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79-510: German interest in West Africa dated from the 17th and 18th centuries, when the Duchy of Courland and Brandenburg-Prussia established fortifications and trading posts in the region. After 1720 there was no German presence in West Africa until the middle of the 19th century, when German trading companies including C. Woermann, Jantzen & Thormählen , Wölber & Brohm and GL Gaiser became active on

158-668: A German protectorate over a stretch of coastal territory. This formed the basis of the future German colony of Togoland . On 14 July 14, 1884, Nachtigal raised the German flag in Bell town and signed treaties placing under German protection the areas which became the colony of Kamerun . He spent some weeks visiting various ports around the Bight of Biafra before sailing south to Gabon, Angola and South West Africa . He steamed back to Kamerun in December 1884 and

237-644: A Germany colony near Nokki on the Congo, but it received no official support. The International African Association recognised the German claim, the borders of which were never defined. However at the Berlin Conference Bismarck ceded German rights in Nokki to Portugal. While the Berlin Conference was largely concerned with the Congo, there was also competition between Germany, France and Britain for rights on

316-681: A West African squadron under the command of the Chief of the Staff of the Admiralty, Rear Admiral Eduard von Knorr . The squadron was composed of the corvettes SMS  Bismarck (flagship), SMS  Gneisenau , SMS  Ariadne , SMS  Olga and the steam tender Adler . The squadron departed for West Africa on October 30. On reaching the Cape Verde Islands, it dispatched the Ariadne to Liberia and

395-447: A contingent ashore, led by the executive officer, Curt von Prittwitz und Gaffron , to hold a parade to celebrate the agreement. Three days later, Valois took three officers and twenty-nine enlisted men to the Witu capital to meet Bakari, returning to the ship on 4 September. Gneisenau departed Lamu on 6 September and went to Kismayu , before proceeding on to Zanzibar four days later. In

474-482: A few non official publications concerning the two colonies. A trading company which was active in Kamerun, Togo, Nigeria and Gold Coast used the name "Deutsch-Westafrikanische Handelsgesellschaft" (German West African Trading Company), founded in 1896 and was also involved in the 1904 founding of the "Deutsch-Westafrikanische Bank" (German West African Bank). Areas under German rule in West Africa between 1884 and 1919 were

553-615: A fleet scout and on extended tours in Germany's colonial empire. Gneisenau was laid down in June 1877, launched in September 1879, and was commissioned into the fleet in October 1880. She was armed with a battery of fourteen 15 cm (5.9 in) guns and had a full ship rig to supplement her steam engine on long cruises abroad. Gneisenau went abroad on two major foreign deployments in

632-615: A top speed of 13.8 knots (25.6 km/h; 15.9 mph) at 2,866 metric horsepower (2,827  ihp ). She had a cruising radius of 2,380 nautical miles (4,410 km; 2,740 mi) at a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph). As built, Gneisenau was equipped with a full ship rig , but this was later reduced. Gneisenau was armed with a battery of fourteen 15 cm (5.9 in) 22- caliber (cal.) quick-firing guns and two 8.8 cm (3.5 in) 30-cal. guns. She also carried six 37 mm (1.5 in) Hotchkiss revolver cannon . The new corvette, ordered under

711-695: A training cruise in the Baltic on 26 May. Another short visit to Bergen followed on 10 September. On 18 September, she left Kiel once again for another overseas cruise, stopping in Dartmouth on the way through the English Channel . She toured ports in Spain, Portugal, and Morocco, stopping in Málaga on 13 November, where she remained for nearly a month. On 10 December, she left the port to begin shooting exercises; she moored off

790-437: Is reflected in the first legal decrees which were jointly done for the posts of the chief officials in these colonies, i.e. governor of Kamerun and the commissioners of Togo and South West Africa Later a number of decrees were jointly issued for Kamerun and Togo. Togo was ruled as a separate colony by an Imperial Commissioner (from 1893: "Landeshauptmann") until 1898 who was supervised by a Chief Commissioner ("Oberkomissar") who

869-657: The Guinea coast and the Gneisenau was sent to East Africa . On December 18, the Bismarck and the Olga reached the Cameroon River . Shortly before the squadron arrived, the settlement of chief Manga Ndumbe Bell , who had signed a treaty with Nachtigal, had been burned down and the German flag removed. Admiral Knorr decided on immediate intervention and sent landing parties ashore to destroy

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948-517: The Los islands aboard the gunboat Möwe . He sent a party ashore to seek treaties with the rulers of Kapitaï and Koba . However, by the time he arrived the local chiefs had already reached agreements with France, and did not want to sign any new treaties. Nachtigal therefore steamed on to the German trading posts on the Bight of Benin . On 5 July 1884 Nachtigal signed a treaty with Mlapa III, ruler of Togo (a village known today as Togoville ) establishing

1027-696: The Niger , an important artery for the colonization of the interior. Despite the failure of Gottlieb Leonhard Gaiser  [ de ] ’s venture in Mahinland, German traders still wanted duty-free access to the upper Niger. The Benue expedition of Paul Staudinger  [ de ] in 1885/86 sought to establish relations with the Sokoto Caliphate and the Emirate of Gwandu , but this did not lead to occupation or protection. Likewise Friedrich Colin’s attempt to reach

1106-516: The Olga steamed upriver on the rising tide and bombarded the local villages. The landing party returned to their ships on 22 December. The Olga , with Rear Admiral Knorr on board, remained in the area where the anti-German uprising had taken place. Calm was gradually restored; in January 1885 the violence ended and in March the murderer of the factory manager was handed over for execution. On March 23, 1885,

1185-584: The Suez Canal produced the 'Urabi revolt , led by Ahmed ‘Urabi . In June 1882, the revolutionaries, angered by foreign influence in the country, murdered fifty Europeans, prompting the British Royal Navy to bombard Alexandria and then land forces to pursue the rebels. In the wake of the conflict, the German government determined that warships should be sent to protect Germans in the country. Initially hoping to avoid mobilizing any vessels in Germany to keep

1264-812: The West Indies and the Mediterranean Sea . While on one such cruise on 16 December 1900, the ship was driven into the mole outside Málaga by heavy winds and destroyed, with the loss of 41 officers and crew. Her wreck proved impossible to salvage, and so she was sold for scrap shortly after the accident. The six ships of the Bismarck class were ordered in the early 1870s to supplement Germany's fleet of cruising warships, which at that time relied on several ships that were twenty years old. Gneisenau and her sister ships were intended to patrol Germany's colonial empire and safeguard German economic interests around

1343-814: The West Indies as early as 1637 when the settlers established the first colony on Tobago . The first colony was a failure, but it was refounded in 1639. In 1651, Courland and Semigallia leased a colony in Africa on St. Andrew's Island in the Gambia River from the Kingdom of Niumi and went on to build Fort Jakob on the island. The Duchy also leased St. Mary Island (modern-day Banjul ) from Kombo and Fort Jillifree from Niumi. The Courland and Semigallia's colonies exported sugar , tobacco , coffee , cotton , ginger , indigo , rum , cocoa , tortoise shells , as well as tropical birds and their much sought after feathers. In

1422-600: The aviso Zieten , and the gunboat Cyclop were commissioned to reinforce them. They departed Kiel on 19 August, under the command of Gneisenau ' s captain KzS Max von der Goltz , who was made Kommodore of the squadron. The ships arrived in Port Said on 21 August, and on 13 September the British defeated 'Urabi's forces at the Battle of Tell El Kebir , effectively ending

1501-400: The mole , some 800 to 900 m (2,600 to 3,000 ft) from shore, where the exercises were held. At around 10:30 on 16 December, the weather off Málaga worsened considerably, with force 8 winds . The ship's commander, KzS Kretschmann, ordered the crew to raise steam in the boilers so the ship could be moved into the safety of the harbor, and thirty minutes later a miscommunication between

1580-449: The starboard anchor, but it did not catch in the stony ground. Gneisenau was driven into the mole repeatedly, striking it with her stern twice before being turned and pushed bow-first on the starboard side, forcing her aground . A merchant ship attempted to come to the crew's aid, but they were unable to connect a line between the two ships before Gneisenau began to list 35 degrees. A boat from shore also attempted to rescue

1659-503: The unprotected cruisers Condor and Cormoran . Gneisenau then visited Souda Bay , Crete from 16 November to 20 December, followed by Smyrna for three weeks. On 18 January 1895, she began the voyage back to Germany, arriving in Kiel on 27 March. The next set of training exercises began on 6 May, and were conducted in the North Sea and concluded with ceremonies marking the opening of

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1738-920: The Berlin Conference, on 22 April 1885, Germany concluded a treaty with England which established the borders around Mount Cameroon . The following year, on May 6, 1886, another treaty extended the frontier to the east. An agreement with France on December 24, 1885, fixed the Campo River as the southern border of Kamerun. As these border agreements proceeded, Germany abandoned certain of its claims in order to consolidate its position in Togoland and Kamerun. Thus on October 24, 1885, Mahinland came under British protection in return for territorial compensation to Germany. On 24 December 1885 Kapitaï and Koba were ceded to France in return for compensation in Togo. In 1884 an expedition led by Eduard Schulze  [ de ] tried to establish

1817-577: The British ironclad HMS  Devastation were sent to aid the wounded. Those killed in the sinking were buried in Málaga's cemetery, and the survivors returned to Germany aboard the HAPAG steamship SS  Andalusia on 2 January 1901. The equipment director from the Kaiserliche Werft of Wilhelmshaven, KK Otto Mandt , surveyed the wreck to determine if it could be salvaged, but he determined that it

1896-511: The Duchy ended up abandoning the island in 1666. In 1668, a Curonian ship attempted to reoccupy Fort Jacob but was driven off by the Dutch garrison stationed on the island. The Courland Monument near Great Courland Bay commemorates the Duchy's settlements. This Latvian history –related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . SMS Gneisenau (1879) SMS Gneisenau

1975-652: The German protectorate with the Sultan of Zanzibar , Barghash bin Said , which he accomplished by mid-August. On 18 August, Bismarck arrived with Knorr, who replaced Paschen as the squadron commander. Knorr sent Gneisenau to Wituland, where Valois informed Bakari that the Sultan of Zanzibar had agreed to recognize the protectorate and stop interfering in the internal affairs of Wituland. After anchoring in Lamu on 28 August, Gneisenau sent

2054-585: The Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. On 21 June, Gneisenau joined the newly formed IV Division in the Kieler Förde , at the Baltic entrance to the canal, where the ships' bands played the national anthems of each countries' warships as they arrived for the celebration. Gneisenau cruised alone in the North Sea in July, and on 14 August joined III Division for the fleet maneuvers, which concluded on 17 September. During

2133-513: The Mediterranean. Foreign ports that were visited included Jaffa from 16 to 20 December and Beirut from 20 December to 2 January 1900. She began the journey back to Germany on 5 January, departing Port Said and sailing to La Spezia , Italy, where she was visited by Kaiserin Friedrich and her daughter Princess Viktoria . Gneisenau arrived in Kiel on 23 March, and after minor repairs began

2212-566: The Niger Delta in January 1885. On 29 January 1885 he signed a treaty which brought Mahinland under German protection. After this Nachtigal began his return journey to Germany but succumbed to malaria and died off the coast of Guinea in April. After Nachtigal had completed his mission of establishing German rights in West Africa, there was a need for naval support to reinforce them. On September 30, 1884, Emperor Wilhelm I issued an order establishing

2291-550: The Niger and concluded "treaties of protection" with chiefs of Gwandu and Gurma  [ de ] . However the French and British representatives signed similar agreements with the same chiefs, so they were of no value to Germany. Other German forays towards Niger, by Erich Kling  [ de ] , Gaston Thierry , Ludwig Wolf and Julius von Zech auf Neuhofen  [ de ] were similarly unsuccessful. Ultimately all Germany

2370-588: The West African Station, covering the maritime area off the coast of West Africa. Warships were assigned to the ports of the new German colonies. Having staked its claims with Nachtigal and backed them up with naval force by dispatching the West Africa Squadron, Germany needed to secure international recognition of its position in the region. Bismarck believed that the acquisition of colonies, while expensive and of no real economic or military interest,

2449-595: The West African coast. German missionaries, such as the North German Missionary Society , were also present from the mid 19th century. By the early 1880s German interests in West Africa consisted of: The Anglo-French Convention of 1882 led to concerns among Hamburg merchants that their interests would be threatened, and they began to seek the protection of the German Empire for their activities. At

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2528-582: The civil unrest on the island. On 7 February, Gneisenau left Cuban waters and arrived back in Kiel on 18 March. Gneisenau departed Kiel on 15 May, bound for Bergen for a training cruise. While in Norway, Gneisenau was visited by the German imperial family on 19 June and by King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway on 14 July. She returned to Kiel on 18 July, where she prepared for the annual fleet maneuvers in August and September. On 2 October, Gneisenau began

2607-581: The coast of West Africa. In the event, the multiple demand on Germany's small force of gunboats meant that on reaching Cape Town , the Gneisenau was ordered back to East Africa, leaving only the Prince Adalbert and the Stosch to continue to West Africa before proceeding back to Germany, and the West African squadron was finally dissolved in December 1885. After this the Imperial German Navy established

2686-523: The command of KzS August von Thomsen , now in the role of a training ship for naval cadets and four-year enlisted volunteers. In late May, she joined the Training Squadron, which was present at the ceremony marking the beginning on construction of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal on 3 June. The squadron took part in the annual fleet training exercises that began on 6 August; during the maneuvers,

2765-559: The conference did confirm the steps required in order for the Powers to recognise each other's territorial claims in West Africa – steps which Nachtigal had followed. Along with a number of claims by other Powers, German claims in West Africa were thus effectively recognised by means of the conference. In parallel with the main conference sessions, discussions were pursued which were intended to avoid possible conflict by tidying up overlapping claims and starting to define borders. Just two months after

2844-525: The contract name "D", was laid down in June 1877 at the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Shipyard) in Danzig (Gdańsk). She was launched on 4 September 1879, and was christened with the name Gneisenau , after the veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and Prussian military reformer Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) August von Gneisenau , during the launching ceremony by Admiral Albrecht von Stosch ,

2923-514: The cost of the operation to a minimum, the Admiralität ordered a pair of gunboats, Habicht and Möwe , that had been returning from overseas deployments to proceed to Egypt. There, they sent sailors ashore to protect Germans in Alexandria and Port Said , respectively. These two small vessels proved to be insufficient for the task, and so on 13 August, Gneisenau , the corvette Nymphe ,

3002-407: The crew, but it too was forced ashore in the heavy seas. Wave action quickly smashed Gneisenau ' s hull against the mole, and part of her crew attempted to find safety by climbing the rigging. The ship rolled over onto her side, and the surviving crewmen reached shore with a line. Forty-one men were killed in the accident, including Kretschmann and the ship's first officer . Charlotte and

3081-423: The eastern Mediterranean Sea as a precaution against further unrest. Gneisenau was recommissioned for another tour abroad on 5 October 1884 to join the newly-formed West African Cruiser Squadron, which was commanded by Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) Eduard von Knorr aboard his flagship Bismarck . The ship's new commander was KzS Victor Valois . While en route from Kiel to Wilhelmshaven to join

3160-541: The end, the Duchy would manage to retain control of these lands for less than a decade and the colonies were formally ceded to England in 1664. The colonies were lost when Courland and Semigallia's neighbours took advantage of its weakened defences during the Northern Wars , when Jakob was held captive by the Swedish Army from 1658 to 1660. After the end of the war, the island of Tobago was returned to Courland. However,

3239-408: The engine room personnel and the captain led to Kretschmann ordering the anchors raised so the ship could get underway. The commander believed the engine room had reported 50 revolutions per minute (rpm) on the propeller shaft, but the actual figure was 15 rpm, not sufficient to propel the ship. As a result, the now-unmoored ship drifted helplessly in the heavy winds. The crew attempted to drop

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3318-432: The establishment of German government administration. Bismarck's idea of indirect rule in the German "protected areas" had thus failed in West Africa. In 1886, the syndicate dissolved. The German colonial enterprise in West Africa was started by Gustav Nachtigal as Imperial Commissioner for West Africa. He started formally the "Schutzgebiete" (literally: "protectorates") in Kamerun, Togo and South-West Africa. This connection

3397-649: The exercises, Gneisenau collided with the Danish schooner Delphin off Horns Rev on 24 August, and could save only three men from her crew before the latter sank. On 28 September she embarked on the annual winter cruise, which again went to the West Indies. While in Charlotte Amalie , Gneisenau and the Danish gunboat Fyen helped to suppress a major fire in the port. She visited Havana , Cuba on 21 January 1896, where she, Stosch , and Stein monitored

3476-460: The first decade of her career. The first, in 1882, was to protect German nationals in Egypt during the 'Urabi revolt , though by the time she arrived, British forces had largely defeated the rebels, allowing Gneisenau to return home. The second, lengthier deployment came two years later and lasted from 1884 to 1886, and primarily focused on German colonial designs on eastern Africa. She was involved in

3555-658: The following (excluding German South West Africa ): Couronian colonization Curonian colonisation refers to the colonisation efforts of the Duchy of Courland and Semigallia (today part of Latvia ), a vassal duchy of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth . Small, but wealthy, the Duchy took a modest part in the European colonization settlement attempts of West Africa and the Caribbean . Like Brandenburg , which had far larger German colonising power before

3634-642: The formation of the German Empire , the Duchy of Courland had a European crusading past. The colonies were established under Jacob, Duke of Courland and Semigallia , and were one of the two Curonian colonies. The second colony was Gambia River in Africa. During his reign (1642–1682), the Duchy established trading relations with all of the major European powers. Jacob established one of the largest merchant fleets in Europe, with its main harbours in Windau (today Ventspils), and Libau (today Liepāja). His fleet made voyages to

3713-489: The gunboat Cyclop took up its position as the second gunboat on the West Africa station. After pacification of tribal feuds and unrest in the area under German protection, the West African Squadron was dissolved in July 1885. However, in September 1885 Captain Karl Paschen  [ de ] was commanded to re-form the squadron with SMS  Stosch , SMS  Prinz Adalbert and SMS  Gneisenau , deployed under Rear Admiral Knorr in East Africa, and return to

3792-424: The gunboat SMS Habicht arrived to replace the Olga at its permanent station in the river, allowing the Olga to return home together with the Adler . Meanwhile, the Bismarck cruised up and down the coast, hoisting the German flag in a number of places. Following the arrival of the first Imperial Governor of Kamerun, Julius von Soden on 7 July 1885, the Bismarck received orders to sail for East Africa while

3871-427: The head of the Kaiserliche Admiralität (Imperial Admiralty). She was commissioned on 3 October 1880 before work on the ship actually finished in order to transfer her to the Kaiserliche Werft in Kiel , where her guns were installed. Sea trials were then conducted, lasting from the end of December to 12 February 1881, after which she was decommissioned and placed in reserve. Her commander during this period

3950-405: The headwaters of the Niger from Guinea came to nothing after Germany agreed to cede Kapitaï and Koba (also known as ‘Colinsland’) to France. In 1894/95 an expedition funded by the Togo Committee and led by Hans Gruner  [ de ] attempted to acquire territories for Germany in the central Niger region. Gruner and his companion Ernst von Carnap-Quernheimb  [ de ] travelled

4029-429: The ironclad Baden . The Training Squadron began another Mediterranean cruise on 29 September, during which they participated in celebrations commemorating the 25th anniversary of King George I of Greece . The ships toured ports in the Ottoman Empire in Asia Minor and Egypt. On 16 April 1889, Gneisenau and the other training ships arrived back in Wilhelmshaven. Gneisenau moved to Kiel, where on 30 April she

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4108-426: The island on 28 January. Gneisenau then went to the port of Lamu to survey the coast of eastern Africa, particularly the area around Wituland . Gneisenau ' s survey of the area led the German government to instruct Rohlfs to accept the offer of the Witu Sultan, Ahmed ibn Fumo Bakari , to form a protectorate on 27 May. Gneisenau left Zanzibar on 1 April, bound for Melbourne , Australia, where she

4187-426: The meantime, Paschen had been instructed to form a second cruiser squadron, which was to consist of his flagship Stosch , along with Gneisenau and Prinz Adalbert . The squadron was to proceed to the Caroline Islands , which were at the center of a dispute between Germany and Spain. Gneisenau first went to Cape Town, arriving on 11 October. While there, she received new orders to proceed instead to what

4266-438: The new aviso Blitz . Upon returning to Germany, she underwent a short overhaul before joining the ships of III Division during the fleet training exercise in August and September. During the maneuvers she accidentally collided with the torpedo boat D2 , which was badly damaged. Gneisenau continued in the exercises until she too was decommissioned for repairs on 30 September. On 3 April 1894, Gneisenau embarked on

4345-416: The rebellion. The paddle steamer Loreley , the station ship in Constantinopel, joined the German squadron in the area. The German squadron remained in the area until December, primarily to protect the German embassy in Alexandria, when the squadron was disbanded; Gneisenau arrived back in Kiel on 24 December, where she was decommissioned on 9 January 1883, though Nymphe and Cyclop remained in

4424-489: The rest of the squadron, Gneisenau ran aground off the island of Lolland in heavy fog; she had to be towed free by the ironclad Hansa , though she was undamaged in the accident. The squadron left Wilhelmshaven on 30 October, bound for West Africa. While in the Cape Verde islands, Knorr detached Gneisenau to Cape Town , where she arrived on 8 January 1885. There, she embarked Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs , who had been appointed consul to Zanzibar , and took him to

4503-401: The rules that all powers would follow in future when making territorial claims in the continent. The Berlin Conference (known as the ‘West Africa Conference’ or the ‘Congo Conference’) convened in November 1884, and remained in session until February 1885. The General Act of the conference made no mention of Togo, Kamerun or any specific territory other than the basin of the Congo. Nevertheless,

4582-509: The same time as established German commercial interests in West Africa were seeking government and naval support, the broader social movement in favour of colonisation was gaining ground. The German Colonial Society (“Deutscher Kolonialverein”) was founded on December 6, 1882, in Frankfurt am Main with Hermann, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg as its first president, and soon had about 15,000 members. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck asked for views on potential German intervention in West Africa from

4661-403: The seizure of the colony of German East Africa in 1885, and she briefly toured German interests in the Pacific Ocean in 1886. In 1887, Gneisenau began her service as a training ship , a role she held for more than a decade. During this period, she was generally occupied with training cruises and individual, squadron, and fleet training. Long-distance cruises frequently alternated between

4740-522: The senates of Lübeck , Hamburg and Bremen . In response, Woermann submitted to the Chancellor plans for the establishment of a German-West African trade colony in 1883, which Bismarck initially received with some reservations. In December 1883 however the government undertook to take action to protect German traders by sending an Imperial Commissioner for West Africa to enter into formal treaties with local rulers. In May 1884 Bismarck decided to appoint Gustav Nachtigal as Imperial Commissioner. His mission

4819-411: The ships stopped at Cape St. Vincent and in Funchal , before arriving back in Wilhelmshaven on 10 April. Gneisenau proceeded on to Kiel, where she underwent an overhaul. The ship embarked on individual training exercises after returning to service before rejoining the Training Squadron on 25 June. The following month, the squadron escorted Kaiser Wilhelm II on a tour of Scandinavian ports aboard

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4898-422: The squadron filled the role of the II Division of the main fleet. After the exercises concluded the following month, the Training Squadron embarked on a winter cruise to the Mediterranean. During this voyage, the squadron flagship, Stein , caught fire and had to be docked for repairs, during which time Gneisenau served as the flagship from 19 November 1887 to 8 January 1888. On the way back to Germany in 1888,

4977-427: The summer training cruise, which this year just went to Christiana , Norway and concluded with the Kiel Week regatta. The ships thereafter took part in the fleet maneuvers in August and September again as III Division, with Gneisenau ' s commander now KK Hermann da Fonseca-Wollheim . On 1 October, Gneisenau began the winter training cruise to the Mediterranean, and while in La Valletta , Malta, she met

5056-402: The villages of the rebels and arrest their chiefs. Two coastal steamers, the Fan and the Dualla were used as landing craft to bring 307 soldiers ashore at Hickorytown on 20 December. The landing party received word that rioters on the opposite bank had attacked the Jantzen & Thormählen factories and carried off their managers, and they stormed Joss town to try and recover them. The next day

5135-495: The way back. Heavy storms in the North Sea forced her to put into Den Helder in the Netherlands on 27 March. She reached Kiel three days later, where she was decommissioned on 18 April for another overhaul. She remained out of service for the next year, before being recommissioned on 9 April 1899, thereafter embarking on a training cruise to Bergen on 5 July. On 24 July, she began another training voyage that went first to Iceland and then Queenstown , Ireland before continuing on to

5214-553: The winter cruise to the Mediterranean, where she visited numerous foreign ports. She initially joined Stein for the return voyage to Germany in early 1897, but while en route Gneisenau was ordered to Tangier to enforce German claims for compensation for a German banker who had been murdered in the country in December 1896. She arrived there on 27 February 1897, and was able to leave on 2 March, her mission having been accomplished in that time. After arriving in Kiel on 25 March, she went into drydock on 4 April for an overhaul, which

5293-401: The winter cruise, which this time went to the West Indies and Venezuela. While in the Caribbean Sea , the German squadron met the French West Indies Squadron and exchanged formal visits between the squadrons' commanders. On the way back to Germany, the squadron spent a month in British waters, from 22 May to 21 June, during which time they took part in the Cowes Regatta with Wilhelm II aboard

5372-498: The world. Gneisenau was 82 meters (269 ft) long overall , with a beam of 13.7 m (44 ft 11 in) and a draft of 5.2 m (17 ft 1 in) forward. She displaced 2,994 metric tons (2,947 long tons ) at full load . The ship's crew consisted of 18 officers and 386 enlisted men. She was powered by a single marine steam engine that drove one 2-bladed screw propeller , with steam provided by four coal-fired fire-tube boilers , which gave her

5451-399: Was Kapitän zur See ( KzS —Captain at Sea) Bartholomäus von Werner . At the time, Stosch had implemented a plan whereby Germany's colonies would be protected by gunboats , while larger warships would generally be kept in reserve, with a handful assigned to a flying squadron that could respond to crises quickly. By the early 1880s, French and British controls in Egypt and particularly

5530-417: Was a Bismarck -class corvette built for the German Imperial Navy ( Kaiserliche Marine ) in the late 1870s. The ship was named after the Prussian Field Marshal August von Gneisenau . She was the fifth member of the class, which included five other vessels. The Bismarck -class corvettes were ordered as part of a major naval construction program in the early 1870s, and she was designed to serve as

5609-465: Was able to gain for its efforts in the Niger basin was favourable adjustments to the border between Togoland and French West Africa when the border was settled by agreement in 1897. In October 1884, with Bismarck's support, the syndicate for West Africa was founded, which was intended to take over the internal administration of the West African colonies. However, the companies involved refused to assume this responsibility on their own and instead demanded

5688-434: Was again decommissioned. On 1 January 1891, Gneisenau was formally re-designated as a training ship. The ship remained out of service until 1 April 1892, when she was reactivated for a cruise in the Baltic and North Seas under the command of Korvettenkapitän ( KK —Corvette Captain) Felix Stubenrauch . In August and September, she took part in the annual fleet maneuvers, and beginning on 3 October, she participated in

5767-508: Was at the same time the governor of Kamerun. The first governor of Kamerun, Julius von Soden , was also the Chief Commissioner for Togo. In 1898 the position in Togo was elevated to the rank of governor. For the courts in charge of Europeans, there was a joint "Appellate Court for the protectorates of Kamerun and Togo" ( Kaiserliches Obergericht der Schutzgebiete von Kamerun und Togo ). The designation Deutsch-Westafrika appeared in

5846-456: Was beneficial in terms of gaining bargaining power with other governments. His foreign policy goal was to secure an international agreement that would place a check on the extensive ‘informal empire’ that Britain had built up. With French support, he, therefore, convened a conference in Berlin which would place Germany's acquisitions in Africa on an internationally recognised footing and would establish

5925-633: Was completed by mid-May; on 17 May, she began another training cruise in the Baltic. The ship began another major overseas cruise on 16 August, rather than participate in the annual fleet exercises. This trip went to South America, and included stops in Rio de Janeiro and São Francisco do Sul in Brazil, and Havana, where she rendezvoused with the training cruiser Charlotte . On 1 March 1898, Gneisenau left Havana to return to Germany, stopping in Key West and Horta on

6004-659: Was detached first to the Gazelle Peninsula on the island of New Pomerania to suppress an uprising against German colonial rule. She then went to the Palau Islands , part of the Caroline group, to retrieve a German monument, as Germany had dropped its claim to the islands in favor of Spain. On 25 July, Gneisenau began the journey back to Germany, reaching Kiel on 27 September. She was decommissioned there on 14 October. Gneisenau returned to service on 13 April 1887 under

6083-422: Was now German East Africa ; on 9 November she was formally reassigned back to Knorr's squadron. Gneisenau patrolled the coast of East Africa until 6 March 1886, when Knorr's squadron, at that time consisting of Gneisenau , Bismarck , and the corvette Olga , departed for Australia. After reaching the south Pacific, the ships toured Australian ports, New Zealand, Tonga , and Samoa before Gneisenau

6162-538: Was to meet the corvette Augusta in August, but Augusta sank in the Bab-el-Mandeb . Gneisenau instead proceeded on to Port Louis on the island of Mauritius . There, she met the cruiser squadron commanded by Kommodore Carl Paschen , which included her sister ship Stosch and the corvette Prinz Adalbert , the frigate Elisabeth , and the supply ship Ehrenfels . Paschen had been tasked to take his squadron to East Africa to settle disputes over

6241-485: Was to sail right down the Atlantic coast of the continent, to explore and test the existing a German claims in the region, and where possible to establish new ones. Bismarck's plan was to use Nachitigal's treaties to establish German sovereignty over key areas in West Africa, which would then be governed indirectly, with administration undertaken mainly by a commercial company. In June 1884 Nachtigal reached Sangareya bay and

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