SMS Stosch
 SMS Stosch in Kiel, 1894
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SMS Stosch was a covered corvette of the Bismarck class that was built for the Imperial Navy in the late 1870s . It was named after the royal Prussian infantry general and admiral Albrecht von Stosch . She was the third ship in the class, which included five other ships.
The Bismarck- class corvettes were ordered in the early 1870s as part of a large naval construction program. They were supposed to serve as a fleet scout and on extended missions in the overseas areas of interest of the German Empire . The keel laying of Stosch was in November 1875 in October 1876 was launched instead and in June 1878 was followed by the entry into service. As the main armament, the ship had a battery of ten to sixteen 15 cm ring cannons and a complete sailing rig to supplement the steam engine that was also available on long missions overseas.
The Stosch completed a large overseas mission during her career. She initially served as the flagship of the East Asian Cruiser Squadron from 1881 to 1885, then was briefly the flagship of the East African Cruiser Squadron in early 1885 and was then briefly used in West African waters before returning to Germany at the end of 1885. During these four years abroad, she was involved in the settlement of colonial disputes in the course of the expansion of the German colonial empire, especially in Africa and the Pacific. From the beginning of 1886, the Stosch was extensively modernized to serve as a training ship for navy cadets and seamen.
The ship served in this function from 1888 to 1907, for a long time also as the flagship of the school squadron, although she continued to make many and extensive trips abroad and was used several times to defend German interests in a more than representative function. The foreign training trips During this time, the ship often went to the West Indies and the Mediterranean , and more rarely to South America and West Africa. Furthermore, the ship was also involved in the settlement of disputes with foreign governments, for example because of the murder of two German citizens in Morocco in 1895 and during the Venezuela crisis from 1902 to 1903. After its decommissioning in April 1907, she was briefly called the Hulk used in Kiel before it was sold for scrapping in October this year.
history
Construction and commissioning
The keel for the Stosch was laid in November 1875 at AG Vulcan in Stettin under the contract name "Ersatz Gazelle ", since it was to come into service as a replacement for this ship in the fleet. She was baptized on October 8, 1876 by Rear Admiral Reinhold von Werner , the chief of the naval station of the Baltic Sea , in the name of Stosch . At the end of November she was so seaworthy that a shipyard crew could bring the ship via Swinoujscie to Wilhelmshaven for the equipment work, including the installation of their weapons. The Stosch began on June 25, 1879 with sea trials that lasted until August 11. Then the ship was initially decommissioned and assigned to the reserve.
First use overseas
Use in the East Asia Squadron
The Stosch was reactivated on April 1, 1881 for a mission in the Far East under the command of Captain Louis von Blanc, where she was to serve as the flagship of an overseas cruiser squadron in the region. At that time, Albrecht von Stosch, as head of the Admiralty , had implemented a plan according to which the German colonies were to be protected by gunboats and larger warships were usually kept in reserve or some were assigned to a flying squadron that could react quickly to local crises should.
Stosch left Germany on April 15, circumnavigated the Cape of Good Hope and reached Batavia in the Dutch East Indies on July 18 , where she met the squadron's former flagship, the Corvette Freya . Stosch then met the rest of the squadron in Tschifu , which consisted of the corvette Hertha and the gunboats Iltis and Wolf . After Blanc took over command of the cruiser squadron and some sea exercises, Stosch visited some Japanese ports on his own and then went to Hong Kong .
In the meantime, the Admiralty determined that a squadron commander should not also have the function of a ship's captain, and so Stosch ordered that the squadron's flagships should be given separate skippers. Logically, on January 8, 1882 , Captain Glomsda von Bucholz came on board the ship to take on this function. The Stosch then began a cruise in the South China Sea and the Sulu Sea . This trip also included a stop on Jolo Island , where Blanc negotiated a trade agreement with the Sultan of the Sulu Islands, Badarud-Din II. The squadron then gathered again in Tschifu in mid-June. On June 16, Stosch sailed together with Wolf with a diplomatic delegation, including the German envoy in China , Max von Brandt , to Chemulpo to negotiate the first German-Korean trade agreement, at that time with the Joseon dynasty . After another brief stop in Tschifu, the Stosch went on to Hakodate , where the corvette Elisabeth had arrived as a replacement for the Hertha . On September 25th, Stosch and Wolf began an exploration of the Peiho River and brought Max von Brandt to Tientsin , from where he was to travel overland to Beijing . On December 29, 1882, together with Elisabeth , she deployed a landing corps in the Chinese port of Amoy in the so-called "Pan War of Amoy" and confiscated a batch of sugar boiling pans that the Chinese authorities had confiscated from a German merchant in the course of customs disputes .
On March 6, 1883, the Stosch visited other East Asian ports, partly in association with other squadron members, and went to Hong Kong for a five-month overhaul in June of that year. Meanwhile Rear Admiral Max von der Goltz had taken over the command of the squadron from Blanc on August 26th. When the repair work was completed on November 4, the Stosch carried out a crew exchange with the replacement crew that had arrived on Stosch's sister ship SMS Stein . Stosch then began another journey in the region until March 4, 1884, when Captain Karl Paschen arrived to replace Goltz. While the rest of the squadron anchored with other foreign warships, including the Austro-Hungarian gunboat Albatros , which was briefly assigned to the squadron, because of unrest off Shanghai , Stosch went to Japan for the crew's vacation, but had to go to Shanghai shortly afterwards to protect German nationals in the city. In January 1885, the corvette traveled again to Chemulpo in response to unrest, but in February was ordered to sail into East African waters to serve as the flagship of a new cruiser squadron. The East Asian squadron was dissolved accordingly, as only the two gunboats Wolf and Nautilus remained at the station.
Operation in front of Africa
On March 1, 1885, the Stosch left Chemulpo, but when they returned to Hong Kong, they received the changed order to go to Australia to resolve disputes between Germany and Great Britain over the German acquisition of colonies in the Bismarck Archipelago and in Kaiser-Wilhelms-Land if necessary also to be settled by force. On April 11, the ship reached Sydney , where she received the news that the corvette SMS Marie was stranded off Neu-Mecklenburg . Stosch traveled there and towed the damaged ship back to Sydney for repairs. When the ships arrived in Sydney on May 6, the political situation had calmed down and Stosch was able to return to their original mission. On July 5, she arrived in Port Louis , Mauritius , where she was waiting for other members of a new squadron to be formed. Her sister ship SMS Gneisenau , the corvettes Elisabeth and Prinz Adalbert and the chartered steamship SS Ehrenfels met within a few days . The first assignment for the new squadron was the search for the corvette SMS Augusta, which had disappeared in the Gulf of Aden . The search began around the Maldives and the Chagos Archipelago , but the missing ship was not found.
At that time, Germany had entered the race for Africa and had already established protected areas in South West Africa , Cameroon and Togo . The squadron was now sent to Zanzibar in order to enforce German " protection treaties " for East Africa in this case against the Sultan of Zanzibar , Barghasch ibn Said , who claimed the East African coast as a territory.
On July 7th, the squadron left Port Louis for Zanzibar. On the way, Stosch's commander, Captain zur See Nostitz, suffered a heart attack and died. Corvette captain Geissler, previously chief officer on the Prinz Adalbert , then took over command of the ship until Nostitz's successor, Captain Otto von Diederichs , arrived on September 8th.
Until August 17, when Rear Admiral Eduard von Knorr arrived with her sister ship Bismarck as the new head of the squadron off Zanzibar, the Stosch was the squadron's flagship under Commodore Paschen. Thereafter Paschen was commissioned to form a new squadron, which should consist of Stosch , Prince Adalbert and Gneisenau , in order to secure the colonies in West Africa.
After the mission there and the disbandment of the squadron in December, the Stosch returned to Germany and was decommissioned due to extensive modernization work, during which new boilers were installed and the old 15 cm cannons were replaced by new rapid-fire guns. The ship was then assigned to the reserve and added to the list of training ships.
Training ship
The Stosch was put back into service on September 20, 1888 as the flagship of the school squadron and replaced the Stein in this role. At that time, the squadron was commanded by Rear Admiral Friedrich von Hollmann and also includes Stosch's sister ships Gneisenau and Moltke .
The winter training trip of 1888 went to the Mediterranean Sea from September 29th and was after participating in the celebrations for the 25th jubilee of King George I of Greece from October 27th to November 5th in Piraeus and then visits to ports of the Ottoman Empire . While Stosch was in Smyrna , Hollmann and his staff attended an audience with Sultan Abdul Hamid II. After visiting Egypt , the trip was ended on April 16, 1889 in Wilhelmshaven and Stosch was decommissioned on April 27.
This was followed by the annual fleet maneuvers in August and September and, from October 3, 1889, the winter training trip, this time to the West Indies and Venezuela . In the Caribbean, the German squadron met the French West Indian squadron for a formal visit between commanders. On the way back to Germany, the squadron stayed in British waters from May 22 to June 21, 1890, as it was taking part in the Cowes Regatta with Wilhelm II on board the Avisos Blitz at that time.
In 1891 Stosch was reactivated for use as a guard ship in Kiel. In the summer of that year she visited the Cowes Regatta again and then Leith and Bergen before returning to Kiel on August 5th. This was followed by a training trip in the western Baltic Sea and participation in the annual fleet exercises from August 28th. After completing the maneuvers, she was decommissioned on September 24th in Kiel. She spent the following year in a similar fashion, completing a major overseas training voyage in 1893 to train naval cadets. That year she took part as part of the III. Division took part in the annual maneuvers. After the maneuvers, she underwent an overhaul before embarking on another major cruise to the West Indies on October 8. Stosch returned to Kiel on March 29, 1894 and completed the renewed participation in the annual fleet maneuvers in August and September, again as part of the III. Division. Another voyage to the West Indies began on October 13th and ended on March 26th, 1895 in Kiel. In that year she began to train cabin boys in addition to cadets , initially in German waters. On June 21, 1895, the ship took part in the opening ceremony of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal .
Stosch's training service was interrupted on June 29th when she was sent to Morocco along with the coastal armored ship Hagen , the protected cruiser Kaiserin Augusta and Marie in response to the murder of two German citizens . The ships arrived on July 10th to seek compensation for the murders, which they received by August 4th and were able to return to Germany. Just in time for the fleet exercises this year, Stosch arrived in Wilhelmshaven on August 13th. The overseas training voyage began on October 2nd and went to the West Indies again. The Stosch stayed there from December 20 to 23 in Port-au-Prince in response to the unrest that threatened German citizens in the city. In mid-January 1896, the ship went on to Key West , before joining Stein and Gneisenau in Havana . The three ships then went to Venezuela and began their return journey, stopping in Rotterdam , where they were received by Queen Emma . The ships arrived in Kiel on March 18. From July 8th to 11th, Stosch and Stein visited Saint Petersburg , where Tsar Nicholas II received the officers of both ships.
In 1896 Stosch took part in the fleet maneuvers of the III. Division and then began the winter training trip on September 26th, which led to the Mediterranean this year. After visiting ports in the Levant , the ship returned to Germany on March 25, 1897. After another overhaul, the ship completed the normal routine of training exercises, fleet maneuvers in August and September and the winter training voyage to the West Indies and the Mediterranean from April 5, 1898. In Tangier , she and SMS Charlotte again put pressure on the Moroccan government for compensation for the two murders in 1895. On January 30, 1899, the Stosch and the Charlotte Oran visited and were the first German warships to call at a French port again after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 . By the time they returned to Germany on March 22, 1899, the Navy had changed the training plan. Instead of carrying out the overseas practice trip in the winter months, it should now take place in summer. After a short training period in the Baltic Sea, Stosch began another overseas voyage to the West Indies on July 2, 1899. In November 1899, during the armed uprising of Cipriano Castro against the previous President Ignacio Andrade in Venezuela, the Stosch under Captain Alfred Ehrlich replaced the cruiser Nixe in front of the Venezuelan port of Puerto Cabello in order to protect German citizens and interests there, but intervened during the bombardment and conquest of the city by Castro's troops. The mission ended on March 12, 1900. This was followed by visits to Norwegian, British and Dutch ports between August 11 and September 20 and two trips to the Mediterranean from September 20, 1900 to March 18, 1901 and from August 1, 1901 until March 19, 1902.
Later in the year, exercises were held in the Baltic Sea from June 6 to July 29, followed by visits to Copenhagen and Oslo . Another winter training trip to the West Indies took place via Vigo . On November 25, the ship arrived in Venezuela and joined the East American cruiser division under Commodore Georg Scheder on the great cruiser Vineta , which was there because of the blockade during the “Venezuela crisis”. Their Stosch activities were limited to the transfer of the German ambassador from La Guaira to Curaçao . On January 29, 1903, Stosch left the squadron and reached Kiel on March 20. On May 19, another training run started in the Baltic and North Sea, which included stops in Libau and Bergen. A subsequent trip to South America to Bahía Blanca in Brazil ended on March 16, 1904. Another cruise to the Mediterranean with stops in Stockholm and Bergen, where Kaiser Wilhelm II visited the ship, followed on July 16. After another stop in Ceuta , Stosch called on Constantinople , where their commandant was received by Sultan Abdul Hamid II. It reached Kiel on March 18, 1905.
On July 18, the ship started another training voyage, this time in West African waters, where she carried out hydrographic surveys on Cap Blanc . During this mission she ran aground and had to be freed from a British steamer. The ship was overtaken in Ceuta on October 23. Only on January 20, 1906, the ship was able to continue its voyage into the Mediterranean. Stosch came back to Kiel on March 17th for the usual training cycle for the year that started on March 31st.
Whereabouts
A final training trip into the Mediterranean followed, which ended on March 16, 1907. The ship was then decommissioned in Kiel on April 3 and deleted from the list of warships on May 27, 1907. She was briefly used as the Hulk at the Imperial Shipyard in Kiel and then sold to a Dutch company for scrapping in October 1907.
Commanders
| April 1881 to January 1882 | Sea captain Louis von Blanc |
| January 1882 to November 1883 | Captain of the sea Glomsda von Buchholtz |
| November 1883 to August 1885 | Captain of the sea from Nostitz |
| August to September 1885 | Corvette captain with the rank of lieutenant colonel Geissler |
| September to December 1885 | Sea captain Otto von Diederichs |
| December 1885 to April 1889 | Captain Franz Junge |
| April to September 1891 | Sea captain Otto Diederichsen |
| April to September 1892 | Sea captain Rudolf Rittmeyer |
| May 1893 to April 1894 | Sea captain Rudolf Rittmeyer |
| April to July 1894 | Captain Oscar von Schuckmann |
| July 1894 to September 1895 | Sea captain Hugo von Schuckmann |
| September 1895 to April 1897 | Sea captain August Thiele |
| April to August 1898 | Sea captain Curt von Maltzahn |
| August 1898 to April 1901 | Frigate captain / sea captain Alfred Ehrlich |
| April 1901 to April 1903 | Frigate captain / sea captain Georg Janke |
| April 1903 to March 1904 | Sea captain Otto Mandt |
| March 1904 to March 1906 | Frigate captain / sea captain Hartwig von Dassel |
| March 1906 to April 1907 | Sea captain Franz von Holleben |
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, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 , p. 70 f .
- Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 7 : Ship biographies from Prussian eagle to Ulan . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen.