page_title: SMS Wittelsbach
section_title: 1905–1914
hierarchical_section_title: SMS Wittelsbach / Service history / 1905–1914
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: germanysfighting00hend (find matches) Title: Germany's fighting machine; her army, her navy, her air-ships, and why she arrayed them against the allied powers of Europe Year: 1914 (1910s) Authors: Henderson, Ernest F. (Ernest Flagg), 1861-1928 Subjects: Germany. Heer Germany. Kriegsmarine World War, 1914-1918 Publisher: Indianapolis, The Bobbs-Merrill company Contributing Library: The Library of Congress Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: umbers thirty-eight ships of the line,fourteen armored cruisers, thirty-eight protected cruis-ers, two hundred twenty-four tor))edo-boats and thirtysubmarines. There are no torpedo-boat-destroyers asin other navies, the small cruisers being supposed totake their place. The battle-ships are ranged in classes.There are three of the King class (the Konig, theGrosser KurfUrst and the Marhgraf), which have adisplacement of nearly 26,000 tons and are equippedwith every possible modern improvement, such as netprotection against torpedoes, turbine engines, provisionfor oil-fuel, torpedo tubes, etc. It is from these mon-sters, of which each carries ten of the largest guns, notto speak of the smaller ones, that we shall probably hearmost in the course of the war, though not perhaps in thebeginning, as they are not fully completed. They areto be joined in 1915 by a sister-ship, the Kronpriiiz. The Konig class is to be larger in dimension, inhorse-power and in displacement, though not in speed or Text Appearing After Image: ' Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: SMS Wittelsbach was the lead ship of the Wittelsbach class of pre-dreadnought battleships, built for the Imperial German Navy. She was the first capital ship built under the Navy Law of 1898, brought about by Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz. Wittelsbach was laid down in 1899 at the Wilhelmshaven Navy Dockyard and completed in October 1902. She was armed with a main battery of four 24 cm guns and had a top speed of 18 knots.
  The ship served in I Squadron of the German fleet for the majority of her peacetime career, which spanned from 1902 to 1910. During this period, she was occupied with extensive annual training and making good-will visits to foreign countries. The training exercises during this period provided the framework for the High Seas Fleet's operations during World War I. She was decommissioned in September 1910, but was reactivated in 1911 for training ship duties, which lasted through 1914.
  After the start of World War I in August 1914, Wittelsbach was brought back to active duty in IV Battle Squadron. The ship served in the Baltic Sea, including during the Battle of the Gulf of Riga in August 1915, but saw no combat with Russian forces.
context_section_description: Wittelsbach took part in a pair of training cruises with I Squadron during 9–19 January and 27 February – 16 March 1905. Individual and squadron training followed, with an emphasis on gunnery drills. On 12 July, the fleet began a major training exercise in the North Sea. The fleet then cruised through the Kattegat and stopped in Copenhagen and Stockholm. The summer cruise ended on 9 August, though the autumn maneuvers that would normally have begun shortly thereafter were delayed by a visit from the British Channel Fleet that month. The British fleet stopped in Danzig, Swinemünde, and Flensburg, where it was greeted by units of the German Navy; Wittelsbach and the main German fleet was anchored at Swinemünde for the occasion. Politically, the visit was strained by the developing Anglo-German naval arms race. As a result of the British visit, the 1905 autumn maneuvers were shortened considerably, from 6 to 13 September, and consisted only of exercises in the North Sea. The first exercise presumed a naval blockade in the German Bight, and the second envisioned a hostile fleet attempting to force the defenses of the Elbe. In September, Kapitän zur See Maximilian von Spee, who would go on to command the East Asia Squadron at the outbreak of World War I, took command of the ship.
  In October, I Squadron went on a cruise in the Baltic. In early December, I and II Squadrons went on their regular winter cruise—this time to Danzig, where they arrived on 12 December. While on the return trip to Kiel, the fleet conducted tactical exercises. The fleet undertook a heavier training schedule in 1906 than in previous years. The ships were occupied with individual, division and squadron exercises throughout April. Starting on 13 May, major fleet exercises took place in the North Sea and lasted until 8 June with a cruise around the Skagen into the Baltic. The fleet began its usual summer cruise to Norway in mid-July. The fleet was present for the birthday of Norwegian King Haakon VII on 3 August. The German ships departed the following day for Helgoland, to join exercises being conducted there. The fleet was back in Kiel by 15 August, where preparations for the autumn maneuvers began. On 22–24 August, the fleet took part in landing exercises in Eckernförde Bay outside Kiel. The maneuvers were paused from 31 August to 3 September when the fleet hosted vessels from Denmark and Sweden, along with a Russian squadron from 3 to 9 September in Kiel. The maneuvers resumed on 8 September and lasted five more days.
  The ship participated in the uneventful winter cruise into the Kattegat and Skagerrak from 8 to 16 December. The first quarter of 1907 followed the previous pattern and, on 16 February, the Active Battle Fleet was re-designated the High Seas Fleet. From the end of May to early June the fleet went on its summer cruise in the North Sea, returning to the Baltic via the Kattegat. This was followed by the regular cruise to Norway from 12 July to 10 August. During the autumn maneuvers, which lasted from 26 August to 6 September, the fleet conducted landing exercises in northern Schleswig with IX Corps. The winter training cruise went into the Kattegat from 22 to 30 November. In May 1908, the fleet went on a major cruise into the Atlantic instead of its normal voyage in the North Sea, which included a stop in Horta in the Azores. The fleet returned to Kiel on 13 August to prepare for the autumn maneuvers, which lasted from 27 August to 7 September. Division exercises in the Baltic immediately followed from 7 to 13 September. After the end of the maneuvers, Wittelsbach was relieved as the squadron flagship by the new battleship Hannover and became the flagship of the deputy commander.
  Wittelsbach was replaced as the deputy command flagship on 20 September 1910, again by Hannover, for decommissioning. Her crew was sent to man the newly commissioned dreadnought Posen. After a year in reserve, Wittelsbach was reactivated on 16 October 1911 to replace the battleship Brandenburg in the Reserve Division of the North Sea. From 31 March to 28 April 1912,
caption: Wittelsbach passing through the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal, under the Levensau High Bridge
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