SMS Kaiser (1911) - Service History

Service History

After joining the active fleet in December 1912, Kaiser was stationed in Kiel. The ship then conducted individual training. In February 1913, Kaiser was transferred to Wilhelmshaven, along with her sister ship Friedrich der Grosse. She then took part in several training exercises with the rest of the High Seas Fleet. These included maneuvers in the North Sea in March and April, artillery drills in the Baltic at the end of the month, and further fleet maneuvers in May. In June, Kaiser took part in the Kiel Week regatta. Kaiser Wilhelm II and Italian King Victor Emmanuel III inspected the ship. The annual summer cruise to Norway was conducted in July and August, followed immediately by the autumn maneuvers in August and September. In September 1913, Captain Adolf von Trotha became the ship's commanding officer, a post he held until January 1916.

Kaiser was selected to participate in a long-distance cruise to test the reliability of the new turbine propulsion system. The ship was joined by her sister König Albert and the light cruiser Strassburg in a special "Detached Division". The trio departed Germany on 9 December 1913 and proceeded to the German colonies in western Africa. The ships visited Lomé in Togoland, Duala and Victoria in Kamerun, and Swakopmund in German South-West Africa. From Africa, the ships sailed to St. Helena and then on to Rio de Janeiro, arriving on 15 February 1914. Strassburg was detached to visit Buenos Aires, Argentina before returning to meet the two battleships in Montevideo, Uruguay. The three ships sailed south around Cape Horn and then north to Valparaiso, Chile, arriving on 2 April and remaining for over a week.

On 11 April, the ships departed Valparaiso for the long journey back to Germany. On the return trip, the ships visited several more ports, including Bahía Blanca, Argentina, before returning to Rio de Janeiro. On 16 May the ships left Rio de Janeiro for the Atlantic leg of the journey; they stopped in Cape Verde, Madeira, and Vigo, Spain while en route to Germany. Kaiser, König Albert, and Strassburg arrived in Kiel on 17 June 1914. In the course of the voyage, the ships traveled some 20,000 nautical miles (37,000 km; 23,000 mi). A week later, on 24 June, the Detached Division was dissolved and Kaiser returned to the III Squadron. Kaiser then participated in squadron exercises in July. Kaiser joined the High Seas Fleet for its annual summer cruise to Norway in July 1914, about two weeks after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo. As a result of rising international tensions, the cruise was cut short and the German fleet was back in Wilhelmshaven by 29 July. At midnight on 4 August, the United Kingdom declared war on Germany.