SMS Fürst Bismarck (1897)
1902 lithograph of Fürst Bismarck
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| History | |
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 German Empire
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| Name: | Fürst Bismarck |
| Namesake: | Otto von Bismarck |
| Builder: | Kaiserliche Werft, Kiel |
| Laid down: | April 1896 |
| Launched: | 25 September 1897 |
| Commissioned: | 1 April 1900 |
| Struck: | 17 June 1919 |
| Fate: | Scrapped in 1919–1920 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Fürst Bismarck class unique armored cruiser |
| Displacement: |
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| Length: | 127 m (416 ft 8 in) |
| Beam: | 20.40 m (66 ft 11 in) |
| Draft: | 7.80 m (25 ft 7 in) |
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| Speed: | 18.7 knots (34.6 km/h; 21.5 mph) |
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SMS Fürst Bismarck (Prince Bismarck) was Germany's first armored cruiser, built for the Kaiserliche Marine before the turn of the 20th century. The ship was named for the German statesman Otto von Bismarck. The design for Fürst Bismarck was an improvement over the previous Victoria Louise-class protected cruiser—Fürst Bismarck was significantly larger and better armed than her predecessors.
The ship was primarily intended for colonial duties, and she served in this capacity as part of the East Asia Squadron until she was relieved in 1909, at which point she returned to Germany. The ship was rebuilt between 1910 and 1914, and after the start of World War I, she was briefly used as a coastal defense ship. She proved inadequate to this task, and so she was withdrawn from active duty and served as a training ship for engineers until the end of the war. Fürst Bismarck was decommissioned in 1919 and sold for scrap.
Fürst Bismarck was designed before the naval arms race between Germany and the United Kingdom. Admiral Hollmann was the State Secretary of the Naval Office at the time. Given the dominance of the British Royal Navy and the impossibility, as he saw it, of competing with it, Hollmann envisaged a small fleet consisting of torpedo boats and coastal defense ships to be based in German waters. This would be supplemented by a number of cruisers for overseas duties, including trade protection.
The first armored cruiser to be designed by the German navy, Fürst Bismarck was an enlarged version of the Victoria Louise-class cruisers, at nearly twice the displacement and with a significantly more powerful armament. The ship was intended for overseas use, particularly in support of German colonies in Asia and the Pacific. Despite heavy political opposition, the new ship was approved by the Reichstag, and was laid down as Ersatz Leipzig in April 1896 at the Imperial Dockyard in Kiel. Fürst Bismarck, named after the famous German chancellor Otto von Bismarck, was completed on 1 April 1900, at a cost of 18,945,000 Marks.
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