SMS Magdeburg

SMS Magdeburg ("His Majesty's Ship Magdeburg") was a lead ship of the Magdeburg-class cruiser of light cruisers in the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy). Her class included three other ships: SMS Breslau, SMS Strassburg, and SMS Stralsund. Magdeburg was built at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen from 1910 to August 1912, when she was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet. The ship was armed with a main battery of twelve 10.5 cm SK L/45 guns and had a top speed of 27.5 kn. Magdeburg was used as a torpedo test ship after her commissioning until the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, when she was brought to active service and deployed to the Baltic.

In the Baltic, Magdeburg fired the first shots of the war against the Russians on 2 August, when she shelled the port of Libau. She participated in a series of bombardments of Russian positions until late August. On the 26th, she participated in a sweep of the entrance to the Gulf of Finland; while steaming off the Estonian coast, she ran aground off the island of Odensholm and could not be freed. A pair of Russian cruisers appeared and seized the ship. Fifteen crew members were killed in the brief engagement. They recovered three intact German code books, one of which they passed to the British. The ability to decrypt German wireless signals provided the British with the ability to ambush German units on several occasions during the war, including the Battle of Jutland. The Russians partially scrapped Magdeburg while she remained grounded before completely destroying the wreck.

Design
Magdeburg was ordered under the contract name "Ersatz SMS Bussard" and was laid down at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen in 1910 and launched on 13 May 1911, after which fitting-out work commenced. She was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet on 20 August 1912. The ship was 138.7 m long overall and had a beam of 13.5 m and a draft of 4.4 m forward. She displaced 4570 t at full combat load. Her propulsion system consisted of two sets of AEG-Vulcan steam turbines driving two 3.4 m propellers. They were designed to give 25000 shp, but reached 33482 shp in service. These were powered by sixteen coal-fired Marine-type water-tube boilers, although they were later altered to use fuel oil that was sprayed on the coal to increase its burn rate. These gave the ship a top speed of 27.5 kn. Magdeburg carried 1200 t of coal, and an additional 106 t of oil that gave her a range of approximately 5820 nmi at 12 kn. She had a crew of 18 officers and 336 enlisted men.

The ship was armed with twelve 10.5 cm SK L/45 guns in single pedestal mounts. Two were placed side by side forward on the forecastle, eight were located amidships, four on either side, and two were side by side aft. The guns had a maximum elevation of 30 degrees, which allowed them to engage targets out to 12700 m. They were supplied with 1,800 rounds of ammunition, for 150 shells per gun. She was also equipped with a pair of 50 cm torpedo tubes with five torpedoes submerged in the hull on the broadside. She could also carry 120 mines. The ship was protected by a waterline armored belt that was 60 mm thick amidships. The conning tower had 100 mm thick sides, and the deck was covered with up to 60 mm thick armor plate.

Service history
After her commissioning, Magdeburg was used as a torpedo test ship. Following the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, she was assigned to the Baltic Sea, under the command of Rear Admiral Robert Mischke. Magdeburg fired the first shots of the war with Russia on 2 August when she shelled the Russian port of Libau while SMS Augsburg laid a minefield outside the harbor. The Russians had in fact already left Libau, which was seized by the German Army. The minefield laid by Augsburg was poorly marked and hindered German operations more than Russian efforts. Magdeburg and the rest of the Baltic forces then conducted a series of bombardments of Russian positions, including one ten days later, on 12 August, where Magdeburg shelled the Dagerort lighthouse. On 17 August, Magdeburg, Augsburg, three destroyers, and the minelayer SMS Deutschland (1914) encountered a pair of powerful Russian armored cruisers, Admiral Makarov and Gromoboi. The Russian commander, under the mistaken assumption that the German armored cruisers SMS Roon and SMS Prinz Heinrich were present, did not attack and both forces withdrew.

Prince Heinrich, the overall commander of the Baltic naval forces, replaced Mischke with Rear Admiral Behring. Behring ordered another operation for 26 August to sweep for Russian reconnaissance forces in the entrance to the Gulf of Finland. Early that morning, Magedeburg ran aground off the lighthouse at Odensholm on the Estonian coast. Her escorting destroyer, SMS V.26, attempted to pull her free but was unable to do so and began taking off part of Magdeburg's crew. While the evacuation was going on, the Russian cruisers Bogatyr and Pallada appeared and shelled the stranded cruiser. The Germans destroyed the forward section of the ship, but could not complete her destruction before the Russians reached the ship. Fifteen crew members from Magdeburg were killed in the attack. The German code books were also not destroyed; the Russians were able to recover three of the books along with the current encryption key. They passed one copy to the British Royal Navy via a pair of Russian couriers on 13 October. The Russian Navy partially scrapped the ship in situ and eventually destroyed the wreck.

The capture of the code books proved to provide a significant advantage for the Royal Navy. The Admiralty had recently created a deciphering department known as Room 40 to process intercepted German wireless signals. With the code books and cipher key, the British were able to track the movements of most German warships; this information could be passed on to the Admiral John Jellicoe, the commander of the Grand Fleet. This allowed the British to ambush parts of or the entire German fleet on several occasions, most successfully at the Battles of Dogger Bank in January 1915 and Jutland in May 1916.