The Imperial Navy - SMS Charlotte
The SMS Charlotte was a cruiser frigate and was built at the Imperial shipyard in Wilhelmshaven. The launch took place on 05.09.1885. The ship was commissioned on 01.11.1886.
It was a full-rigged ship, i.e. a large sailing ship with at least three masts, all fully square-rigged. The SMS Charlotte had 3 masts and a sail area of 2,360 m².
The ship was 77 m long, 15 m wide and had a draft of 6.90 m. It displaced approx. 3,500 t.
The armament of the SMS Charlotte initially consisted of eighteen 15-cm ring guns. In addition, there were two 8.8-cm L/30 quick-firing guns and six 3.7-cm revolving guns. Later, the aforementioned ring guns were replaced by two 10.5-cm L/35 and fourteen 8.8-cm L/30 quick-firing guns and the number of revolving guns was reduced to four.
The crew numbered 495 to 506 men. The ship was designated as a training ship from the outset. In this role the SMS Charlotte carried out numerous training cruises, e.g. to the Baltic Sea and Norwegian waters or to the Mediterranean. The major training voyages also took the ship overseas, to South and North America or to the Caribbean (Haiti).
In the year 1900 (from 19.09.), for example, a longer training cruise initially went to the Mediterranean. There the ports of Alexandria and Corfu were visited. Subsequently the SMS Charlotte assisted with the salvage of the sunken SMS Gneisenau until January 1901. The Gneisenau had sunk on 16.12.1900 during a severe storm off the harbour of Málaga on the Mediterranean coast of Spain. Forty-one crew members lost their lives.
After completion of the salvage work, the SMS Charlotte visited Italian ports and returned to her home port of Kiel on 09.03.1901.
On 31.03.1909 the SMS Charlotte was decommissioned as the Imperial Navy’s last sailing training ship and was stricken from the list of warships on 26.05.1909. Subsequently the ship served as an accommodation ship and hulk and was moored in Flensburg-Mürwik.
The SMS Charlotte was then reactivated during the First World War as a depot ship and, after the end of the war, was sold in 1921 and used as a storage ship.
Selected photos from a photo album from the year 1900. Such photo albums repeatedly turn up in antiquarian bookshops or on auction platforms. The photos were sometimes taken by the military chaplain on board or another member of the regular crew. For certain voyages, given the more professional photographs, the presence of an official ship photographer cannot be ruled out.
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