SMS Arminius

Illustration of one of Arminius' 4 guns

She was built by the Samuda Brothers shipyard in London as a speculative project, possibly to sell to the Confederate Navy.[5] The ship was laid down in 1863 and was launched on 20 August 1864.[6] Prussia instead purchased the ship on 20 August 1864 for some 1,887,000 gold marks, paid in part through public donations, and commissioned her on 22 April 1865 as SMS Arminius. The Prussians had hoped to secure the vessel by the previous September,[4][5] but delivery was delayed by the British government over the Second Schleswig War between Prussia and Denmark. As the British were sympathetic to Denmark,[7] they prevented the ship from being delivered until after the war was concluded.[6] Arminius served as a harbor defense ship for six years, through 1871.[8] Along with the ironclad ram Prinz Adalbert, Arminius was the first armored warship acquired by the Prussian Navy.[9]

At the outbreak of the Austro-Prussian War in mid-1866, Arminius was mobilized along with Prinz Adalbert, the only other Prussian ironclad. The ships were initially based in Kiel, but in the opening days of the war, Arminius raced to Hamburg via the Skagerrak and the Kattegat, a distance of some 940 nautical miles (1,740 km; 1,080 mi), in 100 hours, an impressive feat for an early ironclad warship.[10] Without a naval threat from Austria, the Prussian navy therefore concentrated its effort against the Kingdom of Hanover. For the remainder of the conflict, Arminius operated out of Geestemünde, under the command of Reinhold Werner, and the mere appearance of Arminius caused several Hanoverian coastal batteries to surrender.[11] On 15 June, Arminius and a pair of gunboats, Tiger and Cyclop, covered the crossing of the Elbe river by General Edwin von Manteuffel and some 13,500 soldiers to attack the city of Hanover.[11][12] By the end of the month, the Prussian army had decisively defeated the Austrians at Königgrätz and ended the war.[11]

On 3 October 1866, the ship raced the US Navy's monitor USS Miantonomoh in Kiel; Arminius was two knots faster than the American vessel.[7] In November 1868, the ship was laid up for an overhaul that included replacing her original rig with a lighter rigging with pole masts. A weather deck, which extended from just astern of the forward turret to her stern, was also fitted and ventilators for the hull were extended up through the new deck.[13] In 1870, the ship had her sailing rig removed altogether,[14] as it had been determined that she could not be steered while under sail, and the masts blocked the firing arcs of the gun turrets.[4]

Arminius (left) with Prinz Adalbert (right)

At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, the Prussian Navy concentrated Arminius and the armored frigates Kronprinz, Friedrich Carl, and König Wilhelm in the North Sea naval base Wilhelmshaven.[15] Arminius was stationed in Kiel at the outbreak of war, but managed to break through the French blockade by hugging the Swedish coast, which her shallow draft permitted. Her passage through Swedish territorial waters also protected the ship from French attack.[16] 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.[15] 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. The three armored frigates thereafter suffered from chronic engine trouble, which left Arminius alone to conduct operations.[17]

Captain Otto Livonius commanded the ship during the war. In the course of the war, she sortied from the port over forty times; these also failed to result in major combat, though she occasionally traded shots with the blockading French warships.[18] For the majority of the war, Arminius was stationed in the mouth of the Elbe along with the ironclad ram Prinz Adalbert and three small gunboats. The three armored frigates remained off the island of Wangerooge.[19] On 11 September, the three frigates were again ready for action; they joined Arminius for another major operation, though it too did not encounter French opposition. The French Navy had by this time returned to France.[17]

After being removed from front-line service in 1872, she was used as a training vessel for naval engineers.[3] The ship was decommissioned in 1875 and placed in reserve.[8] Her ram bow allowed her to be used as an ice-breaker in Kiel in the 1880s. In 1882, she was used as a tender for the cadet training vessel Blücher. The ship was rebuilt in 1888; during the refit the propulsion system was overhauled and replaced with German-built equipment and two searchlights were installed. Four machine guns were installed, along with a 35 cm (14 in) torpedo tube. The ship was ultimately stricken from the naval register on 2 March 1901 and sold to shipbreakers for 72,000 gold marks. Arminius was broken up for scrap the following year.[3][20]

• Dodson, Aidan (2016). The Kaiser's Battlefleet: German Capital Ships 1871–1918. Barnsley: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84832-229-5.
• Gardiner, Robert, ed. (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. Greenwich: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 978-0-8317-0302-8.
• Greene, Jack & Massignani, Alessandro (1998). Ironclads at War: The Origin and Development of the Armored Warship, 1854–1891. Pennsylvania: Combined Publishing. ISBN 978-0-938289-58-6.
• Gröner, Erich (1990). German Warships: 1815–1945. Vol. I: Major Surface Vessels. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-790-6.
• Sondhaus, Lawrence (2001). Naval Warfare, 1815–1914. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-21478-0.
• Sondhaus, Lawrence (1997). Preparing for Weltpolitik: German Sea Power Before the Tirpitz Era. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-55750-745-7.
• Sullivan, David M. (1987). "Phantom Fleet: The Confederacy's Unclaimed European Warships". Warship International. Toledo, Ohio: Naval Records Club. 24 (1): 13–32.
• Wilson, Herbert Wrigley (1896). Ironclads in Action: A Sketch of Naval Warfare from 1855 to 1895. London: S. Low, Marston and company.