SMS König Wilhelm SMS " König Wilhelm " ( " King William " ) was an armored frigate of the Prussian and later the German Imperial Navy . The ship was laid down in 1865 at the Thames Ironworks shipyard in London , originally under the name " Fatikh " for the Ottoman Empire . She was purchased by Prussia in February 1867 , launched in April 1868 , and commissioned into the Prussian Navy in February 1869 . The ship was the fifth ironclad ordered by the Prussian Navy , after , , , and . She was built as an armored frigate , armed with a main battery of sixteen and five guns ; several smaller guns and torpedo tubes were added later in her career . The ship was for a time the largest and most powerful warship in the German navy ; she served as its flagship during the Franco - Prussian War in 1870 – 1871 , though engine troubles prevented the ship from seeing action . In 1878 , the ship accidentally rammed and sank the ironclad , with great loss of life . " König Wilhelm " was converted into an armored cruiser in 1895 – 1896 ; by early 1904 , however , she had been superseded by newer vessels . In May of that year , she was placed out of active service and used as a floating barracks and training ship , a role she held through World War I . In 1921 , the ship was ultimately broken up for scrap , after a career spanning 52 years and three German states . Design . General characteristics and machinery . " König Wilhelm " was long at the waterline and long overall . She had a beam of and a draft of forward and aft . The ship was designed to displace at a normal loading , and up to with a combat load . The ship ' s hull was constructed with transverse and longitudinal iron frames . It contained eleven watertight compartments and a double bottom that ran for 70 percent of the length of the vessel . " König Wilhelm " was noted by the German navy as having had " satisfactory sea - keeping qualities " ; the ship was responsive to commands from the helm and had a moderate turning radius . She suffered from severe roll but little pitch . The ship ' s crew numbered 36 officers and 694 enlisted men , and while serving as a flagship , the crew was augmented with a command staff composed of 9 officers and 47 enlisted men . " König Wilhelm " carried a number of smaller boats , including two picket boats , two launches , a pinnace , two cutters , two yawls , and one dinghy . A horizontal two - cylinder single expansion steam engine , built by Maudslay , Son & Field of London , powered the ship . It drove a four - bladed screw in diameter . J Penn & Sons of Greenwich built eight trunk boilers for the ship . These were divided into two boiler rooms with twenty fireboxes in each , supplied steam to the engine at . The propulsion system was rated at and a top speed of , though on trials " König Wilhelm " managed to make and . The ship carried of coal , which enabled a maximum range of at a cruising speed of . A ship rig with a surface area of supplemented the steam engine , though in service they added little to the ship ' s performance . Steering was controlled with a single rudder . Armament and armor . As built , " König Wilhelm " was equipped with thirty - three rifled 72 - pounder cannon . After her delivery to Germany , these guns were replaced with eighteen L / 20 guns , supplied with a total of 1 , 440 rounds of ammunition . These guns were mounted in a central battery , with nine on either broadside . The guns could depress to −4° and elevate to 7 . 5° ; at maximum elevation , the guns could reach targets out to . The ship ' s armament was rounded out by five guns , which could depress to −5° and elevate to 13° . Their maximum range was . " König Wilhelm " was reconstructed into an armored cruiser in 1895 – 1896 and rearmed with twenty - two 24 cm L / 20 guns , a single L / 30 gun with 109 rounds mounted in the stern , and eighteen quick - firing guns on the upper deck , nine on each broadside . The 15 cm gun had a range of . Five torpedo tubes were also installed ; two were placed in the bow , one on both broadsides , and one in the stern , all above water . The torpedo tubes were supplied with a total of 13 rounds . Following her conversion into a training ship , most of her armament was removed . The ship only carried sixteen 8 . 8 cm L / 30 guns , and in 1915 , twelve of these were removed . As built , the ship was protected by wrought iron plating mounted over teak backing . Protection at the waterline was thickest amidships , with an outer layer of iron armor thick , an inner layer of thick iron , and of teak behind the iron . The outer layer was reduced to in the stern but did not extend to the bow . The inner layer was thick in both the bow and stern , and the teak backing was for both ends of the ship . The main battery was protected with thick plating and capped on either end with 150 mm thick transverse bulkheads . During her reconstruction into an armored cruiser , the iron armor was cut away and replaced with stronger steel armor . The conning tower received armor protection during the refit as well . The sides were thick sloped plates , with a thick roof . Service history . Laid down at the Thames Ironworks shipyard in London , England in 1865 , the ship was originally ordered by the Ottoman Empire as the " Fatikh " . The ship was built to a design created by the British naval architect Edward Reed . Before her launch , the Prussian Navy purchased the ship on 6 February 1867 and initially renamed it " Wilhelm I " . On 14 December 1867 , the ship was renamed again , as " König Wilhelm " . She was launched on 25 April 1868 and commissioned less than a year later , on 20 February 1869 . The ship ' s first commander was " Kapitän zur See " Ludwig von Henk . The ship was the largest and most powerful vessel in the Prussian fleet , and served as its flagship . Indeed , " König Wilhelm " remained the largest German vessel until 1891 . This was in part due to the fact that Germany laid down only one small ironclad between 1876 and 1888 ; the four s , launched in 1891 and 1892 , were the first ships to surpass " König Wilhelm " in size . Franco - Prussian War . At the outbreak of the Franco - Prussian War in 1870 , the greatly numerically inferior Prussian Navy assumed a defensive posture against a naval blockade imposed by the French Navy . " König Wilhelm " and the broadside ironclads and , along with the small ironclad ram , had been steaming in the English Channel before the French declared war ; they had left Plymouth on 10 July with the intention of steaming to Fayal in the Azores . On the 13th , however , they put into port and learned of the rising tension between France and Prussia . The ships therefore returned to Wilhelmshaven immediately , arriving on 16 July . France declared war on Prussia three days later on 19 July . " König Wilhelm " , " Friedrich Carl " , and " Kronprinz " were concentrated in the North Sea at the port of Wilhelmshaven . They were subsequently joined there by the turret ship , which had been stationed in Kiel . Despite the great French naval superiority , the French had conducted insufficient pre - war planning for an assault on the Prussian naval installations , and concluded that it would only be possible with Danish assistance , which was not forthcoming . The four ships , under the command of Vice Admiral Jachmann , made an offensive sortie in early August 1870 out to the Dogger Bank , though they encountered no French warships . " König Wilhelm " and the other two broadside ironclads thereafter suffered from chronic engine trouble , which left " Arminius " alone to conduct operations . " König Wilhelm " , " Friedrich Carl " , and " Kronprinz " stood off the island of Wangerooge for the majority of the conflict , while " Arminius " was stationed in the mouth of the Elbe river . On 11 September , the three broadside ironclads were again ready for action ; they joined " Arminius " for another major operation into the North Sea . It too did not encounter French opposition , as the French Navy had by this time returned to France . After the war , the Prussian Navy became the Imperial Navy , and resumed its peacetime training routines . General Albrecht von Stosch became the chief of the Imperial Navy , and organized the fleet for coastal defense . Collision with " Grosser Kurfürst " . While steaming in the Straits of Dover on 31 May 1878 , " König Wilhelm " accidentally collided with the newly commissioned turret ironclad . The two ships , along with , had left Wilhelmshaven on the 29th . " König Wilhelm " and " Preussen " steamed in a line , with " Grosser Kurfürst " off to starboard . On the morning of the 31st , the three ships encountered a pair of sailing vessels off Folkestone . " Grosser Kurfürst " turned to port to avoid the boats while " König Wilhelm " sought to pass the two boats , but there was not enough distance between her and " Grosser Kurfürst " . She therefore turned hard to port to avoid " Grosser Kurfürst " , but the action was not taken quickly enough , and " König Wilhelm " found herself pointed directly at " Grosser Kurfürst " . " König Wilhelm " s ram bow tore a hole in " Grosser Kurfürst " . A failure to adequately seal the watertight bulkheads aboard " Grosser Kurfürst " caused the ship to sink rapidly , in the span of about eight minutes . Out of a crew of 500 men , 269 died in the accident . " König Wilhelm " was also badly damaged in the collision , with severe flooding forward . " König Wilhelm " s captain initially planned on beaching the ship to prevent it from sinking , but determined that the ship ' s pumps could hold the flooding to an acceptable level . The ship made for Portsmouth , where temporary repairs could be effected to allow the ship to return to Germany . In the aftermath of the collision , the German navy held a court martial for Rear Admiral Batsch , the squadron commander , and Captains Monts and Kuehne , the commanders of the two ships , along with Lieutenant Clausa , the first officer aboard " Grosser Kurfürst " , to investigate the sinking . The damage to " König Wilhelm " necessitated a lengthy period of repairs from 1878 to 1882 . The work was carried out at the Imperial Dockyard in Wilhelmshaven , and also included reboilering and replacement of the ship ' s ram . Torpedo nets were fitted to the ship from 1885 to 1897 . Later service . By 1893 , " König Wilhelm " had been assigned as the flagship for the II Division of the German fleet ; the four armored corvettes composed the I Squadron . The ship flew the flag of Admiral Otto von Diederichs , and was based in Wilhelmshaven . On 20 February 1894 , a special ceremony was held on board the ship to commemorate the 25th anniversary of her commissioning . Kaiser Wilhelm II attended the ceremony , as did Ludwig von Henk , who had by that time retired as a " Vizeadmiral " . In April 1894 , the II Division conducted a training cruise to prepare for the annual summer maneuvers . During the cruise , " König Wilhelm " ran aground on a mud bank off the Frisian coast . and quickly pulled the ship free with minimal damage . The ships then proceeded to Scotland via Oslo and Bergen . The division returned to Kiel at the end of May to replenish its stocks of coal and provisions for the summer exercises . During the 1894 maneuvers , von Diederich ' s II Division acted as the opposing force in the Baltic , simulating a Russian fleet attacking Germany ' s Baltic coast . Following the conclusion of maneuvers in September , Admiral Diederichs left the squadron and was replaced by Admiral Karl Barandon . In 1895 , " König Wilhelm " went into drydock at the Blohm and Voss shipyard in Hamburg for an extensive reconstruction into an armored cruiser . The vessel ' s armament was increased , the ship rig was removed , and new fighting masts were installed in place of the old masts . The ship ' s crew was dramatically increased , to 38 officers and 1 , 120 enlisted men . Work lasted through 1896 , and the ship was returned to the fleet in her new guise on 25 January 1897 . She served with the fleet until 1904 , when she was removed from active duty . Starting on 3 May 1904 , she became a harbor ship . She was then used barracks ship and training vessel for naval cadets , based in Kiel , starting on 1 October 1907 . Two years later , " König Wilhelm " was moved to the Naval Academy at Mürwik , where she continued in these duties . Starting in 1910 , the old corvette served as a support vessel for the ship . The light cruiser replaced " Charlotte " as " König Wilhelm " s auxiliary vessel in 1917 . " König Wilhelm " served through World War I , until 1921 , after Germany ' s defeat . On 4 January 1921 , the ship was stricken from the naval register and broken up for scrap in Rönnebeck . Notes . Footnotes Citations