However, the new building was only ready for launch 16 days after the Victoria Louise, which began a good six months later, on April 14, 1897. The eldest son of the Prince Regent Luitpold , who later became King Ludwig III, was baptized . , whereby the ship was named Hertha . Just one year later, on April 20, 1898, the acceptance test drive from Stettin to Kiel took place . While the final equipment was being carried out at the Imperial Shipyard there , the Hertha was lightly rammed by the incoming Baden without causing any serious damage.
First period of service
Hertha was first put into service on July 23, 1898 . On that day, the ship's sea trials began. Oskar Messter's usual mileage was recorded with a camera he developed. Significant defects in the boiler system became apparent during the test drives. The built-in water tube boilers from the Belleville system had, among other weaknesses, too short a flame guide between the tubes, which caused chimneys and chimneys to overheat and gradually collapse due to the still very hot flue gases.
Despite the obvious shortcomings, the Hertha and the small cruiser Hela were designated as the escort ship for the Hohenzollern imperial yacht , which was to bring the imperial couple to the Orient . The Hertha left Kiel on September 18, 1898 and, after a stopover in Gibraltar , arrived in Venice on October 4 , where the other two ships were already staying. The following round trip led to Constantinople , Haifa , Jaffa , Port Said and Beirut , where Hertha was released from the association on November 11th. Then the ship went to Crete .
Just a few days later, however, Hertha had to call at Genoa to be overtaken there. The constant overheating of the chimneys due to the inadequate boiler system had led to a severe collapse of the chimneys, so that they had to be supported with on-board resources, but a trip home was no longer justifiable. The Ansaldo shipyard based in Genoa was commissioned to repair the construction defects and the damage that occurred. On the night of November 26th to 27th, the cruiser suffered further damage before docking, when parts of the mooring came loose during a hurricane and the ship collided with a steamer, with boat davits being torn down, among other things . The repairs finally dragged on until the end of March 1899.
Service in the East Asia Squadron
While the Hertha was still at the shipyard in Genoa, the cruiser, now newly classified as a large cruiser , received the order to be transferred to East Asia . The ship should strengthen the local cruiser squadron . This trip could begin on April 14, 1899. Via several intermediate ports, Hertha reached Singapore on May 21, and thus the area of the East Asian Station , and finally the new base in Tsingtau on June 8 . The cruiser replaced the old Kaiser tank frigate and temporarily became the flagship of the second admiral of the squadron, Rear Admiral Ernst Fritze .
In the following months, Hertha made some trips through the northern station area, at times accompanied by other German ships, and finally arrived in Xiamen on November 4th , where a meeting with its sister ship Hansa and the squadron flagship Germany took place. Two days later, the Second Admiral switched to the Hansa , as the Hertha was planned as the new squadron flagship. Before that, however, the ship went to the shipyard in Hong Kong for three months , while Germany started the journey home with the previous squadron chief, Prince Heinrich of Prussia . On February 17, 1900, his successor, Vice Admiral Felix Bendemann , set his flag on the Hertha . At that time, the cruiser squadron consisted of Hertha and Hansa , the Kaiserin Augusta and the small cruisers Gefion and Irene , and the two gunboats Iltis and Jaguar were also subordinate to it.
After the squadron chief made his inaugural visit to the Japanese Emperor Mutsuhito at the beginning of April , Hertha met with the other cruisers of the squadron in Tsingtau on April 23, in order to carry out association exercises in the following days. They then made trips through the station area, with the Hertha and the Gefion sailing the Yangtze to Hankau . At the beginning of June, the large cruiser was supposed to anchor off Tanggu , as Vice Admiral Bendemann was planning a visit to the Chinese imperial court together with the German envoy in Beijing , Baron Clemens von Ketteler . This did not happen again, however, as the first news of serious unrest between Beijing and Tientsin arrived on May 29 .
Use during the Boxer Rebellion
As a precaution, various embassies asked for the reinforcement of their guards and for the preparation of a possible evacuation to the coast. In addition, Freiherr von Ketteler requested the dispatch of warships to Tanggu. Accordingly, the polecat arrived there early on May 31, and on June 4 deployed two officers and 30 men to protect the German branch in Tientsin. The other ships of the squadron, with the exception of Irene , who remained behind as a watch ship in Tsingtau , were also ordered by the squadron chief to Tanggu, where Hertha arrived on June 8th.
The development in the Beijing Legation Quarter, to which over 3,000 people had fled and which was attacked by both boxers and regular Chinese troops, prompted the British commander, Admiral Edward Hobart Seymour , to deploy part of the crews of his ships to the threatened embassies Help to come. Seymour asked the commanders of the other warships present to follow his example. A total of 2,129 men strong international force came together, in which the German ships with 20 officers, two doctors and 487 men were involved. The Hertha landing corps consisted of four officers and 120 men under the leadership of Captain Guido von Usedom , who was also in command of the entire German contingent. On June 10, the force left Tonggu under the command of Admiral Seymour for Beijing, but did not reach their destination. The operation had to be broken off on June 12, as the railway line to Beijing had been blown up by the Chinese and supplies were also threatened. On June 19, the association finally began the march back. During a battle of retreat, Usedom received the well-known order The Germans to the front! whereupon the German soldiers took over the front line of battle. In the course of the same battle, the later commander of the Grand Fleet in the Skagerrakschlacht , John Jellicoe , was wounded and von Usedom took his position. The Hertha landing corps lost a total of four sailors during the advance, three of whom succumbed to their injuries after several days.
Meanwhile, Vice Admiral Bendemann organized another international force, which was under the command of the Hansa Commander , Captain Hugo von Pohl and with the support of several gunboats, including the Iltis , took the Taku forts on June 17th. This was necessary to secure supplies for Seymour's troops. In addition, it was necessary to land more troops in order to be able to break through into Tientsin, which was defended by a total of 859 men. This succeeded on June 23, with a total of four non-commissioned officers and 69 teams from Hertha deployed under the command of Lieutenant Adolf von Trotha . The relief troops were able to unite with Admiral Seymour's troops and break the last resistance in Tientsin by July 18. On that day the German landing units were withdrawn up to 300 men and brought back on board their ships.
The failure of Admiral Seymour's advance resulted in the dispatch of stronger British, Russian, US, Japanese, French and German troops. The German expedition troops were subordinated to the chief of the East Asia Squadron, and the 1st Division of the 1st Squadron, consisting of the ships of the Brandenburg class , and the new armored cruiser Fürst Bismarck were set off for China. The German units reached China far too late, however, as an international association of around 20,000 men set out for Beijing on August 4th and reached the city on August 14th. The 195 man strong landing corps of the Hansa belonged to this . Due to the rapid advance to Beijing, which was surprising for Bendemann, an additional 200 Hansa men and 150 Hertha men under the command of Captain zur See von Pohl were forwarded to the international troops , which reached Beijing on August 18, four days late. The landing corps were replaced on September 5 by troops arriving from Germany and returned to their ships.
On August 17, 1900, the Hertha was replaced by the Fürst Bismarck as a squadron flagship. The armored cruiser kept this function until 1909. After its landing corps returned, Hertha called at several ports in Central China and finally had to bring Field Marshal Alfred von Waldersee , who from then on assumed command of the German troops in China, to Tanggu. Because of his experience, the sea captain of Usedom became the chief of staff of Waldersees, so that the first officer, Kapitänleutnant Hecht, took command of the cruiser by the end of October. For the rest of the year, Hertha was mostly in the roadstead near Tanggu, but on October 1 it was involved in the fighting down of coastal forts near Schanheikwan and visited Yantai and Tsingtau. After the beginning of October there was no further military use of the cruiser. The Hertha mourned seven deaths in total use during the Boxer Rebellion.
Further use in East Asia
The first half of 1901 brought further missions along the Chinese coast. From June 8 to 16, Hertha brought Field Marshal General von Waldersee to Kobe to visit the Japanese Emperor and then to Nagasaki , from where the Count began his journey home. This was followed by a longer layover in Tsingtau and then another trip to Japan. From October 21, 1901 to February 19, 1902, the cruiser was again a squadron flagship, as the Fürst Bismarck was in the shipyard. From March 25 to May 5, 1902, the Hertha in Yokosuka underwent a major overhaul and then stayed in Tsingtau for a longer period of time. After visiting Japanese ports again, the ship got caught in a typhoon east of Taiwan on September 9 , which caused significant water ingress on board. In the period that followed, the cruiser called at various ports in the Philippines and Indonesia as well as Singapore as part of the representative tasks of the East Asia Squadron .
In early 1903, Hertha in Nagasaki underwent an annual overhaul and then stayed for four months in Tsingtau. In the second half of the year, the ship visited several Russian, Korean and Japanese ports. In the following year, in addition to the usual station service, Hertha undertook a trip on the Yangtze to Wuhan together with Fürst Bismarck . In May she was in Tientsin, from where the emperor's son, Prince Adalbert, who served on board , traveled to Beijing for an audience at the imperial court. In the course of the year the need for a major overhaul became apparent. For this purpose, Hertha was ordered back to Germany after five years in East Asia and left the station area on December 31, 1904. On the voyage home, the ship visited Dar es Salaam in German East Africa and met the Hohenzollern in the Mediterranean for three days on April 5, 1905 . On May 12, the cruiser was finally decommissioned in Kiel.
Service as a training ship
The age of the cruiser frigates of the Bismarck class used as training ships meant that these ships had to be replaced by newer units. Since the Imperial Navy lacked the money to build new special ships, they resorted to the ships of the Victoria Louise class, which, although only in service for a few years, had already been overtaken by developments in military technology. The Hertha was rebuilt in 1906 as part of the overhaul of the Imperial Shipyard in Kiel for training ship. The boiler system was renewed and instead of the twelve original Belleville eight so-called marine boilers, an in-house development of the Imperial Navy, were installed. This resulted in the omission of a chimney. Since the heavy battle mast was also replaced by a pole mast, the silhouette of the ship changed significantly. Furthermore, the armament of the ship was changed. The renovation lasted until the beginning of 1908 and cost a total of 2,527,000 marks .
On April 7, 1908, the Hertha was put back into service and began operating as a training ship. From June 6th to 11th, she took a trip to Bornholm and Swinoujscie , with Prince Ludwig of Bavaria, the ship's godfather, on board. After a short visit to Bremerhaven , the first longer training voyage followed, which led to Norwegian , Scottish and Irish waters, where several ports were called, and on via Palma de Mallorca to Funchal and Las Palmas . This was followed by a cruise in the Mediterranean , where Alexandria and several Italian ports were called.
When Hertha anchored off Corfu on December 30th to meet with Victoria Louise , the ship received news of the earthquake that had struck two days earlier in the Strait of Messina . Immediately 20 t of food as well as blankets, coats and other auxiliary material were loaded and taken to Messina, where Hertha arrived the following day. The Victoria Louise followed, also loaded with relief supplies, two days later. In addition to the two Germans, six British, five Russian, five French and one Danish warship were involved in the aid. The Hertha commander , Sea Captain Hugo Louran, coordinated the deployment of the German measures. On January 1, 1909, his cruiser was carrying 120 seriously injured people to Naples . On January 2, the crew was busy rescuing people who had been buried and material from the destroyed German consulate. The assistance, in which the NDL steamers Bremen and Therapia as well as the Hamburg salvage steamer Salvator also participated, lasted until January 5th. From that day on, the Italian authorities were able to organize further disaster relief themselves and the foreign ships gradually ceased their involvement. Queen Margarethe paid a visit to Hertha and King Victor Emanuel III. mentioned the ship in his daily order for January 5th and expressed his thanks to the crew. In addition, the Italian Naval Association donated a memorial plaque that was placed on board the cruiser. He left Messina on the same day and anchored again off Corfu the following day.
The Hertha came on 23 January 1909 the journey home and reached via several intermediate stations on March 15, Kiel. From June 5, the ship was first in German and later in Norwegian waters on a training voyage. On August 7th, it started its second winter voyage, which initially led to New York , where the ship, together with the Victoria Louise and the small cruisers Bremen and Dresden , took part in the Hudson-Fulton celebrations from September 26th to October 9th . The occasion for this celebration was 300 years of first sailing on the Hudson and the patenting of the Robert Fulton- built steamship Clermont , which had started operating between New York and Albany around 100 years earlier . Then the trip took in the Caribbean, where the Hertha beginning of January 1910 the prior Kingston laid-down HAPAG -Dampfer Prince Joachim of Prussia free dragged. On March 8, 1910, the ship was finally back in Kiel.
The training trips during the summer of 1910 led to Norway and the Baltic Sea , the winter trip from August 15 to March 7, 1911 to the Mediterranean. During the summer of 1911 a trip was made through the Baltic Sea to Stockholm as well as in Norwegian and Scottish waters, the winter trip led to the West Indies and ended on March 11, 1912.
After repeated voyages in the Baltic Sea, Hertha began its fifth winter voyage in early August 1912, which led to the Azores . There the commandant of the training ship had some sailors from the steamer Lotte Menzel arrested for mutiny , which were later handed over to a ship going to Germany in Funchal. On November 2, 1912, Hertha received the order to go to the eastern Mediterranean in order to be available there for the protection of German nationals during the First Balkan War that had broken out . The ship was assigned to the newly formed Mediterranean Division under Rear Admiral Trummler, whose flagship was the Goeben . The Hertha visited several ports in the eastern Mediterranean, but resigned in mid-February 1913. from the association and went to the home. On March 7th, the ship was back in Kiel, where it was overhauled.
On May 29, 1913, Hertha continued the training program and started the summer trip that led to Norway. On August 3, the training ship arrived in Wilhelmshaven and prepared for the winter voyage that began twelve days later. This led first to Halifax and then from October 21 to November 2 to Veracruz . Since riots had broken out there, Hertha had to secure the protection of German citizens and German economic interests. After visiting the Antilles , the ship reached Kiel on March 13, 1914. Hertha started its last training trip with 75 midshipmen born in 1914 on board on June 2nd. The ship was in the western and central Baltic Sea, then in Norwegian and Scottish waters. From July 22nd to 25th, the Hertha anchored in Edinburgh , making it the last ship of the Imperial Navy to visit a British port before the outbreak of the First World War .
Use in the First World War
The outbreak of war prevented the planned Atlantic voyage. Instead, the Hertha was assigned to the V reconnaissance group in the North Sea, under the command of Rear Admiral Gisberth Jasper , to which the Victoria Louise , the Vineta and the flagship Hansa also belonged. After just a few days, the association was relocated to the Baltic Sea to take on guard duties in the western and central Baltic Sea. From October 24th to 26th, the Hansa was called in to undertake an operation in the eastern Baltic Sea that was to lead into the Gulf of Finland . For this, Rear Admiral Jasper had embarked on the Hertha , as the Hansa had to visit the shipyard in Danzig due to damage . The enterprise was terminated prematurely due to reported opposing submarines and Hertha returned to Swinoujscie. On October 30, the ship left the port for Kiel. The high vulnerability of the ships of the Victoria Louise class to mine and torpedo hits due to the inadequate protection and the already low combat value made further deployment seem meaningless, which is why the V Reconnaissance Group was dissolved on November 16, 1914. The Hertha was decommissioned on the same day.
Whereabouts
Another use of Hertha did not take place. The ship served the flight station in Flensburg as a living ship until the end of the war , was finally deleted from the list of warships on December 6, 1919 and scrapped in Audorf near Rendsburg the following year .
Commanders
| July 23, 1898 to September 27, 1900 | Corvette captain / frigate captain / sea captain Guido von Usedom |
| September 27 to October 28, 1900 | Captain Max Hecht (deputy) |
| October 28, 1900 to March 15, 1902 | Frigate Captain Carl Derzewski |
| March 16, 1902 to November 29, 1903 | Sea captain Friedrich Ingenohl |
| November 29, 1903 to May 12, 1905 | Sea captain Malte von Schimmelmann |
| April 7, 1908 to March 31, 1909 | Sea captain Hugo Louran |
| April 1, 1909 to April 1911 | Frigate captain / sea captain Walter Engelhardt |
| April 1911 to March 31, 1913 | Frigate captain / sea captain Ernst-Oldwig von Natzmer |
| April 1, 1913 to November 16, 1914 | Frigate captain / sea captain Heinrich Rohardt |
Known crew members
- Friedrich Ruge (1894–1985) was the first inspector of the Navy from 1956 to 1961
literature
- Erich Gröner , 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 .
- Hans H. Hildebrand, 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. 138-146 .
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present. Volume 4. Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, p. 139 .
- ^ The French Dupuy de Lôme was launched as early as 1890.
- ↑ http://www.deutsche-schutzgebiete.de/sms_hertha.htm Retrieved on March 19, 2010.
- ↑ http://www.boxeraufstand.com/expeditionteilnehmer/flussliste.htm boxeraufstand.com Retrieved on March 19, 2010.
- ↑ Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Vol. 4, p. 144.
- ^ Prince Adalbert to Peking, NYT May 9, 1904