page_title: List of avisos of Germany
section_title: Zieten
hierarchical_section_title: List of avisos of Germany / Zieten
caption_attribution_description: English: German aviso SMS&#160;Zieten in port.
context_page_description: The German navies, beginning with the Prussian Navy in the 1840s, acquired a series of avisos for use in a variety of roles, including as scouts, flagships for gunboat flotillas, and as dispatch vessels. The first such vessel, SMS Preussischer Adler, was a packet steamer requisitioned for service during the First Schleswig War in 1848, though she returned to civilian duty after the war. In 1850, the Prussians ordered a pair of small vessels—the Nix class—from Britain; like Preussicher Adler, these were both paddle steamers. The first screw-driven aviso followed in 1856: the French-built Grille. Another paddle steamer, Loreley, was laid down in 1858, the first vessel of the type built in a German shipyard. Many of these vessels served as yachts for the royal and later imperial family. During the Second Schleswig War, Loreley and Preussischer Adler saw action at the Battles of Jasmind and Heligoland, respectively.
  At the start of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, the Prussians purchased Falke and requisitioned Pommerania. Grille engaged French forces in the Baltic during the war, but the rest of the fleet's avisos saw little activity in the conflict.
context_section_description: Beginning in 1869, the North German Federal Navy, under the direction of Albrecht von Stosch, began to consider the new self-propelled Whitehead torpedoes; Stosch authorized construction of a new aviso to test the weapons in 1873. Laid down at the Thames Iron Works, Zieten was the last major warship of the Imperial German fleet to be built overseas. Zieten proved to be highly influential, as experiments with the new torpedoes not only led to further construction of torpedo-armed warships, but also inspired similar vessels in the French, Italian, and Austro-Hungarian fleets. The Austro-Hungarian chief construction, Josef von Romako, based his design of the Zara-class cruisers directly on that of Zieten.
  Future admiral Otto von Diederichs served aboard the ship during her first year in service, which involved tests of the bow torpedo tubes that demonstrated that the bow tube, located in the hull below the waterline, was not satisfactory; Diederichs arranged for the tube to be moved to a swivel mount on the deck. Another future admiral, Alfred von Tirpitz, took command of the vessel in 1878; during training exercises in 1880, Tirpitz arranged a demonstration of the vessel's effectiveness by sinking the old paddle steamer Barbarossa. She went to the Mediterranean during the 'Urabi revolt in 1882 along with several other vessels. She saw limited service in the 1890s, including as a fisheries vessel until the start of World War I in 1914, after which point she was used as a guard ship. She was ultimately sold for scrap in 1921.
caption: Zieten
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