SMS Lothringen SMS " Lothringen " was the fifth of five pre - dreadnought battleship s of the in the German Imperial Navy laid down in 1902 and commissioned 1906 . She was named for the then German province of Lothringen , now Lorraine , a region of France . Her sister ships were , , , and . " Lothringen " served in the II Battle Squadron of the German High Seas Fleet for the majority of her career . She participated in a fleet advance in December 1914 in support of the Raid on Scarborough , Hartlepool and Whitby during which the German fleet encountered and briefly clashed with a detachment of the British Grand Fleet . Her poor condition necessitated her withdrawal from fleet service in 1916 , after which she was used as a guard ship in the Baltic Sea , and later as a training ship . After the war , " Lothringen " was retained by the re - formed Reichsmarine and converted into a depot ship for F - type minesweepers . She was stricken in March 1931 and sold to ship breakers later that year . Construction . " Lothringen " was laid down in 1902 , at the Schichau - Werke in Danzig under construction number 716 . The fifth and final unit of her class , she was ordered under the contract name " M " as a new unit for the fleet . The ship cost 23 , 801 , 000 marks . " Lothringen " was launched on 27 May 1904 and commissioned into the fleet on 18 May 1906 . The ship was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward . The ship was powered by three 3 - cylinder vertical triple expansion engines that drove three screws . Steam was provided by eight naval and six cylindrical boilers , all of which burned coal . " Lothringen " s powerplant was rated at , which generated a top speed of . " Lothringen " s armament consisted of a main battery of four 28 cm ( 11 in ) SK L / 40 guns in twin gun turret s , one fore and one aft of the central superstructure . Her secondary armament consisted of fourteen 17 cm ( 6 . 7 inch ) SK L / 40 guns and eighteen 8 . 8 cm ( 3 . 45 in ) SK L / 35 quick - firing guns . The armament suite was rounded out with six torpedo tubes , all mounted submerged in the hull . Service history . After commissioning , " Lothringen " was assigned to the II Battle Squadron of the German fleet . " Lothringen " participated in the de Ruyter festival in Amsterdam on 24 March 1907 . In 1909 , " Lothringen " and the older battleship won the annual Kaiser ' s Prize for accurate shooting . By 1911 , Germany ' s first two classes of dreadnought battleship s — the and es — were entering service . These ships were assigned to I Battle Squadron ; all of the older and vessels , armed with only guns , were placed in reserve . Germany now had a battleship fleet armed entire with guns or larger . " Lothringen " was present during the fleet cruise to Norway in July 1914 , which was cut short by the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and subsequent rise in international tensions . On 25 July the ship ' s crew was made aware of Austria - Hungary ' s ultimatum to Serbia ; " Lothringen " left Norway to rendezvous with the rest of the fleet the following day . World War I . After the outbreak of war in August 1914 , the High Seas Fleet conducted a series of operations designed to lure out a portion of the numerically superior British Grand Fleet and destroy it . By achieving a rough equality of forces , the German navy could then force a decisive battle in the southern portion of the North Sea . The first such operation in which the High Seas Fleet , including " Lothringen " , participated was the raid on Scarborough , Hartlepool and Whitby on 15 – 16 December 1914 . The main fleet acted as distant support for Rear Admiral Franz von Hipper ' s battlecruiser squadron while it raided the coastal towns . On the evening of 15 December , the fleet came to within of an isolated squadron of six British battleships . However , skirmishes between the rival destroyer screens in the darkness convinced the German fleet commander , Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl , that the entire Grand Fleet was deployed before him . Under orders from Kaiser Wilhelm II , von Ingenohl broke off the engagement and turned the battlefleet back towards Germany . Like her sister " Preussen " , " Lothringen " missed the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916 , though for different reasons . " Preussen " had been temporarily transferred to guard duties in the Baltic , while " Lothringen " was in such poor condition that Vice Admiral Reinhard Scheer , the fleet commander , removed her from the squadron . Jutland proved to Scheer that the pre - dreadnought battleships were too vulnerable to take part in a major fleet action , and so detached the II Squadron from the High Seas Fleet . " Lothringen " became a guard ship in the Baltic after she left the battle fleet . The following year she was transferred to Wilhelmshaven , where she was used as an exercise ship , as well as to train engineers . She served in this capacity until the end of the war in 1918 . Post - war career . The Treaty of Versailles , which ended the war , specified that Germany was permitted to retain six battleships of the " " Deutschland " or " Lothringen " types . " " Lothringen " was among those ships chosen to remain on active service with the newly reformed Reichsmarine . Like her sister " Preussen " , " Lothringen " was converted into a parent ship for F - type minesweepers at the Kriegsmarinewerft in Wilhelmshaven in 1919 ; the ship was disarmed and platforms for holding the minesweepers were installed . " Lothringen " served in this capacity with the newly reformed Reichsmarine from 1922 until 1926 , after which she was placed in reserve . She was stricken from the naval register on 31 March 1931 ; the Reichsmarine then sold her , minus her armor plating , to ship breakers that year for 269 , 650 Reichsmarks . " Lothringen " was subsequently broken up for scrap by Blohm & Voss in Hamburg . Notes . Footnotes Citations References . Books Journals