SMS Weißenburg (1891)
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SMS Weißenburg was an ironclad of the former Imperial Navy . The ship was named in memory of the Battle of Weissenburg in 1870.
From August 1900, she and her sisters served for a year in China because of the Boxer Rebellion . From autumn 1906 it was part of the reserve units of the Imperial Navy before it was sold to the Ottoman Empire in the summer of 1910 . It was under the name Torgud rice in the Balkan wars and the First World War used. Then she served as a training ship and finally as a residential ship. The final demolition did not take place until the 1950s.
General Information
The ship, the construction of which began in 1890, was launched in Stettin on December 14, 1891 as the third ship of the Brandenburg class and the second at the AG Vulcan shipyard , and was put into service on June 5, 1894 as the fourth and last ship of the class and assigned to the I. Division. In 1899, all armored ships of the Brandenburg class were reclassified to ships of the line.
With a length of 116 m, a width of 19.5 m and a draft of 7.9 m, the ships displaced 10,500 tons and had a top speed of 16.5 knots. The crew numbered 570-590 men. The armament consisted of six 28 cm guns, six 10.5 cm guns and eight 8.8 cm guns and six torpedo tubes. The heavy guns were arranged in three twin barbeds on the longitudinal axis. They were weaker than the 30.5 cm caliber of foreign navies, but because of the larger number of tubes (6 instead of 4) they were the heaviest main armament on an armored ship in the world at their time. The Weißenburg differed from its sisters in the armor, which was only made entirely of modern KC (Krupp-cemented) chrome-nickel steel. This had twice the strength of the compound armor , i.e. 200 mm KC armor corresponded to the protective effect of 400 mm compound armor.
history
Fleet service
The White Castle came to its commissioning and testing of the fourth ship to the first division of the maneuver squadron, which was from 1896 called I. Squadron. Her first trip abroad with the division took her to Kirkwall in May 1895 . This was followed by the inauguration of the Kiel Canal and, in July, an Atlantic trip by the division to northern Spain. The return march took place on the 27th from Vigo via Queenstown, today Cobh , to Cowes , where the Kaiser stayed with his yacht Hohenzollern and the escort cruiser Gefion . On August 10, the division returned to Wilhelmshaven and began the usual maneuvers in the North Sea. In 1896 the division visited the Netherlands and Norway. In 1898 there was a maneuver trip with the first circumnavigation of the British Isles by a navy since the times of the Armada with stops in Queenstown, Greenock and Kirkwall and from December 9th to 13th a stay in Kungsbacka .
On February 27, 1899, the four ships of the Brandenburg class were declared ships of the line under the Fleet Act . In May another trip to the Atlantic took place, which led on May 8th via Falmouth (Cornwall) to Lisbon (12th). At the end of the trip, the division took part in a parade off Dover on May 24th in honor of the 80th birthday of the British Queen Victoria and then returned to Kiel on May 31st. In December 1899 the division visited Kristiansand . The training trip in May 1900 led to the Shetlands and the Sognefjord and to Bergen. The subsequent maneuvers were canceled in order to prepare for the planned foreign assignment.
East Asia deployment
During the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 they besieged the legation district in Beijing and murdered the German ambassador, Baron Clemens von Ketteler . The widespread violence against the Europeans in China led to an alliance of eight nations against the nationalist Chinese movement, which included Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Russia, Austria-Hungary, the United States, France and Japan. The soldiers currently stationed in China were too few to defeat the boxers. In Beijing it was a force of a little over 400 men from the eight nations who defended the legation district. The main element of German military power in China was the East Asian Cruiser Squadron . Despite the objections of the Minister of the Navy, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz , who considered the operation unnecessary and too extensive, in the summer of 1900 the Elector Friedrich Wilhelm was chosen as the flagship of Rear Admiral Richard von Geißler together with her sister ships of the Brandenburg class of the I. Division of the I. Squadron sent to East Asia with the small cruiser Hela . They left Kiel on July 9, 1900 and ran via Wilhelmshaven, Gibraltar , the Suez Canal , Aden , Colombo to Singapore , where the first long break was made during the division's departure from August 19 to 23. On the 28th the division reached Hong Kong and on August 30th it was in the roadstead of Wusung near Shanghai and participated in the "blockade" of the Chinese Navy, which up the Yangtze River had no intention of calling against the overwhelming international forces. In addition to the four German ships of the line, two British ships blocked the exit from the river alongside a large number of cruisers, cannon and torpedo boats of all nations. The siege of the Legation Quarter in Beijing was now over.
The Weißenburg moved to the Yellow Sea at the end of September . She and her sister ships were supposed to support the planned landing of the International Expeditionary Corps at Qinhuangdao and Shanhaiguan from October 3rd. At the same time, the landing corps of the ships of the line replaced the sailors of the cruiser squadron there on land. From the end of October, the ships returned individually to the Wusung roadstead. Only one ship usually stayed in the Yellow Sea. Docking times were agreed for all ships and the usual replacement of part of the crews in the cruiser squadron was planned. At the same time, the Navy increased its demands for the division to withdraw because of a lack of real tasks. Weißenburg went to the dock in Nagasaki from January 4 to 23, 1901 . In March the whole division was temporarily gathered in Tsingtau to take over the newly arrived crew members and to familiarize them with the tasks during small exercises. On May 26, the order to return home for the entire liner division was received, although the Foreign Office demanded that two ships remain in front of China.
On June 1, 1901, the German association with the four ships of the line and the Hela began the march back home, which was reached on August 11. On the way back there were longer stays in Singapore and Colombo. During the march against the monsoon, the security division called Mahé (Seychelles) as an additional coal station. After marching over Aden and Port Said, the division met on August 1st in Cadiz with the new I. Division of the I. Squadron under the squadron chief Prince Heinrich of Prussia on the Kaiser Wilhelm der Große and both divisions then ran together for home . The entire operation was extremely costly, as foreign coal stations had to be used on the marches to and from East Asia. These ships were actually not needed for operations during the Boxer Rebellion . The demonstrative nature of the operation, which cost the Reich over 100 million marks, was obvious. No other nation deployed its forces to the same extent.
Fleet service, conversion, reserve
The Weißenburg remained in service with the 2nd Division of the 1st Squadron on September 29, 1902. Like her sister ships, she left the association in the autumn to be modernized in the Kaiserliche Werft Wilhelmshaven . The ships received new masts, were freed of wood, the coal bunkers were expanded and the 10.5 cm battery was rebuilt and reinforced.
Together with her sister ship Wörth , the Weißenburg was put back into service on September 27, 1904 and assigned to the II. Squadron as a replacement for the coastal armored ships Beowulf and Hildebrand . In the autumn of 1906 she left the squadron association and became the parent ship of the North Sea Reserve Division, only to be finally decommissioned on September 27, 1907.
On August 2, 1910, the Weißenburg was put into service for the Imperial Navy for the last time, allegedly for the maneuvering fleet, and on the 14th it was assigned to the transfer association under Rear Admiral Reinhard Koch with the sister ship Elector Friedrich Wilhelm in order to be transferred to Turkey. Both ships took a total of 26 officers and 38 technical personnel from the Ottoman Navy on board for the transfer. Avoiding British ports, the two liners stopped for supplies in Oran to a bay near Çanakkale on the south bank of the Dardanelles, where they were handed over to the Ottoman Navy in the presence of the cruiser Hamidiye on September 1 . From Oran they were accompanied by four also bought show boats, formerly S 165 - S 168 (built in 1909). At the same time transported Ypiranga the Hapag additional ammunition equipment for the battleships to Turkey. The German crews were brought back with the Hapag steamer.
Ottoman Empire and World War I
On September 12, 1910, the ship was sold to the Ottoman Empire for 9 million marks , where it then served under the new name Torgud Reis , after the former Turkish corsair, Admiral and Bey of Tripoli, Turgut Reis . The sister ship Kurfürst Friedrich Wilhelm was sold at the same time and was then called Barbaros Hayreddin .
During the Italo-Turkish War of 1911/1912, the two ships of the line were operational, but remained in the Bosporus - Dardanelles area and did not intervene actively in the war.
Balkan Wars
On November 12, 1912, the Torgud Reis and the cruiser Hamidiye shelled positions of the Bulgarian troops in Derkosa . When the cruiser fired again on Bulgarian positions on November 21, the Hamidiye in the Black Sea 32 miles from Varna was attacked by the four Bulgarian torpedo boats Drazki , Latyashti , Smeli and Strogi and hit by the Drazki with a torpedo. The torpedo hit tore a three-meter hole in the bow on the starboard side and killed eight men. Although the bow was almost under water, she was able to retreat because of absolutely calm seas and was brought in by the Torgud Reis to Istanbul for repairs . Thereafter there were no further Turkish operations against the Bulgarian coast.
On December 16, 1912, the Ottoman Navy under Ramiz Bey tried to break out of the Dardanelles with the ships of the line Barbaros Hayreddin , Torgud Reis and Mesudiye , the cruiser Mecidiye and three destroyers in order to wage sea war in the Aegean Sea. In the battle of Elli , the attempt failed alone on the armored cruiser Georgios Averoff under Rear Admiral Pavlos Koundouriotis and the destroyers Aetos , Ierax and Pantir . Koundouriotis separated with his fast units from his three old ships of the line Spetsai , Hydra and Psara and stopped the Ottoman fleet. He focused his fire on the flagship Barbaros Hayreddin , which had seven dead and fourteen wounded. In addition there were eight dead and 20 wounded on the Torgud Reis and three dead and seven wounded on the Mesudiye . The Mecidiye was also slightly damaged. The Ottomans withdrew to the Dardanelles.
A second attempt by the Ottoman Navy on January 18, 1913 to break out of the Dardanelles also failed in the naval battle of Limnos . The attempt again under Ramiz Bey by the ships of the line Barbaros Hayreddin , Torgud Reis , Mesudiye , the cruiser Mecidiye and five destroyers failed about four hours after the breakout from the Dardanelles in the fire of the Greek squadron under Rear Admiral Koundouriotis with the armored cruiser Georgios Averoff , the old one battleships Spetsai , Hydra and Psara and seven destroyers, as the Greek Admiral, who are not as expected by the Turks and ordered his own government Georgios Averoff previously only broken to track the five days Hamidiye had sent. When they got within combat range of the Turks about three hours after passing the Dardanelles exit, the Mecidiye and the destroyers turned off immediately and the Mesudiye soon after hits by Hydra and Psara . After 20 minutes of fighting a volley which hit Georgios Averoff the Barbaros Hayreddin and destroyed its central tower, which she hove to. After a few minutes the Torgud Reis followed . The Georgios Averoff followed them for over two hours and, thanks to its higher speed, was able to bring itself into favorable positions for further hits. The Barbaros Hayreddin suffered over 20 hits, had destroyed large parts of its artillery and left 32 dead and 45 wounded. The Torgud Reis suffered a leak and further damage from 17 hits, which left nine dead and 49 wounded. The Mesudiye had also received several hits and complained about 68 failures.
February 8, 1913, the Ottoman Navy supported an amphibious assault at Şarköy on the north bank of the Sea of Marmara near Tekirdağ , where Bulgarian troops broke through in December. The Barbaros Hayreddin and the Torgud Reis were about a kilometer off the coast and supported the land troops with other ships. The attack was unsuccessful, but the ships very successfully covered the retreat of the Ottoman land troops with their guns.
In March 1913, the Torgud Reis was used with the sister ship Barbaros Hayreddin in the Black Sea to support the front at Çatalca. On March 26, they stopped an advance by the Bulgarians with their heavy and medium artillery. On March 30th the next operation took place in which a Turkish attack was supported.
World war
When the Ottoman Empire entered the war on Germany's side, the previous head of the German Mediterranean Division , Wilhelm Souchon , became the new Turkish fleet chief. He only wanted to take active action against the Russian fleet in the Black Sea. He wanted to compensate for the numerical inferiority by the speed of his units. The two old ships of the line Barbaros Hayreddin and Torgud Reis were not suitable for such a war and they were therefore assigned to the defense of the Dardanelles. The ships also received German officers.
The Torgud Reis survived the World War and was taken back into service as a training ship for the Turkish Navy from 1924 . From 1933 she was housed by shipyard workers at the Turkish naval base in Gölcük and was only demolished in 1956.
literature
- Bodin, Lynn E .: The Boxer Rebellion , Osprey Publishing, London (1979)
- Erickson, Edward J .: Defeat in detail. The Ottoman Army in the Balkans. 1912-1913. Praeger, Westport CT et al. 2003, ISBN 0-275-97888-5 .
- Erickson, Edward J .: Ordered to die. Da history of the Ottoman army in the First World War. Greenwood Press, Westport CT et al. 2001, ISBN 0-313-31516-7 ( Contributions in military studies 201).
- Gardiner, Robert, Randal Gray, Przemyslaw Budzbon: Conway's all the world's fighting ships, 1906-1921. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD 1985, ISBN 0-87021-907-3 .
- Gröner, Erich , Dieter Jung, Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945. Volume 1: Armored ships, ships of the line, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, gunboats. Bernard & Graefe, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 .
- Hildebrand, Hans H., Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships. A mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present day. Biographies. Volume 3. Mundus Verlag, Ratingen 1990.
- Koop, Gerhard / 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 .
- Langensiepen, Bernd , Dirk Nottelmann , Jochen Krüsmann: Half moon and imperial eagle. Breslau and Goeben on the Bosporus 1914–1918. Mittler & Sohn Verlag, Hamburg 1999, ISBN 3-8132-0588-6
- Nottelmann, Dirk : The Brandenburg class . The climax of German armored shipbuilding . ES Mittler & Sohn, Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn 2002, ISBN 3-8132-0740-4 .
- Sondhaus, Lawrence: Naval warfare, 1815–1914. Routledge, London et al. 2001, ISBN 0-415-21477-7 ( Warfare and history ).
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ http://www.worldwar1.co.uk/pre-dreadnought/sms-brandenburg.html
- ↑ Bodin: The Boxer Rebellion. 1979, p. 5f.
- ↑ Bodin: The Boxer Rebellion. 1979, p. 1.
- ↑ Bodin: The Boxer Rebellion. 1979, p. 6.
- ↑ These were large torpedo boats of the type 1906 S 138 to G 197 , of which 64 boats were built at Schichau (24), AG Vulcan (27) and Germania (13). The taxes to Turkey were replaced by newbuildings with the same number coming into service in 1911, the boats bought by the Turkish Fleet Association came into service as Muavenet-i Milliye , Yadigar-i Millet , Numune-i Hamiyet , Gayret-i Vatanye .
- ^ Nottelmann: The Brandenburg class . 2002, p. 86.
- ↑ Sondhaus: Naval Warfare. 2001, p. 219.
- ^ Gardiner: Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships. 1985, p. 389.
- ↑ Erickson: Defeat in detail. 2003, p. 264 ff.
- ↑ Erickson: Defeat in detail. 2003, p. 288.
- ^ Nottelmann: The Brandenburg class. 2002, p. 121. According to Koop / Schmolke, the ship was already broken up in 1952, cf. Koop / Schmolke: Ship class and ship types of the German Navy. Vol. 10, 2001, p. 65.