Prussian Navy - The 19th Century

The 19th Century

After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Prussia slowly began to build its own small fleet for coastal defense. Again, more value was placed on the development of a merchant fleet than on a navy. In this connection, the Prussian Maritime Enterprise played a significant role. Its ships were armed to protect against pirates and flew the Prussian war ensign. This protective fleet existed until around 1850.

One of the first to work for the development of a Prussian Navy was Prince Adalbert of Prussia. He had made a number of journeys abroad and recognized the value of a fleet to support commercial interests and to protect one’s own navigation. During the Revolutionary era of 1848–1852, at the behest of the Frankfurt National Assembly, the prince was given the responsibility of reestablishing an Imperial fleet (Reichsflotte) -- a mission which the revolutionary parliament had undertaken in the face of the war with Denmark.

The German Confederation possessed practically no fleet of its own, but relied upon the allied powers of Great Britain, the Netherlands, and Denmark. During the First War of Schleswig of 1848–1851, the failure of this strategy became clear because Great Britain and the Netherlands remained neutral and Denmark became the enemy. Within a few days, the Danish Navy halted all German maritime trade in the North and Baltic Seas. The Navy of Austria, Prussia’s ally, lay in the Mediterranean and was able to intervene only later in the war.

After the failure of the Revolutions of 1848, Adalbert was able to resume his plans for the establishment of a Prussian Navy. He began with the construction of warships and naval education and training. From the middle of the 1850s, one could find Prussian corvettes and frigates upon all the world’s seas.

Besides Prince Adalbert, other important figures of this early period were Prussian naval officers Karl Rudolf Brommy and Ludwig von Henk, who eventually became an admiral in the Imperial German Navy.

At the same time, the first naval base was established on the North Sea. In the Jade Treaty (Jade-Vertrag) of 1853, the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg ceded to Prussia the so-called Jade District. Here, in the following years, arose the great naval port which received the name Wilhelmshaven in 1869.

By this time, the Prussian Navy had already ceased to exist. After the Austro-Prussian War (the "German War") of 1866, the North German states had allied under Prussian leadership as the North German Confederation. Out of the Prussian Navy grew the Navy of the North German Confederation (Norddeutsche Bundesmarine), which after the Franco-Prussian War changed its name again to became the Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) of the new German Empire.