SMS Prussian Eagle
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SMS Preußischer Adler was a Rad aviso , which was initially used as a mail ship and later within the Prussian and Imperial Navy . The ship served militarily during the Schleswig Holstein uprising , in the German-Danish and German-French wars and was briefly used as a royal yacht . The Aviso was removed from the list of warships in 1877.
history
Development and civil use
The Prussian Adler was built according to plans by the Real Admiralty Council Elbertzhagen in 1846 at the English shipyard Ditchburn & Marl in Blackburn as a mail steamer. Even when it was built, however, military use was also planned. Therefore, the ship was designed so that it could be armed with two 68-pounder " Paixhans " and four 32-pounder guns in the event of war . Other fixtures included powder chambers, additional armor and accommodation for the 160-man war crew.
In civilian use, the Prussian Eagle was used on the Stettin - Kronstadt line, which the ship managed in 65–70 hours. With its dimensions and displacement, the Prussian Adler was one of the largest steamships in Germany and the first ship of this size to sail on the Oder to Stettin.
First naval use
In 1848 the ship was transferred to the Prussian Navy because of the Schleswig Holstein Uprising, in which Prussia, as a member of the German Confederation, supported the German movement in Schleswig and Holstein against Denmark , and was temporarily armed with two 25 pounder cannons. The commissioning took place at the beginning of August. After the armistice of August 26, 1848 agreed in the Treaty of Malmö , the ship was decommissioned in September.
Since the armistice was not viewed as permanent, the ship remained in the Navy and was equipped with two additional 32 pounder guns. The equipment work dragged on until May 1849, after which the ship was put into service again. The commandant of the Prussian Eagles was Lieutenant 1st Class Barandon.
Battle in front of Brüsterort
In the meantime, the Danish Navy had again blocked the German Baltic ports and was present in the Bay of Danzig with the brig St Croix and the corvette Galathea .
On June 26th, the Prussian Adler was conducting target practice in the Stettiner Haff when Commodore Jan Schröder came on board and ordered to go to Swinoujscie , as a Danish warship had been sighted there. However, no opponent was found off Swinoujscie and Schröder therefore ordered the search to be continued eastwards. During the night the ship passed the East Pomeranian coast and arrived in the Bay of Danzig on June 27 in the morning. Since there was no enemy in sight here either, Schröder allowed the drive to continue eastwards until the St. Croix was encountered in East Prussia before Brüsterort (today Mayak near Kaliningrad ) . Due to the calm, the Prussian eagle with the steam engine had an advantage over the pure sailor despite inferior armament and opened fire at a distance of 1000 meters, which the Danish ship responded immediately. In the artillery duel , which lasted several hours , neither side could gain a decisive advantage and the Danish commander used the rising wind to get close to the position of the Galathea . When the ship came into view, Schröder broke off the battle because of the overwhelming superiority and retreated towards Danzig . This battle is considered to be the baptism of fire of the Prussian Navy, which was slowly built up after the Congress of Vienna .
A Danish hit in one of the wheel arches, which also fatally wounded a Prussian seaman, as well as recoil damage to their own cannons made a major overhaul of the Prussian eagle necessary. After the war, the ship was used in the postal service until the post line Stettin-Kronstadt was closed in 1862 and then finally bought by the navy.
Second marine mission
After renovation work at the Danzig naval shipyard , the ship was sent to the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea on August 18, 1863, initially in the gunboats Basilisk and Blitz . The commander of the Prussian Eagles was Corvette Captain Gustav Klatt , who also commanded the small squadron at the same time .
After the outbreak of the German-Danish War, the ships were ordered to return home and met the Austrian squadron and Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff in Den Helder . Under his leadership, the Prussian Adler took part with the Prussian gunboats Basilisk and Blitz in the sea battle near Heligoland on May 9, 1864 against a Danish squadron.
In 1868 the Prussian Eagle briefly became a royal yacht and during the Franco-Prussian War it served as the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief of the Prussian Baltic Forces , Rear Admiral Eduard Heldt .
After the war, the Prussian eagle served as a tender in fishery protection. It was deleted from the list of warships in 1877 and sunk in 1879 during torpedo detonation tests off Kiel-Wik .
literature
- H. Theinert: Catalog of the Reichs-Postmuseum , Springer Verlag, 2013, pages 166–167
- Mirko Graetz: Prince Adalbert's forgotten fleet. Die Norddeutsche Bundesmarine 1867-1871 , Lulu Enterprises Inc., Morrisville, NC (USA) 2008, ISBN 978-1-4092-2509-6 , pages 72-73
- Mirko Graetz, From Helgoland to Agadir - Combat missions by Prussian and German warships before 1914 , 2nd exp. Edition, Lulu Enterprises Inc., Morrisville, NC (USA) 2008, ISBN 978-1-4092-2130-2 , pages 19-23