''Geier'' was a British

cargo ship A cargo ship or freighter is a merchant ship that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's List of seas, seas and Ocean, oceans each year, handling the bulk of international trade. ...

named ''Saint Théodore'' that was captured by the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

commerce raider Commerce raiding is a form of naval warfare used to destroy or disrupt logistics of the enemy on the open sea by attacking its merchant shipping, rather than engaging its combatants or enforcing a blockade against them. Privateering is a fo ...

in the

North Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

at on 12 December 1916. First put into

Imperial German Navy The Imperial German Navy or the ''Kaiserliche Marine'' (Imperial Navy) was the navy of the German Empire, which existed between 1871 and 1919. It grew out of the small Prussian Navy (from 1867 the North German Federal Navy), which was mainly for ...

service as an

auxiliary ship An auxiliary ship is a naval ship designed to support combatant ships and other naval operations. Auxiliary ships are not primary combatant vessels, though they may have some limited combat capacity, usually for purposes of self-defense. Auxili ...

on 14 December 1916, ''Geier'' was commissioned as an

auxiliary cruiser An armed merchantman is a merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in lo ...

() on 28 December and operated in the

South Atlantic Ocean The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the ...

until 14 February 1917, when she was

scuttled Scuttling is the act of deliberately sinking a ship by allowing water to flow into the hull, typically by its crew opening holes in its hull. Scuttling may be performed to dispose of an abandoned, old, or captured vessel; to prevent the vesse ...

near

Ilha da Trindade Trindade and Martim Vaz (, ) is an archipelago located in the South Atlantic Ocean about east off the coast of the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo, of which it forms a part. The archipelago has a total area of and a navy-supported research ...

.Geier (Hilfskreuzer)
at german-navy.de.

References

1913 ships Ships built on the River Clyde World War I cruisers of Germany Maritime incidents in 1916 Auxiliary cruisers of the Imperial German Navy World War I commerce raiders Maritime incidents in 1917 World War I shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean Scuttled vessels of Germany {{Merchantship-stub