His Majesty's Ship

Seal of the Imperial Navy - (Mirrored) - Command SMS Braunschweig

His Majesty Ship and the abbreviations SMS or SMS standing for this phrase were used in German-speaking monarchical navies and in the literature about it as a prefix to the respective ship name . For example, the German cruiser Emden was referred to as "SMS Emden " or the Austrian battleship Viribus Unitis as "SMS Viribus Unitis ". When speaking to the sovereign of a ship marked with an SMS , the name was "Your Majesty's ship ..." . Conversely, when the sovereign spoke of a ship named in this way, he used the phrase "My / Our ship ..." .

Official edicts for the mandatory use of this designation, such as exist for the prefix USS used in the United States Navy , are not known, but are possible. The SMS variant with the ship's name was probably always used on official seals of ships of the Imperial Navy .

It was a peculiarity of the Austro-Hungarian Navy that the individual ships always had the gender of their ship's name , so one usually spoke of " the Kaiser " and not of " the Kaiser ", also of the " Szent Istvan ", the " Empress Elisabeth " , the " Sankt Georg " and the " Wien ".

literature

• Emanuel van Meterens: Meteranus Novus, This is a warlike description of the Dutch War . Amsterdam 1669.
• Hans Jürgen Witthöft : Lexicon on German naval history . Volume 2 letter NZ. 1st edition. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft , Herford 1978, ISBN 3-7822-0148-5 , p. 86 .

Web links

Wiktionary: His Majesty's Ship  - explanations of meanings, origins of words, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Adherence to a certain system when choosing the names of His Majesty Ships and Vehicles" (MVBl. 1875, p. 140), printed in Die deutschen Kriegsschiffe . Volume 1. Mundus Verlag, Ratingen 1979, p. 69 .