SMS Victoria Louise

SMS Victoria Louise was the lead ship of her class of protected cruisers, built for the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) in the late 1890s. She was laid down at the AG Weser shipyard in 1895, launched in March 1897, and commissioned into the German fleet in February 1899. She was named after Princess Victoria Louise, the daughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II. The ship was armed with a battery of two 21 cm guns and eight 15 cm guns and had a top speed of 19.2 kn.

Victoria Louise served with the fleet for the first seven years of her career. During this time, she represented Germany during the funeral of Queen Victoria in 1901. In 1906, she was modernized and after 1908, used as a training ship for naval cadets. In 1909, she visited the United States, and at the outbreak of World War I, was mobilized into the 5th Scouting Group. She was attacked unsuccessfully by the British submarine HMS E1 in October 1914, and at the end of the year she was withdrawn from service. She was used as a minelayer and barracks ship based in Danzig for the rest of the war. Victoria Louise was sold in 1919 and converted into a freighter the following year, though she served in this capacity until 1923, when she was broken up for scrap.

Design


Victoria Louise was ordered under the contract name "L" and was laid down at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen in 1895. She was launched on 29 March 1897, after which fitting-out work commenced. She was commissioned into the German navy on 20 February 1899. The ship was 110.6 m long overall and had a beam of 17.4 m and a draft of 6.58 m forward. She displaced 6491 MT at full combat load. Her propulsion system consisted of three vertical 4-cylinder triple expansion engines powered by twelve coal-fired Dürr boilers. Her engines provided a top speed of 19.2 kn and a range of approximately 3412 nmi at 12 kn. She had a crew of 31 officers and 446 enlisted men.

The ship was armed with two 21 cm SK L/40 guns in single turrets, one forward and one aft. The guns were supplied with supplied with 58 rounds of ammunition each. They had a range of 16300 m. Victoria Louise also carried eight 15 cm SK L/40 guns. Four were mounted in turrets amidships and the other four were placed in casemates. These guns had a range of 13700 m. She also carried ten 8.8 cm SK L/35 guns. The gun armament was rounded out by machine guns. She was also equipped with three 45 cm torpedo tubes with eight torpedoes, two launchers were mounted on the broadside and the third was in the bow, all below the waterline.

Service history


Victoria Louise joined the squadron, commanded by Prince Heinrich, that went to Britain to participate in the funeral of Queen Victoria in 1901. Along with Victoria Louise, SMS Baden (1880), SMS Hagen, and SMS Nymphe represented Germany at Spithead. In 1902, Victoria Louise was assigned to the Cruiser Division of the I Squadron of the German home fleet. The Division consisted of the armored cruiser SMS Prinz Heinrich, the flagship, SMS Freya, and the light cruisers SMS Hela, SMS Amazone (1900), and SMS Niobe. The Division participated in the summer fleet maneuvers of August–September 1902. In 1906, the ship went into dock for modernization in the Imperial Dockyard in Kiel. After emerging from the drydock in 1908, Victoria Louise served as a training ship for naval cadets and cabin boys. In September–October 1909, Victoria Louise, Hertha, SMS Dresden (1907), and SMS Bremen traveled to the United States to represent Germany during the Hudson-Fulton Celebration. In 1912, Theodor Krancke served aboard the ship as a cadet; he would go on to command the heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer in World War II.

She served as a school ship until the outbreak of World War I in August 1914. She was briefly mobilized into the 5th Scouting Group, which was tasked with training cadets in the Baltic Sea. Shortly after 0900 on 17 October, the British submarine HMS E1, commanded by Noel Laurence, attempted to torpedo Victoria Louise at a range of 460 m. The torpedo ran too deep, however, and missed. By the end of 1914, however, the ships were again removed from service. She was put into service as a coastal defense ship. After 1915, she was withdrawn from front-line duty again and employed as a minelayer and barracks ship in Danzig. In 1916, Victoria Louise was disarmed. She remained in service in Danzig until 1 October 1919, when she was stricken from the naval register. She was sold to the Norddeutscher Tiefbau company and rebuilt in 1920 into a freighter. She was renamed Flora Sommerfeld and operated by Danziger Hoch- und Tiefbau GmbH. She served in this capacity only briefly; she was broken up for scrap in 1923 in Danzig.