"Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. Ivan Kudishin - Liners at war. "Lusitania", "Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse", "Queen Elizabeth" and others Liner Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse

"Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse" at sea.

The start of the war was approaching and "Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse" put on a military uniform. At the end of July 1914, at the North German Lloyd shipyard, he received 6 - 105/40 mm guns and a pair of small revolver guns. The striking peacetime paint scheme of a black hull, white superstructure and yellow chimneys was replaced by a gloomy gray and black camouflage. It should be noted that the Germans, following the established tradition, mounted guns in pairs on auxiliary cruisers, as well as light cruisers of the navy, on the starboard and port sides. In the Russian fleet, an example of such an artillery arrangement is the Varyag. The explanation for the seemingly rather strange arrangement of artillery at first glance is very simple. Although in a battle on parallel courses the ship lost 2-3 guns in a broadside salvo, this scheme ensured the concentration of the maximum number of guns in any sector of the horizon, which was of great importance in a solo voyage.

On August 4, 1914, the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, under the command of an experienced officer, frigate captain Max Reimann, left the mouth of the Weser and quickly rushed north. At first it pressed against the Norwegian coast, then in a wide arc around the Shetland Islands and out into the open ocean. The noose of the English blockade had not yet tightened tightly, and such a breakthrough was not too difficult. On August 7, Reimann, northeast of Iceland, encountered the British trawler Tuban Kasta and sank it. This little boat could report a raider breakthrough, so it could not be released.

Sea communications in the Canary Islands area were patrolled only by the obsolete British cruisers Highflyer and Vinidictiv, so it was possible to make good money there. Many steamships called at Santa Cruz de Tenerife, so Reimann had only to wait a little, and rich booty would come into his hands.

However, the ship's commander was constantly tormented by one problem - coal. The furnaces of the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse were voracious; the coal supply taken from Germany (3950 tons) was rapidly melting. To maintain a speed of 17 knots, 350 tons were burned daily

On August 15, when the liner's coal supply was already running low, it captured the British steamer Galishian, which was sailing from Cape Town to London. The raider's radio operator intercepted a radiogram from the ship, which was asking whether it was possible to safely approach the island. Reimann ordered his radio operator to reply that he would meet the ship and escort it to the port. But when the ships met at sea, the Englishman received a much less pleasant radiogram: “Stop immediately. Don't use the radio or I'll drown you."

A German boarding party boarded the prize and discovered that the Galishien was carrying 250 passengers, many of whom were women and children. Reimann acted like a knight - the next morning he released the captured steamer. But literally a couple of hours later he met the Kaipara steamer with a cargo of New Zealand meat. He was heading to the port for coal. After the supply of meat on board the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was replenished, and the Kaipara crew occupied the prisoner quarters, the prize was sunk. However, the raider had to expend 53 precious 105-mm shells.

Encouraged by these successes, Reimann headed southwest. In the afternoon, smoke was seen on the horizon. Soon a large steamer appeared, heading towards the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. Reimann decided that it was a British ship, and was already looking forward to new profit. But the Arlanza steamer had 335 women and more than 100 children on board, and it also had to be released.

Late in the evening on the same day, August 16, the steamer Nyanga, sailing to England from South Africa, was met. Having escorted her crew to the prisoner quarters and taken everything that could be useful from the ship, the Germans sank it with demolition charges. Since coal shortages were already rampant, Reimann needed the help of a “stage system.” The Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse headed to the coast of Spain's African colony of Rio de Oro (present-day Western Sahara), where a rendezvous with the steamships Arucas and Douala was scheduled for August 21, although this was a violation of Spanish neutrality. The first coal miner went out to meet the raider from Tenerife, the second from Las Palmas. Both ships were assigned to the North African phase. Soon the raider and coal miners were joined by the steamship Magdeburg. Large quantities of coal, food and fresh water began to be reloaded onto the former liner.

Local Spanish authorities became interested in what was happening somewhat belatedly. But Reimann used a proven trick. He stated that his cars were faulty and needed to be overhauled, and the coal miners simply came to the rescue. Although the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse now wore camouflage, its crew still wore North German Lloyd uniforms. Therefore, Spanish officials believed the deception, or at least pretended to believe it.

The loading of coal proceeded rather lazily. It was still ongoing when, before noon on August 26, the raider's observers spotted a warship. As he got closer, 3 chimneys and a British flag became visible. It was an armored English cruiser of the 2nd class " Highflyer "("Highflyer").

Cruiser "Highflyer"

It was already an old ship, built in 1899. In 1914, she was transferred to training ships, but after the outbreak of war, the cruiser began patrolling the ocean. It was armed with 11-152 mm old-style guns, which did not exceed the range of the guns of the German raider. But British shells weighed much more. In addition, it was a duel between a warship and a huge liner built according to civil shipbuilding standards.

If the meeting had taken place in the ocean and the liner had steam in all boilers, Reimann would have had a chance to simply break away from the enemy. “Highflyer” did not develop more than 20 knots at the best of times, but “Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse” could give 22 knots. But the anchored raider kept steam at only 14 knots. Reimann ordered steam to be raised in all boilers. At the same time, he firmly believed that the British would strictly observe Spanish neutrality and continued loading coal.

From 12:45 to 13:15, a dialogue on signals took place between the commanders of the Highflyer and the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. The British commander suggested that Reimann surrender the ship, which, of course, was refused. Reimann decided to fight at anchor. In order to avoid unnecessary losses (he had no doubt about the outcome of the battle), he ordered the personnel not occupied at combat posts to switch to coal miners. The British prisoners were evacuated to the Arucas coal mine.

The British opened fire first at 13:16, despite the civilian ships standing alongside the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. One of the first volleys from the British hit the coal miner Magdeburg. Reimann ordered the mooring lines to be cut and fire opened.

The auxiliary cruiser Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse is leading the battle.

The coal miners ran away. The fourth German salvo hit the target. Since the artillery duel was fought at the maximum distance for the guns of the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, due to the high elevation angle, the recoilers of the bow guns did not work. The distance shortened, shells hit the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse more and more often. He received 10 hits, one of which was fatal, despite the fact that the British shells did not explode. The Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse did not lose its survivability, but the bow hold was flooded by two hits. Shells were stored in this hold. When, at about 14:50, the artillery officer reported that the shells were running out, Reimann ordered a ceasefire and the ship was scuttled. This was done by detonating 12 pre-loaded demolition cartridges, as well as opening the drainage clinkets, the return valve cones of which were removed.

Death of "Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse"

When the ship began to lie on the left side and the wounded were removed from it, the commander ordered it to be abandoned. At 16.20 the raider fell on board and sank in shallow water. Its starboard side rose above the water. In 1952, Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was dismantled for metal.

"The sunken Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse"

Reimann, 9 officers and 72 sailors reached the shore in boats, found the nearest Spanish post and surrendered. They were later taken to Las Palmas and interned on board a German ship stationed there. Almost 400 people were taken by the Bethania coal miner, which hovered nearby during the battle. He went to the United States, but was captured by the armored cruiser Essex and only reached Jamaica. "Arukas" and "Duala" immediately after the start of the battle rushed to the north at full speed, carrying away the captive crews of "Kaipara" and "Nyanga".

Losses on both sides were minimal. The British lost 1 person killed and 6 wounded, the losses of the Germans remained unknown. It can be assumed that the German losses were about 100 people, since out of a theoretical crew of 584 people, approximately 480 were saved.

Fregatten-Captain M. Reimann subsequently reported that the behavior of his crew in battle was impeccable.

They didn't give up.

And the poem by the Austrian poet R. Greinze, which became (in translation) the words of the most famous song, is quite suitable for the German sailors who entered into this unequal battle:

Auf Deck, Kameraden, all" auf Deck!

Heraus zur letzten Parade!
Der stolze Warjag ergibt sich nicht,
Wir brauchen keine Gnade!

An den Masten die bunten Wimpel empor,
Die klirrenden Anker gelichtet,
In stürmischer Eil` zum Gefechte klar
Die blanken Geschütze gerichtet!

Aus dem sichern Hafen hinaus in die See,
Fürs Vaterland zu sterben
Dort lauern die gelben Teufel auf uns
Und speien Tod und Verderben!

Es dröhnt und kracht und donnert und zischt,
Da trifft es uns zur Stelle;
Es ward der Warjag, das treue Schiff,
Zu einer brennenden Holle!

Rings zuckende Leiber und grauser Tod,
Ein Ächzen, Röcheln und Stöhnen —
Die Flammen um unser Schiff
Wie feuriger Rosse Mähnen!

Lebt wohl, Kameraden, lebt wohl, hurra!
Hinab in die gurgelnde Tiefe!
Wer hätte es gestern noch gedacht,
Dass er heut` schon da drunten schliefe!

Kein Zeichen, kein Kreuz wird, wo wir ruh`n
Fern von der Heimat, melden —
Doch das Meer das rauschet auf ewig von uns,
Von Warjag und seinen Helden!

Material from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia

Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse
SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse

Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse
Flag	German Empire German Empire
Vessel class and type	Passenger ship
Home port	Bremen
Organization	North German Lloyd
Operator	North German Lloyd
Manufacturer	"AG Vulcan Stettin"
Launched	May 4th
Commissioned	September 19
Removed from the fleet	August, 26th
Status	sank, raised, dismantled for metal 1952
Main characteristics
Displacement	14,349 brt
Length	198
Width	20,1
Draft	8,3
Engines	two triple expansion steam engines
Power	33,000 hp
Mover	2 screws
Travel speed	22.35 knots
Crew	488
Passenger capacity	1506 passengers

SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse(“Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse” German - Emperor Wilhelm the Great) was a German transatlantic liner owned by the shipping company North German Lloyd. Named after the first Emperor of the German Empire, Wilhelm. The ship became famous for being the first German ship to win the Atlantic Blue Riband.

Career

Construction, launching, first voyage

Further career

Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse became the first liner to have a commercial wireless telegraphy system installed when the company Marconi equipped the ship in February 1900.

The ship was also the first four-tube liner. It is the four chimneys that will become a sign of the prestige and safety of the ships. But unlike later four-pipe liners, the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse had only two boiler shafts, which bifurcated at the top. This is the reason for the placement of pipes at unequal intervals. Although, like many other four-pipe liners, it did not need as many pipes. Two would be enough.

The ship escaped a massive fire at the North German Lloyd's pier in Hoboken, New Jersey, in June 1900, which seriously damaged her linemates Main, Bremen and Saale. 161 crew members died on those ships.

World War I

Service

In August 1914, the ship was requisitioned by the Kaiser's Navy and converted into an auxiliary cruiser. SMS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, intended for raids on merchant ships in the Atlantic. It was equipped with six 4-inch guns and two 37 mm guns. After missing two passenger ships because they were carrying many women and children, he sank two cargo ships and was sunk himself on August 26, 1914.

Death

The auxiliary cruiser was surprised while bunkering for coal off the coast of the then Spanish colony of Rio de Oro (now Western Sahara) in western Africa, by the old British cruiser Highflyer ( HMS Highflyer), armed with 6-inch guns. "Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse" tried to fire back, but soon ran out of ammunition. The crew abandoned the ship and sank it in shallow water. British sources at this time insisted that the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse sank due to damage caused by the cruiser. Whatever the reason, Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was the first commercial raider lost during the First World War. The liner lay on its starboard side above the water until 1952, when it was dismantled for metal.

Gallery

Kaiser Wilhelm liner port 1897.jpg

"Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse" in port in 1897.

KWDG smoking room.jpg

First Class Smoking Room (postcard ca. 1890−1905)

Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse fight painting 1914.jpg

Battle of Rio de Oro (picture)

Kaiser Wilhelm Der Grosse"s Wreck.jpg

The wreck of the Kaiser Wilhelm aground (1914)

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Notes

Records
Predecessor: RMS Lucania	The fastest passenger ship in the world -	Successor: *SS Germany*

An excerpt characterizing the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse (liner)

[Of the 400,000 people who crossed the Vistula, half were Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Poles, Bavarians, Wirtembergers, Mecklenburgers, Spaniards, Italians and Neapolitans. The imperial army, in fact, was one third composed of the Dutch, Belgians, residents of the banks of the Rhine, Piedmontese, Swiss, Genevans, Tuscans, Romans, residents of the 32nd military division, Bremen, Hamburg, etc.; there were hardly 140,000 French speakers. The Russian expedition cost France proper less than 50,000 men; the Russian army in retreat from Vilna to Moscow in various battles lost four times more than the French army; the fire of Moscow cost the lives of 100,000 Russians who died of cold and poverty in the forests; finally, during its march from Moscow to the Oder, the Russian army also suffered from the severity of the season; upon arrival in Vilna it consisted of only 50,000 people, and in Kalisz less than 18,000.]
He imagined that by his will there was a war with Russia, and the horror of what had happened did not strike his soul. He boldly accepted the full responsibility of the event, and his darkened mind saw justification in the fact that among the hundreds of thousands of people who died there were fewer French than Hessians and Bavarians.

Several tens of thousands of people lay dead in different positions and uniforms in the fields and meadows that belonged to the Davydovs and state-owned peasants, in those fields and meadows in which for hundreds of years the peasants of the villages of Borodin, Gorki, Shevardin and Semyonovsky had simultaneously harvested crops and grazed livestock. At the dressing stations, about a tithe of space, the grass and soil were soaked in blood. Crowds of wounded and unwounded different teams of people, with frightened faces, on the one hand wandered back to Mozhaisk, on the other hand, back to Valuev. Other crowds, exhausted and hungry, led by their leaders, moved forward. Still others stood still and continued to shoot.
Over the entire field, previously so cheerfully beautiful, with its sparkles of bayonets and smoke in the morning sun, there now stood a haze of dampness and smoke and smelled of the strange acidity of saltpeter and blood. Clouds gathered and rain began to fall on the dead, on the wounded, on the frightened, and on the exhausted, and on the doubting people. It was as if he was saying: “Enough, enough, people. Stop it... Come to your senses. What are you doing?"
Exhausted, without food and without rest, the people of both sides began to equally doubt whether they should still exterminate each other, and hesitation was noticeable on all faces, and in every soul the question arose equally: “Why, for whom should I kill and be killed? Kill whoever you want, do whatever you want, but I don’t want any more!” By evening this thought had equally matured in everyone’s soul. At any moment all these people could be horrified by what they were doing, drop everything and run anywhere.
But although by the end of the battle people felt the full horror of their action, although they would have been glad to stop, some incomprehensible, mysterious force still continued to guide them, and, sweaty, covered in gunpowder and blood, left one by three, the artillerymen, although and stumbling and gasping from fatigue, they brought charges, loaded, aimed, applied wicks; and the cannonballs flew just as quickly and cruelly from both sides and flattened the human body, and that terrible thing continued to happen, which is done not by the will of people, but by the will of the one who leads people and worlds.
Anyone who looked at the upset behinds of the Russian army would say that the French only have to make one more small effort, and the Russian army will disappear; and anyone who looked at the behinds of the French would say that the Russians only have to make one more small effort, and the French will perish. But neither the French nor the Russians made this effort, and the flames of the battle slowly burned out.
The Russians did not make this effort because they were not the ones who attacked the French. At the beginning of the battle, they only stood on the road to Moscow, blocking it, and in the same way they continued to stand at the end of the battle, as they stood at the beginning of it. But even if the goal of the Russians was to shoot down the French, they could not make this last effort, because all the Russian troops were defeated, there was not a single part of the troops that was not injured in the battle, and the Russians, remaining in their places , lost half of their army.
The French, with the memory of all the previous victories of fifteen years, with the confidence of Napoleon's invincibility, with the consciousness that they had captured part of the battlefield, that they had lost only one-quarter of their men and that they still had twenty thousand intact guards, it was easy to make this effort. The French, who attacked the Russian army in order to knock it out of position, had to make this effort, because as long as the Russians, just like before the battle, blocked the road to Moscow, the French goal was not achieved and all their efforts and the losses were wasted. But the French did not make this effort. Some historians say that Napoleon should have given his old guard intact in order for the battle to be won. Talking about what would have happened if Napoleon had given his guard is the same as talking about what would have happened if spring had turned into autumn. This couldn't happen. Napoleon did not give his guards, because he did not want it, but this could not be done. All the generals, officers, and soldiers of the French army knew that this could not be done, because the fallen spirit of the army did not allow it.
Napoleon was not the only one who experienced that dream-like feeling that the terrible swing of his arm was falling powerlessly, but all the generals, all the soldiers of the French army who participated and did not participate, after all the experiences of previous battles (where, after ten times less effort, the enemy fled), experienced the same feeling of horror before that enemy who, having lost half the army, stood as menacingly at the end as at the beginning of the battle. The moral strength of the French attacking army was exhausted. Not the victory that is determined by the pieces of material picked up on sticks called banners, and by the space on which the troops stood and are standing, but a moral victory, one that convinces the enemy of the moral superiority of his enemy and of his own powerlessness, was won by the Russians under Borodin. The French invasion, like an enraged beast that received a mortal wound in its run, felt its death; but it could not stop, just as the twice weaker Russian army could not help but deviate. After this push, the French army could still reach Moscow; but there, without new efforts on the part of the Russian army, it had to die, bleeding from the fatal wound inflicted at Borodino. The direct consequence of the Battle of Borodino was the causeless flight of Napoleon from Moscow, the return along the old Smolensk road, the death of the five hundred thousandth invasion and the death of Napoleonic France, which for the first time at Borodino was laid down by the hand of the strongest enemy in spirit.

Ivan Vladimirovich Kudishin

Liners at war. "Lusitania", "Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse", "Queen Elizabeth" and others

Almost every naval historian has comprehensive information about all capital warships of the last century, but if the conversation turns to passenger or cruise ships, then in addition to the name, the owner company and sometimes some fragmentary information about the participation of a particular ship in hostilities, any information is very difficult to obtain. The exception is Titanic, about which, thanks to the efforts of filmmakers, everything or almost everything is known. It’s no wonder that the active life of this unfortunate ship was reduced to four days. This was the shortest career of the liner in the history of passenger steam shipping. And if you ask yourself what is interesting about the peaceful service of a ship serving a regular route, then the answer is quite simple. This is, first of all, routine, monotonous work, characteristic of all vehicles - from a truck or railway car to an air or ocean liner, only occasionally, by chance, interrupted by some striking biographical fact.

But in the event of a military conflict, passenger ships began to live a completely different life. They were converted into raiders, troop transports, floating hospitals, after which the beautiful passenger steamers created for purely peaceful transportation began, with varying degrees of success, to perform functions unusual for themselves. Some succeeded in this, adding military awards to peaceful titles and glory, while others found not glory, but death. But in any case, the military adventures of passenger ships in the twentieth century are a little-revealed and very interesting topic. This book attempts to fill the information “vacuum” that has formed in this area of naval history by providing details of the biographies of some of the passenger ships that gained fame and notoriety during the wars of the twentieth century.

"The Crowned Family" goes to war

Surely military glory was not at all part of the plans of the management of the famous German shipping company North German Lloyd, when in 1900 it ordered a new four-pipe fast liner from the Vulcan shipyard in Stettin (the current Polish city of Szczecin). In accordance with the loyal traditions of the company, the new ship, even before laying, was named “Kronprinz Wilhelm” - in honor of one of the representatives of the royal house of Hohenzollern that ruled in Germany. The new transatlantic liner was supposed to strengthen the prestige of Germany on the European-American line, which was won with blood by the first-born - the speedboat of the North German Lloyd, the steamship Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse built in 1897, which took away the most prestigious prize "Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic" from the British. In addition, the construction of the Kronprinz was intended to put to shame Lloyd's rivals in Germany - the transatlantic company Hamburg-America Line, whose four-pipe Deutschland speedboat took the Blue Riband from "Big Willie", as the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was dubbed » his many fans. Despite the fact that the economic data of the Deutschland were kept secret, it was no secret to anyone that the new “ribbon carrier,” built with huge government subsidies, was too gluttonous to make a profit, but it was a bearer of national German prestige on the Atlantic.

In order not to fall into the same mistake as its Hamburg competitors, the North German Lloyd company used two relatively economical quadruple expansion steam engines with a total power of about 36,000 hp on its new liner. s., operating on two screws. Steam for the machines was supplied by 12 single-furnace and 4 double-furnace boilers located in four boiler rooms. Each of them had an individual chimney. Naturally, a large amount of coal was required to fire the boilers - when running at maximum speed (23 knots), the Kronprinz Wilhelm consumed about 500 tons of fuel per day. For comparison, however, the competing liner Deutschland had a daily coal consumption of up to 1,200 tons. The main designer of the steamship was the famous shipbuilder Robert Zimmerman, who had extensive experience in designing passenger ships, the author of the “Big Willie” project.

The only surviving transatlantic liner, the Queen Mary.

"Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse" in New York before the war

In its architecture, “Kronprinz Wilhelm” generally repeated its older brother, “Big Willy” - it had the same low silhouette, a straight knife-shaped stem, a cruising stern with an overhang, an elongated superstructure from the forecastle to the very stern overhang and four pipes combined into two closely spaced pairs. Moreover, in addition to installing more modern machines, the liner had a displacement of 600 tons (14,908 tons) compared to “Big Willie” and was 3.05 m longer (202.1 m).

Despite its similar size and displacement, the Kronprinz Wilhelm was a quite cost-effective and capacious ship compared to the Big Willie - the ship could carry 367 first-class, 340 second-class, and 1054 third-class passengers. Considering the fact that the basis for the profitability of a transatlantic liner at the beginning of the last century was precisely the third, emigrant class, and “Big Willie” could carry slightly fewer third-class passengers with a more voracious power plant, economic calculations during the construction of the “Kronprinz” prevailed over the indispensable desire to become the king of speed in the vastness of the Atlantic. The cabins of the first two classes were distinguished by the presence of large windows and portholes, were much lighter and were made in a much less ponderous style than the “original Teutonic” spirit that reigned in the cabins and salons of “Big Willie”. Thus, the specialists of North German Lloyd have at their disposal a very economically balanced transatlantic airliner that is attractive to the public of any income.

Like any fast liner being built at that time, the Kronprinz Wilhelm was supposed to be able to act as an auxiliary cruiser in the event of war. For this purpose, reinforcements were provided on the forecastle and superstructure of the ship for the installation of artillery guns, and the most vulnerable parts of the hull - in particular, the boiler rooms and the engine room - received structural protection. To store ammunition in the immediate vicinity of the reinforcements for the guns, special storage rooms were provided, which, in the event of conversion to a warship, were converted into artillery cellars. In addition, there were innovations in the design of the new liner, although not directly related to its potential military purpose, but very useful during conversion into an auxiliary cruiser. These included, in particular, the presence of an extensive telephone network, providing good communication between the bridge and most posts throughout the ship, a radio room equipped with the latest technology, which, by the way, had 4-mm steel walls and a roof, as well as very voluminous refrigerators, which could provide the crew of the auxiliary cruiser with quality food for several months.

The liner made its first flight from Bremen to New York in September 1901. And on one of its subsequent voyages, exactly a year later, in September 1902, the Kronprinz Wilhelm took the Blue Riband of the Atlantic from the Deutschland. Upon arrival in New York, the liner had a rather unpresentable appearance - the powerful waves through which the Crown Prince sailed without slowing down stripped the paint off its bow. But even this was perceived by the public as battle scars and only increased the prestige of the new ship and its owners. The Kronprinz Wilhelm became one of the most popular liners on the Atlantic. Working according to schedule, the ship crossed the ocean in five and a half days.

SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse (“Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse” German - Emperor Wilhelm the Great) was a German transatlantic liner owned by the shipping company North German Lloyd.

Named after the first Emperor of the German Empire, Wilhelm.

The ship became famous for being the first German ship to win the Atlantic Blue Riband.

Construction, launching, first voyage

The liner was built at the Vulkan shipyard in Stettin and was launched on May 4, 1897. He set off on his first voyage on September 19 of the same year, from Bremerhaven to New York.

In November 1897, she set a speed record for crossing the North Atlantic, going from west to east, and four months later, the liner intercepted the Blue Riband of the Atlantic in a westerly direction, taking it from the British Cunard Line liner Lucania.
It held the record until the HAPAG liner Deutschland broke it eastbound in July 1900 and westbound in September 1903. The fact that German ships took away this famous prize ultimately prompted Great Britain to build its fast duo, the Lusitania and the Mauretania.

Further career

Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse became the first liner to have a commercial wireless telegraphy system installed when the Marconi company equipped the ship in February 1900.

Six years later, in November 1906, the liner suffered extensive damage while attempting to clip the bow of the British RMS Orinoco; Five passengers of the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse were killed in the collision, and a hole 21 meters wide and 8 meters high was formed in the side of the ship. The Admiralty Court found the German airliner guilty of the incident.

In 1914, the liner was modernized to accommodate additional 3rd and 4th class passengers in order to make maximum use of the ship for transporting emigrants from Europe to North America.

World War I

Service

In August 1914, the ship was requisitioned by the Kaiser's Navy and converted into the auxiliary cruiser SMS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, intended for raids on merchant ships in the Atlantic.
It was equipped with six 4-inch guns and two 37 mm guns. After missing two passenger ships because they were carrying many women and children, he sank two cargo ships and was sunk himself on August 26, 1914. Death

The auxiliary cruiser was surprised while bunkering for coal off the coast of the then Spanish colony of Rio de Oro (now Western Sahara) in western Africa, by the old British cruiser HMS Highflyer, armed with 6-inch guns. "Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse" tried to fire back, but soon ran out of ammunition. The crew abandoned the ship and sank it in shallow water.
British sources at this time insisted that the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse sank due to damage caused by the cruiser. Whatever the reason, the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was the first commercial raider lost during the First World War. The liner lay on its starboard side above the water until 1952, when it was dismantled for metal.

Ivan Vladimirovich Kudishin

Liners at war. "Lusitania", "Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse", "Queen Elizabeth" and others

* * *

"The Crowned Family" goes to war

The only surviving transatlantic liner, the Queen Mary.

"Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse" in New York before the war

In 1903 and 1904, the Big Willie and the Crown Prince Wilhelm were joined by two more fast liners, somewhat larger and quite economical, named in the tradition of the North German Lloyd: Kaiser Wilhelm II and the Crown Princess Cecilie. Having a similar four in regular operation between Bremen and New York, North German Lloyd became one of the dominant companies on the Atlantic, forcing both the British Cunard and the German Hamburg-America Line to make room. By the way, after the commercial collapse that followed the fall of the Deutschland liner's record, the owner company decided to thoroughly modernize it, removing half of the boilers and placing third class cabins in their place. In this form, the ship, renamed Victoria Louise and repainted entirely white, was used mainly for cruises and executive missions until the outbreak of World War II.

"Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse. Ivan Kudishin - Liners at war. "Lusitania", "Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse", "Queen Elizabeth" and others Liner Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse

Career

Construction, launching, first voyage

Further career

World War I

Service

Death

Gallery

see also

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Notes

An excerpt characterizing the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse (liner)

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