Construction and first overseas deployment

Gneisenau in port, likely in the 1880s

The new corvette, ordered under the contract name "D", was laid down in June 1877 at the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Shipyard) in Danzig (Gdańsk). She was launched on 4 September 1879, and was christened with the name Gneisenau, after the veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and Prussian military reformer Generalfeldmarschall (Field Marshal) August von Gneisenau, during the launching ceremony by Admiral Albrecht von Stosch, the head of the Kaiserliche Admiralität (Imperial Admiralty). She was commissioned on 3 October 1880 before work on the ship actually finished in order to transfer her to the Kaiserliche Werft in Kiel, where her guns were installed. Sea trials were then conducted, lasting from the end of December to 12 February 1881, after which she was decommissioned and placed in reserve. Her commander during this period was Kapitän zur See (KzS—Captain at Sea) Bartholomäus von Werner.^[4] At the time, Stosch had implemented a plan whereby Germany's colonies would be protected by gunboats, while larger warships would generally be kept in reserve, with a handful assigned to a flying squadron that could respond to crises quickly.^[5]

By the early 1880s, French and British controls in Egypt and particularly the Suez Canal produced the 'Urabi revolt, led by Ahmed ‘Urabi. In June 1882, the revolutionaries, angered by foreign influence in the country, murdered fifty Europeans, prompting the British Royal Navy to bombard Alexandria and then land forces to pursue the rebels. In the wake of the conflict, the German government determined that warships should be sent to protect Germans in the country. Initially hoping to avoid mobilizing any vessels in Germany to keep the cost of the operation to a minimum, the Admiralität ordered a pair of gunboats, Habicht and Möwe, that had been returning from overseas deployments to proceed to Egypt. There, they sent sailors ashore to protect Germans in Alexandria and Port Said, respectively.^[4]

These two small vessels proved to be insufficient for the task, and so on 13 August, Gneisenau, the corvette Nymphe, the aviso Zieten, and the gunboat Cyclop were commissioned to reinforce them. They departed Kiel on 19 August, under the command of Gneisenau's captain KzS Max von der Goltz, who was made Kommodore of the squadron. The ships arrived in Port Said on 21 August, and on 13 September the British defeated 'Urabi's forces at the Battle of Tell El Kebir, effectively ending the rebellion. The paddle steamer Loreley, the station ship in Constantinopel, joined the German squadron in the area. The German squadron remained in the area until December, primarily to protect the German embassy in Alexandria, when the squadron was disbanded; Gneisenau arrived back in Kiel on 24 December, where she was decommissioned on 9 January 1883, though Nymphe and Cyclop remained in the eastern Mediterranean Sea as a precaution against further unrest.^[4][6]

Second overseas deployment

Contemporary map of German East Africa

Gneisenau was recommissioned for another tour abroad on 5 October 1884 to join the newly-formed West African Cruiser Squadron, which was commanded by Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) Eduard von Knorr aboard his flagship Bismarck. The ship's new commander was KzS Victor Valois. While en route from Kiel to Wilhelmshaven to join the rest of the squadron, Gneisenau ran aground off the island of Lolland in heavy fog; she had to be towed free by the ironclad Hansa, though she was undamaged in the accident. The squadron left Wilhelmshaven on 30 October, bound for West Africa. While in the Cape Verde islands, Knorr detached Gneisenau to Cape Town, where she arrived on 8 January 1885. There, she embarked Friedrich Gerhard Rohlfs, who had been appointed consul to Zanzibar, and took him to the island on 28 January. Gneisenau then went to the port of Lamu to survey the coast of eastern Africa, particularly the area around Wituland. Gneisenau's survey of the area led the German government to instruct Rohlfs to accept the offer of the Witu Sultan, Ahmed ibn Fumo Bakari, to form a protectorate on 27 May.^[7]

Gneisenau left Zanzibar on 1 April, bound for Melbourne, Australia, where she was to meet the corvette Augusta in August, but Augusta sank in the Bab-el-Mandeb. Gneisenau instead proceeded on to Port Louis on the island of Mauritius. There, she met the cruiser squadron commanded by Kommodore Carl Paschen, which included her sister ship Stosch and the corvette Prinz Adalbert, the frigate Elisabeth, and the supply ship Ehrenfels. Paschen had been tasked to take his squadron to East Africa to settle disputes over the German protectorate with the Sultan of Zanzibar, Barghash bin Said, which he accomplished by mid-August. On 18 August, Bismarck arrived with Knorr, who replaced Paschen as the squadron commander. Knorr sent Gneisenau to Wituland, where Valois informed Bakari that the Sultan of Zanzibar had agreed to recognize the protectorate and stop interfering in the internal affairs of Wituland. After anchoring in Lamu on 28 August, Gneisenau sent a contingent ashore, led by the executive officer, Curt von Prittwitz und Gaffron, to hold a parade to celebrate the agreement. Three days later, Valois took three officers and twenty-nine enlisted men to the Witu capital to meet Bakari, returning to the ship on 4 September.^[8]

Gneisenau departed Lamu on 6 September and went to Kismayu, before proceeding on to Zanzibar four days later. In the meantime, Paschen had been instructed to form a second cruiser squadron, which was to consist of his flagship Stosch, along with Gneisenau and Prinz Adalbert. The squadron was to proceed to the Caroline Islands, which were at the center of a dispute between Germany and Spain.^[9] Gneisenau first went to Cape Town, arriving on 11 October. While there, she received new orders to proceed instead to what was now German East Africa; on 9 November she was formally reassigned back to Knorr's squadron. Gneisenau patrolled the coast of East Africa until 6 March 1886, when Knorr's squadron, at that time consisting of Gneisenau, Bismarck, and the corvette Olga, departed for Australia. After reaching the south Pacific, the ships toured Australian ports, New Zealand, Tonga, and Samoa before Gneisenau was detached first to the Gazelle Peninsula on the island of New Pomerania to suppress an uprising against German colonial rule. She then went to the Palau Islands, part of the Caroline group, to retrieve a German monument, as Germany had dropped its claim to the islands in favor of Spain. On 25 July, Gneisenau began the journey back to Germany, reaching Kiel on 27 September. She was decommissioned there on 14 October.^[10]

Training ship duties

An unidentified member of the class, likely in the 1890s

1895–1900

A painting of Gneisenau, Stein, and Stosch under sail, by Alexander Kircher

The next set of training exercises began on 6 May, and were conducted in the North Sea and concluded with ceremonies marking the opening of the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal. On 21 June, Gneisenau joined the newly formed IV Division in the Kieler Förde, at the Baltic entrance to the canal, where the ships' bands played the national anthems of each countries' warships as they arrived for the celebration. Gneisenau cruised alone in the North Sea in July, and on 14 August joined III Division for the fleet maneuvers, which concluded on 17 September. During the exercises, Gneisenau collided with the Danish schooner Delphin off Horns Rev on 24 August, and could save only three men from her crew before the latter sank. On 28 September she embarked on the annual winter cruise, which again went to the West Indies. While in Charlotte Amalie, Gneisenau and the Danish gunboat Fyen helped to suppress a major fire in the port. She visited Havana, Cuba on 21 January 1896, where she, Stosch, and Stein monitored the civil unrest on the island. On 7 February, Gneisenau left Cuban waters and arrived back in Kiel on 18 March. Gneisenau departed Kiel on 15 May, bound for Bergen for a training cruise. While in Norway, Gneisenau was visited by the German imperial family on 19 June and by King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway on 14 July. She returned to Kiel on 18 July, where she prepared for the annual fleet maneuvers in August and September.^[13]

On 2 October, Gneisenau began the winter cruise to the Mediterranean, where she visited numerous foreign ports. She initially joined Stein for the return voyage to Germany in early 1897, but while en route Gneisenau was ordered to Tangier to enforce German claims for compensation for a German banker who had been murdered in the country in December 1896. She arrived there on 27 February 1897, and was able to leave on 2 March, her mission having been accomplished in that time. After arriving in Kiel on 25 March, she went into drydock on 4 April for an overhaul, which was completed by mid-May; on 17 May, she began another training cruise in the Baltic. The ship began another major overseas cruise on 16 August, rather than participate in the annual fleet exercises. This trip went to South America, and included stops in Rio de Janeiro and São Francisco do Sul in Brazil, and Havana, where she rendezvoused with the training cruiser Charlotte. On 1 March 1898, Gneisenau left Havana to return to Germany, stopping in Key West and Horta on the way back. Heavy storms in the North Sea forced her to put into Den Helder in the Netherlands on 27 March. She reached Kiel three days later, where she was decommissioned on 18 April for another overhaul.^[13]

She remained out of service for the next year, before being recommissioned on 9 April 1899, thereafter embarking on a training cruise to Bergen on 5 July. On 24 July, she began another training voyage that went first to Iceland and then Queenstown, Ireland before continuing on to the Mediterranean. Foreign ports that were visited included Jaffa from 16 to 20 December and Beirut from 20 December to 2 January 1900. She began the journey back to Germany on 5 January, departing Port Said and sailing to La Spezia, Italy, where she was visited by Kaiserin Friedrich and her daughter Princess Viktoria. Gneisenau arrived in Kiel on 23 March, and after minor repairs began a training cruise in the Baltic on 26 May. Another short visit to Bergen followed on 10 September.^[13]

Loss

Gneisenau wrecked alongside the mole in Málaga

On 18 September, she left Kiel once again for another overseas cruise, stopping in Dartmouth on the way through the English Channel. She toured ports in Spain, Portugal, and Morocco, stopping in Málaga on 13 November, where she remained for nearly a month. On 10 December, she left the port to begin shooting exercises; she moored off the mole, some 800 to 900 m (2,600 to 3,000 ft) from shore, where the exercises were held. At around 10:30 on 16 December, the weather off Málaga worsened considerably, with force 8 winds. The ship's commander, KzS Kretschmann, ordered the crew to raise steam in the boilers so the ship could be moved into the safety of the harbor, and thirty minutes later a miscommunication between the engine room personnel and the captain led to Kretschmann ordering the anchors raised so the ship could get underway. The commander believed the engine room had reported 50 revolutions per minute (rpm) on the propeller shaft, but the actual figure was 15 rpm, not sufficient to propel the ship. As a result, the now-unmoored ship drifted helplessly in the heavy winds.^[14]

The crew attempted to drop the starboard anchor, but it did not catch in the stony ground. Gneisenau was driven into the mole repeatedly, striking it with her stern twice before being turned and pushed bow-first on the starboard side, forcing her aground. A merchant ship attempted to come to the crew's aid, but they were unable to connect a line between the two ships before Gneisenau began to list 35 degrees. A boat from shore also attempted to rescue the crew, but it too was forced ashore in the heavy seas. Wave action quickly smashed Gneisenau's hull against the mole, and part of her crew attempted to find safety by climbing the rigging. The ship rolled over onto her side, and the surviving crewmen reached shore with a line. Forty-one men were killed in the accident, including Kretschmann and the ship's first officer. Charlotte and the British ironclad HMS Devastation were sent to aid the wounded. Those killed in the sinking were buried in Málaga's cemetery, and the survivors returned to Germany aboard the HAPAG steamship SS Andalusia on 2 January 1901.^[14]

The equipment director from the Kaiserliche Werft of Wilhelmshaven, KK Otto Mandt, surveyed the wreck to determine if it could be salvaged, but he determined that it was too badly damaged. Instead, the guns and other valuable equipment were removed and the wreck was blown up to test the strength of the hull's construction. The remains of the ship were then sold for scrap, to be broken up in situ.^[14]