SMS ("His Majesty's Ship ) was the lead ship of her class of light cruisers built by the German (Imperial Navy). Named after Königsberg, the capital of East Prussia, she was laid down in January 1905, launched in December of that year and completed by June 1906. Her class included three other ships: , , and . was armed with a main battery of ten guns and had a top speed of .
After her commissioning, served with the High Seas Fleet's reconnaissance force. During this period, she frequently escorted Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht on visits to foreign countries. In April 1914, the ship was sent on what was to have been a two-year deployment to German East Africa, but this was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I in August of that year. initially attempted to raid British and French commercial traffic in the region, but only destroyed one merchant ship in the course of her career. Coal shortages hampered her ability to attack shipping. On 20 September 1914, she surprised and sank the British protected cruiser in the Battle of Zanzibar.
then retreated into the Rufiji River to repair her engines. Before the repairs could be completed, British cruisers located , and, unable to steam into the river to destroy her, set up a blockade. After several attempts to sink the ship during the Battle of Rufiji Delta, the British sent two monitors, and , to destroy the German cruiser. On 11 July 1915, the two monitors got close enough to severely damage , forcing her crew to scuttle the ship. The surviving crew salvaged all ten of her main guns and joined Lieutenant Colonel Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck's guerrilla campaign in East Africa. was partially broken up in 1963–1965 for scrap, and the remains sank into the riverbed.
Design
and her sisters were designed to serve both as fleet scouts in home waters and in Germany's colonial empire. This was a result of budgetary constraints that prevented the (Imperial Navy) from building more specialized cruisers suitable for both roles. The class was an iterative development of the preceding . All four members of the class were intended to be identical, but after the initial vessel was begun, the design staff incorporated lessons from the Russo-Japanese War. These included internal rearrangements and a lengthening of the hull.
was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward. She displaced normally and up to at full load. The ship had a minimal superstructure, which consisted of a small conning tower and bridge structure. Her hull had a raised forecastle and quarterdeck, along with a pronounced ram bow. She was fitted with two pole masts. had a crew of 14 officers and 308 enlisted men.
Her propulsion system consisted of two 3-cylinder triple-expansion steam engines that drove a pair of screw propellers. Steam was provided by eleven coal-fired water-tube boilers that were vented through three funnels. The ship's propulsion system was rated to produce for a top speed of , though she exceeded these figures in service. Normal coal storage amounted to . At a more economical pace of , the ship had a range of approximately .
The ship was armed with a main battery of ten SK L/40 guns in single pedestal mounts. There were two side by side forward on the forecastle; six on the broadside, three on either side; and two side by side aft. The guns had a maximum elevation of 30 degrees, which allowed them to engage targets out to . They were supplied with 1,500 rounds of ammunition, for 150 shells per gun. also carried ten SK guns in single mounts. She was also equipped with a pair of torpedo tubes with five torpedoes submerged in the hull on the broadside.
The ship was protected by a curved armor deck that was thick amidships. The deck sloped downward at the sides, with a thickness of , to provide protection against enemy fire. The conning tower sides were thick. Her main battery guns were fitted with thick gun shields.
Service history Construction and early career
was ordered under the contract name " " and was laid down at the Imperial Dockyard in Kiel on 12 January 1905. She was launched on 12 December 1905, when the of Königsberg, Siegfried Körte, christened the ship, after which fitting-out work commenced. She was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet for sea trials on 6 April 1907. Her trials were interrupted at the beginning of June when she was tasked with escorting Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht during three sailing regattas including Kiel Week. The two ships then cruised the North Sea and stopped at Nordkapp, where from 3 to 6 August, Wilhelm II met Czar Nicholas II of Russia. After returning to Germany, resumed her sea trials, which lasted from 9 August to 9 September. She visited her namesake city from 21 to 23 September and was later assigned to the fleet scouting forces to replace the cruiser on 5 November. At this time, was again used to escort Wilhelm II's yacht, this time in company with the new armored cruiser and the dispatch boat on a visit to Britain. The ships stopped in Portsmouth and the Thames, and were visited by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands.
On 17 December, was tasked with another goodwill visit, this time escorting the Kaiser's brother, Prince Heinrich, and a delegation of naval officers to Malmö, Sweden to meet King Oscar II. The visit lasted until 20 December. participated in the normal peacetime routine of individual and squadron training for 1908 without incident. The year ended with a major training cruise, first in the Baltic and North Sea and later into the Atlantic, that ended in early December. The ship then went into drydock over the winter of 1908–09 for periodic maintenance, emerging for service again in early February 1909. A typical training routine followed for the next two years, interrupted only by a collision with the new cruiser on 16 February 1910 in the Kiel Bay, and two trips escorting the Kaiser in 1910; the first to Helgoland on 9–13 March and the second to Britain from 8 to 27 May. The collision with caused significant damage to both ships, though no one on either vessel was injured. Both ships were repaired in Kiel. also won the Kaiser's (Shooting Prize) for excellent gunnery in the reconnaissance force during this period. From December 1909 to September 1910, (Frigate Captain) Adolf von Trotha served as the ship's commander.
From 8 March to 22 May 1911, cruised in the Mediterranean Sea with Wilhelm II aboard . On 10 June, was replaced in the reconnaissance force by the new cruiser ; was transferred to Danzig, where she was placed out of service on 14 June for modernization work. On 22 January 1913, the ship was recommissioned for service with the fleet, to replace the cruiser which was also being modernized. This service lasted until 19 June, when was again placed in reserve in Kiel. During this period of active service, she was assigned to the training squadron from 1 to 18 April. In early 1914, the high command decided to send to German East Africa, where she would replace the current station ship, the old unprotected cruiser .
East Africa station
On 1 April 1914, Max Looff took command of the ship. left Kiel on 25 April, stopped in Wilhelmshaven, and then left three days later for a two-year deployment to German East Africa. She steamed into the Mediterranean Sea and stopped in Spanish and Italian ports before entering the Suez Canal. After passing through the canal, she stopped briefly in Aden before arriving in Dar es Salaam, the capital of German East Africa, on 5 June. Two days later, the (Protection Force) celebrated their 25th anniversary in the colony; the deputy commander of the presented Looff with a model of the cruiser , which had been the longest serving warship with the unit. surveyed the harbor at Bagamoyo later in the year. The African colonial subjects considered the ship to be quite impressive, particularly her three funnels, which were assumed to signify a warship more powerful than one with only two funnels. The ship acquired the nickname Manowari na bomba tatu, or "the man of war with three pipes".
As tensions in Europe rose in the aftermath of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, Looff decided to abandon the normal peacetime training schedule and returned to Dar es Salaam on 24 July to replenish his coal and other stores. He also made efforts to organize a coast watcher network to report enemy ships and to protect German shipping in the area. On 27 July, Looff received a message from the (Admiralty Staff) informing him of the worsening political situation in Europe. Concurrently, the cruisers of the British Cape Squadron, , , and , arrived with the intention of bottling up at the colony's capital Dar es Salaam. Looff got his ship ready to sail and left port on the afternoon of 31 July 1914, with the three slower British ships shadowing him. Looff used a rain squall and his ship's superior speed to break contact with his British pursuers the following day. steamed off Aden until 5 August, when word of the outbreak of hostilities between Britain and Germany belatedly reached the ship.
World War I At the outbreak of World War I, was ordered to attack British commerce around the entrance to the Red Sea. A lack of coal hampered Looff's efforts; the British prevented his collier from leaving Dar es Salaam and purchased all the coal in Portuguese East Africa to deny it to . Looff then radioed the German steamer to warn her against using the Suez Canal, where she would have been confiscated. chased after the German freighter , whose officers mistook the ship for a British cruiser and refused to stop. was forced to fire a warning shot across the bow of to force the ship to stop so that Looff could warn her captain of the state of war.
On 6 August, found a British ship off the coast of Oman, the freighter City of Winchester. A prize crew took the ship along with , and the two vessels met four days later in the Khuriya Muriya Islands, where coal from City of Winchester was transferred to . The freighter was thereafter sunk. The British crew was taken aboard , which departed the following day and stopped in Mozambique. Meanwhile, the steamer Somali, under the command of (Corvette Captain) Zimmer, had left Dar es Salaam with a cargo of of coal on the night of 3–4 August to resupply ; the two ships met ten days later. By the time Looff rendezvoused with Somali, his ship was down to a mere of coal. Somali transferred some of coal to the cruiser, which permitted a sweep to Madagascar. No British or French ships were found, however, and so met Somali again on 23 August and took on coal for four days of cruising.
In the meantime, British warships bombarded Dar es Salaam and destroyed the German wireless station there. By this time, s engines required a thorough overhaul, and Looff needed to find a secluded area where the work could be completed. He settled on the Rufiji Delta, which had recently been surveyed by the survey ship . On 3 September 1914 at high tide, passed over the bar at the mouth of the Rufiji and slowly made her way up the river. Coast watchers were stationed at the mouth of the river and telegraph lines were run to ensure the Germans would not be surprised by British ships searching for them. Zimmer, who was sending small coastal steamers to resupply , observed a British cruiser—Pegasus—patrolling the coast for two weeks. He deduced that the ship would likely have to coal at Zanzibar on Sundays, and so Looff decided to attack the ship in port before he began his overhaul. He considered the action justified, since Britain had rejected a German proposal to keep central Africa neutral according to the Congo Act of 1885.