SMS König Wilhelm (1868)

SMS   (''King William'') was an armored frigate of the Prussian and later the German Imperial Navy. The ship was laid down in 1865 at the Thames Ironworks shipyard in London, originally under the name for the Ottoman Empire. She was purchased by Prussia in February 1867, launched in April 1868, and commissioned into the Prussian Navy in February 1869. The ship was the fifth ironclad ordered by the Prussian Navy, after , , , and . She was built as an armored frigate, armed with a main battery of sixteen and five guns; several smaller guns and torpedo tubes were added later in her career.

The ship was for a time the largest and most powerful warship in the German navy; she served as its flagship during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870–1871, though engine troubles prevented the ship from seeing action. In 1878, the ship accidentally rammed and sank the ironclad , with great loss of life. was converted into an armored cruiser in 1895–1896; by early 1904, however, she had been superseded by newer vessels. In May of that year, she was placed out of active service and used as a floating barracks and training ship, a role she held through World War I. In 1921, the ship was ultimately broken up for scrap, after a career spanning 52 years and three German states.

Design

The ship had originally been ordered by the Ottoman Empire under the name from the Thames Ironworks shipyard in London, England in 1865. The vessel was built to a design created by the British naval architect Edward Reed, and at the time it was regarded in the press to be the most powerful vessel in the world. Some larger than the contemporary British ironclad , she also carried a larger gun battery. But owing to the Ottoman inability to pay for the vessel, the builder placed the still-incomplete vessel for sale the following year. The Kingdom of Prussia had embarked on a program to acquire sea-going ironclad warships, and after having placed orders for two such vessels in British and French shipyards in 1865, opted to add to the Prussian Navy when the opportunity arose. The small Prussian fleet had been unable to defeat the Danish naval blockade in the Second Schleswig War of 1863–1864, and sought to strengthen its fleet with ironclads to prevent future blockades.

On entering service, the ship was the largest and most powerful vessel in the Prussian fleet, and served as its flagship. Indeed, remained the largest German vessel until 1891. This was in part due to the fact that Germany laid down only one small ironclad between 1876 and 1888; the four s, launched in 1891 and 1892, were the first ships to surpass in size.

General characteristics and machinery

was long at the waterline and long overall. She had a beam of and a draft of forward and aft. The ship was designed to displace at a normal loading, and up to at full load. The ship's hull was constructed with transverse and longitudinal iron frames. It contained eleven watertight compartments and a double bottom that ran for 70 percent of the length of the vessel.

was noted by the German navy as having had "satisfactory sea-keeping qualities"; the ship was responsive to commands from the helm and had a moderate turning radius. Steering was controlled with a single rudder. She suffered from severe roll but little pitch. The ship's crew numbered 36 officers and 694 enlisted men, and while serving as a flagship, the crew was augmented with a command staff composed of 9 officers and 47 enlisted men. carried a number of smaller boats, including two picket boats, two launches, a pinnace, two cutters, two yawls, and one dinghy.

A horizontal, two-cylinder single-expansion steam engine, built by Maudslay, Son & Field of London, powered the ship. It drove a four-bladed screw propeller that was in diameter. J Penn & Sons of Greenwich built eight tank boilers for the ship. These were divided into two boiler rooms with twenty fireboxes in each, supplied steam to the engine at . Each boiler room was vented into its own funnel.

The propulsion system was rated at and a top speed of , though on trials exceeded both figures, reaching and . The ship carried of coal, which enabled a maximum range of at a cruising speed of . A ship rig with a surface area of supplemented the steam engine, though in service they added little to the ship's performance.

Armament and armor

As built, was equipped with a main battery of thirty-three rifled 72-pounder cannon. After her delivery to Germany, these guns were replaced with nineteen 24 cm K L/20 guns, supplied with a total of 1,440 rounds of ammunition. Most of these guns were mounted in a central battery, with nine on either broadside. The nineteenth gun was a Chase gun placed in the stern, in the commandant's quarters. The guns could depress to −4° and elevate to 7.5°; at maximum elevation, the guns could reach targets out to . The ship's armament was rounded out by four guns, which could depress to −5° and elevate to 13°. Their maximum range was . The 21 cm guns were on the upper deck. Two were in the half-round towers near the stern, and two others were mounted near the bow as chase guns.

As built, the ship was protected by wrought iron plating mounted over teak backing. Protection at the waterline was thickest amidships, with an upper belt of iron armor thick, a lower belt of thick iron, and of teak behind the iron. The upper belt was reduced to in the stern but did not extend to the bow. The lower belt was thick in both the bow and stern, and the teak backing was for both ends of the ship. The central battery was protected with 203 mm (8 in) and thick plating amidships and on the bow and stern respectively and capped on either end with 150 mm thick transverse bulkheads.

Modifications

was reconstructed into an armored cruiser in 1895–1896 and rearmed with twenty-two 24 cm L/20 guns, a single L/30 gun with 109 rounds mounted in the stern, and eighteen quick-firing guns on the upper deck, nine on each broadside. The 15 cm gun had a range of . Five torpedo tubes were also installed; two were placed in the bow, one on both broadsides, and one in the stern, all above water. The torpedo tubes were supplied with a total of 13 rounds. Following her conversion into a training ship, most of her armament was removed. The ship only carried sixteen 8.8 cm L/30 guns, and in 1915, twelve of these were removed.

During her reconstruction into an armored cruiser, the iron armor was cut away and replaced with stronger steel armor. The conning tower received armor protection during the refit as well. The sides were thick sloped plates, with a thick roof.

Service history

The ship was laid down in 1865 and the Prussians purchased her on 6 February 1867, initially renaming her . They changed her name again to on 14 December, and she was launched on 25 April 1868. After completing fitting-out, she was commissioned less than a year later, on 20 February 1869. The ship's first commander was Ludwig von Henk. Shortly after entering service, she joined the ironclads and for training exercises in August and September.

Franco-Prussian War

In May 1870, , , and were joined by the ironclad ram for a visit to Britain, though was damaged after running aground in the Great Belt. , , and continued on to Plymouth while returned to Kiel for repairs. The latter vessel quickly rejoined the ships there and on 1 July they departed for a training cruise to Fayal in the Azores, Portugal. But tensions with France over the Hohenzollern candidacy for the vacant Spanish throne were reaching a crisis point. While they cruised east through the English Channel, they learned of the increasing likelihood of war, and the Prussians detached to Dartmouth to be kept informed of events. The rest of the squadron joined her there on 13 July, and as war seemed to be imminent, the Prussians ended the cruise and returned to home.

The ships arrived back in Wilhelmshaven on 16 July, three days before France declared war on Prussia over the Ems Dispatch, initiating the Franco-Prussian War. The greatly numerically inferior Prussian Navy assumed a defensive posture against a naval blockade imposed by the French Navy. , , and were concentrated in the North Sea at the port of Wilhelmshaven, with a view toward breaking the French blockade of the port. They were subsequently joined there by the turret ship , which had been stationed in Kiel. Despite the great French naval superiority, the French had conducted insufficient pre-war planning for an assault on the Prussian naval installations, and concluded that it would only be possible with Danish assistance, which was not forthcoming.

The four ships, under the command of (Vice Admiral) Eduard von Jachmann, made an offensive sortie in early August 1870 out to the Dogger Bank, though they encountered no French warships. and the other two broadside ironclads thereafter suffered from chronic engine trouble, which left alone to conduct operations. , , and stood off the island of Wangerooge for the majority of the conflict, while was stationed in the mouth of the Elbe river. On 11 September, the three broadside ironclads were again ready for action; they joined for another major operation into the North Sea. It too did not encounter French opposition, as the French Navy had by this time returned to France.

Peacetime operations in the 1870s

After the war, the Prussian Navy became the Imperial Navy, and resumed its peacetime training routines. General Albrecht von Stosch became the chief of the Imperial Navy, and organized the fleet for coastal defense. Through the early 1870s, and the other armored frigates operated intermittently, alternating between periods of training activity and stints in reserve. Typically, the ships were commissioned for summer training cycles before being laid up over the winter, with one or two ironclads kept in commission but with reduced crews to serve as guard ships. For the 1875 training year, cruised with and the recently completed ironclads and , though they stayed in local waters. remained laid up through 1876 and 1877.

was recommissioned in early 1878 to take part in that year's training program. While steaming in the Straits of Dover on 31 May, accidentally collided with the newly commissioned turret ironclad . The two ships, along with , had left Wilhelmshaven on the 29th. and steamed in a line, with off to starboard. On the morning of the 31st, the three ships encountered a pair of sailing vessels off Folkestone. turned to port to avoid the boats while sought to pass the two boats, but there was not enough distance between her and . She therefore turned hard to port to avoid , but the action was not taken quickly enough, and found herself pointed directly at . s ram bow tore a hole in .

A failure to adequately seal the watertight bulkheads aboard caused the ship to sink rapidly, in the span of about eight minutes. Out of a crew of 500 men, 269 died in the accident. was also badly damaged in the collision, with severe flooding forward. s captain initially planned on beaching the ship to prevent it from sinking, but determined that the ship's pumps could hold the flooding to an acceptable level. The ship made for Portsmouth, where temporary repairs could be effected to allow the ship to return to Germany. On the voyage back to Germany, she collided with the British smack ''Tom'' off Norderney. ''Tom'' lost her bowsprit, topmast and mizzen mast. She was escorted in to Great Yarmouth by the smack ''Glance''.

In the aftermath of the collision with , the German navy held a court martial for Rear Admiral Batsch, the squadron commander, and Captains Monts and Kuehne, the commanders of the two ships, along with Lieutenant Clausa, the first officer aboard , to investigate the sinking. The damage to necessitated a lengthy period of repairs from 1878 to 1882. The work was carried out at the Imperial Dockyard in Wilhelmshaven, and also included reboilering and replacement of the ship's ram. Her 21 cm guns were replaced with 24 cm guns, providing the ship with a uniform gun battery.

Later service

Torpedo nets were fitted to the ship from 1885 to 1897. returned to service in 1887 to participate in the ceremonies marking the beginning of construction of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, which was to link Kiel with the North Sea. She remained in commission for the summer training exercises, serving with I Division of the fleet. The ship participated in the 1888 training cycle as well, along with and the ironclads and . She did not see activity from 1889 to late 1892, but she was reactivated to take part in the training cruise of the winter of 1892–1893.

By 1893, had been assigned as the flagship for II Division of the German fleet; the four armored corvettes composed I Division. The ship flew the flag of Admiral Otto von Diederichs, and was based in Wilhelmshaven. On 20 February 1894, a special ceremony was held on board the ship to commemorate the 25th anniversary of her commissioning. Kaiser Wilhelm II attended the ceremony, as did Ludwig von Henk, who had by that time retired as a . In April 1894, II Division conducted a training cruise to prepare for the annual summer maneuvers. During the cruise, ran aground on a mud bank off the Frisian coast. and quickly pulled the ship free with minimal damage. The ships then proceeded to Scotland via Oslo and Bergen. The division returned to Kiel at the end of May to replenish its stocks of coal and provisions for the summer exercises. During the 1894 maneuvers, von Diederich's II Division acted as the opposing force in the Baltic, simulating a Russian fleet attacking Germany's Baltic coast. Following the conclusion of maneuvers in September, Diederichs left the squadron and was replaced by Admiral Karl Barandon.

In 1895, went into drydock at the Blohm and Voss shipyard in Hamburg for an extensive reconstruction into an armored cruiser. The vessel's armament was increased, the ship rig was removed, and new fighting masts were installed in place of the old masts. The ship's crew was dramatically increased, to 38 officers and 1,120 enlisted men. Work lasted through 1896, and the ship was returned to the fleet in her new guise on 25 January 1897. On 26 June, she represented Germany at the Fleet Review for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. She served with the fleet until 1904, when she was removed from active duty. Starting on 3 May 1904, she became a harbor ship. She was then used as barracks ship and training vessel for naval cadets, based in Kiel, starting on 1 October 1907. Two years later, was moved to the Naval Academy at Mürwik, where she continued in these duties. Starting in 1910, the old corvette served as a support vessel for the ship. The light cruiser replaced as s auxiliary vessel in 1917. served through World War I, until 1921, after Germany's defeat. On 4 January 1921, the ship was stricken from the naval register and broken up for scrap in Rönnebeck.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Konig Wilhelm
Cruisers of the Imperial German Navy
Cruisers of the United Kingdom
Ships built in Leamouth
1868 ships
19th-century frigates of Germany
Ironclad warships of the Imperial German Navy
Ships of the Prussian Navy
Maritime incidents in May 1878