SMS Emperor Charlemagne

SMS *Emperor Charlemagne*
Ship data
flag	German Empire
Ship type	Ship of the line
class	Kaiser Friedrich class
Shipyard	Blohm & Voss , Hamburg
Build number	136
building-costs	20,385,000 marks
Launch	October 18, 1899
Commissioning	February 4, 1902
Removal from the ship register	December 6, 1919
Whereabouts	In 1920 Rönnebeck scrapped
Ship dimensions and crew
length	125.3 m ( Lüa ) 120.9 m ( KWL )
width	20.4 m
Draft	Max. 8.25 m
displacement	Construction: 11,097 t; Maximum: 11,785 t
crew	667 to 681 men
Machine system
machine	4 marine boilers; 6 transverse cylinder boilers; 3 vertical 3-cylinder compound machines
Machine ; performance	13,874 hp (10,204 kW)
Top ; speed	17.8 kn (33 km / h)
propeller	2 three-wing ∅ 4.5 m ; 1 four-wing ∅ 4.2 m
Armament
	4 × Sk 24.0 cm L / 40 (300 shots); 18 × Sk 15.0 cm L / 40 (2.160 shots); 12 × Sk 8.8 cm L / 30 (3,000 shots); 12 × Rev 3.7 cm ; 6 × torpedo tube ∅ 45 cm (4 sides, 1 bow, under water, 1 stern over water, 16 rounds);
Armor
	Waterline: 100-300 mm on 250 mm teak ; Deck: 65 mm; Heavy artillery: ; tower fronts: 250 mm ; tower ceilings: 50 mm; Middle artillery: ; Towers: 150 mm. ; Shields: 70 mm. ; Casemates : 150 mm; Front control station: 250 mm; aft control station: 150 mm;

SMS Kaiser Karl der Große was the fourth ship of the Kaiser Friedrich class , a class of five ships of the line of the Imperial Navy .

construction

The new building, which goes by the household name of Linienschiff B , was laid on 17 September 1898 as the last ship of its class by the Hamburg shipyard Blohm & Voss . For the shipyard it was the first order for a warship of this size. Due to the faster construction progress, the ship was ready for launch about six months before the emperor Barbarossa , who had started earlier . This took place on October 18, 1899. At the launch celebrations, Kaiser Wilhelm II gave the baptismal address, with the well-known sentence "Bitter need is a strong German fleet." This happened with a view to increased armament both abroad and in the German Reich, where in the previous year the First Naval Law, a construction plan for the Imperial Navy and the automatic replacement of ships, was passed without the need for further approval by the Reichstag. The mayor of Hamburg, Johann Georg Mönckeberg , christened the ship in the name of the Frankish king Charlemagne .

The completion of the Emperor Charlemagne was delayed due to a lengthy strike by shipyard workers in autumn 1900. In October 1901 the ship was transferred to Wilhelmshaven and got stuck on the Lower Elbe . The resulting damage was repaired by February 1902.

Peace time

The Kaiser Karl der Große entered service on February 4, 1902 as the last ship of the Kaiser Friedrich class. The ship was assigned to the First squadron of the ships of Brandenburg - and four units of the Kaiser-Friedrich was class. The Kaiser Wilhelm II served as a naval flagship and as such was not part of a specific association.

As part of the squadron, Emperor Charlemagne took part in various trips abroad, training trips and maneuvers in the following years . In 1905 the ship served temporarily as flagship of the squadron. On July 18, 1905, the liner ran to Antwerp to represent the Imperial Navy during the celebrations for the 75th anniversary of the Kingdom of Belgium . From there, the Emperor Charlemagne went to Karlskrona and joined the I. Squadron, which was on a journey. From August 22nd to 24th, 1906, a major landing maneuver took place in Eckernförde Bay , in which the ship was involved. On September 18, 1909, it was finally decommissioned and assigned to the reserve formation of the Baltic Sea. As the only ship in her class, the Kaiser Karl der Große was not modernized, but only given an overhaul in 1911.

Use in the First World War

Ship of the line SMS Kaiser Karl der Große

After the outbreak of the First World War , the Emperor Charlemagne was reactivated and, like her sister ships, assigned to the newly formed 5th Squadron. The ship was mainly used for the security service in the German Bight and was mostly in roadstead in front of Altenbruch . From September 22nd to 26th, it was also involved in an advance into the eastern Baltic Sea. From January 23, 1915, the Kaiser Karl der Große was the squadron's flagship for a month until she was replaced in this role by Kaiser Wilhelm II .

Since the ships of the Kaiser Friedrich class were now completely out of date, both militarily and technically, and had only a low combat value, the squadron was released from service at the front at the end of February. The Kaiser Karl der Große left the squadron and was assigned to the chief of the naval station of the North Sea . With a reduced crew, the ship served from then on in Wilhelmshaven as a drill and machine training ship. Due to the tense personnel situation of the Imperial Navy, it was finally decommissioned in Kiel on November 19, 1915.

Whereabouts

The Kaiser Karl der Große was completely disarmed in 1916 and brought back to Wilhelmshaven. The ship was there until the end of the war as a residential ship for prisoners of war . On December 6, 1919, it was deleted from the list of warships. The following year the Kaiser Karl der Große was scrapped in Rönnebeck . The ship's bell is in the Schönebeck Castle Museum in Bremen.

Commanders

February 4 to September 1902	Sea captain August von Heeringen
September 1902 to September 1903	Sea captain Adolf Poschmann
September to December 1903	Sea captain Alfred Ehrlich
December 1903 to September 1904	Sea captain Carl Franz
October 1904 to September 1905	Sea captain Erich Gühler
September 1905 to September 1907	Sea captain Hans von Dambrowski
October 1907 to September 1908	Sea captain Friedrich Gädeke
September 1908 to September 18, 1909	Sea captain Karl Wilbrandt
August 7, 1914 to March 1915	Sea captain Friedrich Behncke
March to September 1915	Corvette Captain Friedrich Knipping (reduced crew)
September 19 to November 19, 1915	Corvette Captain / Frigate Captain Max Leonhardi (reduced crew)

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. 37-39 .
Hans. H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 5 : Ship biographies from Kaiser to Lütjens . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S. 38 f .
Gerhard Koop, Klaus-Peter Schmolke: Ship classes and ship types of the German Navy . tape 10 : The armored ships and ships of the line of the Brandenburg, Kaiser Friedrich III, Wittelsbach, Braunschweig and Germany classes . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 2001, ISBN 3-7637-6211-6 .

Footnotes

↑ In the Imperial Navy, the class was initially simply called the Kaiser class, as the names of all ships began with Kaiser . This happened even though there was already an Kaiser class in the Imperial Navy with the armored ships SMS Kaiser and SMS Deutschland from 1874 . It was only with the commissioning of the large liners of the new Kaiser class in 1912 that the general name of the old liners class changed to better distinguish it from Kaiser Friedrich class (Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: Die deutscher Kriegsschiffe. Vol. 5, p. 26).

[1] In the Imperial Navy, the class was initially simply called the Kaiser class, as the names of all ships began with Kaiser . This happened even though there was already an Kaiser class in the Imperial Navy with the armored ships SMS Kaiser and SMS Deutschland from 1874 . It was only with the commissioning of the large liners of the new Kaiser class in 1912 that the general name of the old liners class changed to better distinguish it from Kaiser Friedrich class (Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: Die deutscher Kriegsschiffe. Vol. 5, p. 26).