In the first two
decades of the new German Empire, after its proclamation in 1870, and before
Germany embarked on construction of the world's second-largest navy in the world,
German naval units were active in some very unexpected places. This was in support
of efforts to establish colonies overseas and to protect German commercial
interests in the Far East. In reading about this I stumbled on the story of the
small gunboat SMS Iltis (1880) which was
to have a very active career which included such a surprising event as a confrontation
between Germany and Spain that was only solved by Papal intervention.
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| SMS Iltis: memorial illustration from 1896 |
Commissioned in 1880, the Iltis was a typical small gunboat of a type common in many navies
of the time and suited to interventions in remote colonial areas. Of 560 tons
and 155 ft overall she had a single 142 hp engine that gave her a maximum speed
of eight knots. Considered to be a good sea boat, the Iltis carried a barquentine rig – a significant advantage when
operating far from coaling stations. To minimise drag when under sail her propeller
could be hoisted. She was more than adequately armed for what was expected of
her – two 125 mm and two 87mm breech-loaders, supplemented by two 37 mm revolvers
(essentially like overgrown hand guns). Her crew was 85.
The Iltis’s first assignment was to Germany’s
“East Asia Station” and she was to remain in eastern waters for almost five
years. As Germany had no naval base in the Far East the Iltis seems to have mainly operated out of the British possession of
Hong Kong.
Germany had come late to acquisition
of colonies but considered them essential as much for prestige reasons as for
economic purposes. With major portions of the globe already occupied by other colonial
powers, Germany found herself seeking opportunities in some unlikely places, not
least in New Guinea and in island groups in the Pacific. Small gunboats such as
the Iltis were important tools in this
process.
In the early 1880s German ambitions
focussed on creation of the colony of New Guinea. This consisted not only of the
northeastern part of the vast island of New Guinea but of the nearby islands of
the Bismarck Archipelago and the North Solomon Islands. No other nation body
protested the acquisition of these areas but the situation was different as
regards the Carolines, a widely scattered archipelago of tiny islands to the
north of New Guinea. The Carolines had been claimed by the Spanish in the 17th
Century and known as Las Nuevas Filipinas. Though in theory governed from Manila
in the Spanish colony of the Philippines there was no attempt to settle the
Carolines and missionary efforts had been resisted by the Micronesian inhabitants.
Spain formally reasserted her rights in 1875. A decade later Germany, now an ascendant
and growing power, decided to seize the islands – and this is when the Iltis played her part.
In early August 1885 the Iltis, then at Shanghai, was instructed
to proceed to the Carolines, hoist the German flag there, and present the
Spaniards, and the world, with a fait accompli. Putting in at Hong Kong to take
on coal, information was received that two Spanish ships were en route for the same
purpose. Speed was now of the essence and by hard driving the Iltis reached Yap, in the Western
Carolines, by the 25th of the month. Wasting no time, her captain, KptLt
Hofmeier, went ashore immediately, raised the black-white-red German flag and formally
claimed the islands. The Spanish had lost the race.
The scene was now set for an
international confrontation, one in which the weak Spanish Empire would certainly
come off badly if it came to war. Spain did not back down however and took a
step which might have seemed normal several centuries earlier, but which was
unexpected in the late nineteenth century – they appealed to the Pope.
This was a master-stroke. In the early
years of the new German Empire the anti-Catholic Kulturkampf (Culture War), a
series of restrictions on the role of the Church initiated by the chancellor, Otto
von Bismarck, had led to fraught relations with the papacy. Leo XIII, who had
succeeded to the papal throne in 1878, was however eager to end the struggle
and this was in Germany’s interest as well, given the large percentage of its
population that was Catholic.
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| Contemporary cartoon: Bismarck and Pope Leo XIII play out the Kulturkampf |
Submission
of the Carolines issue for arbitration was a gesture of reconciliation and when
Leo ruled in Spain’s favour Germany accepted the decision without protest and evacuated
the islands. She was however awarded face-saving trading and plantation rights.
The Spanish did indeed settle the islands from 1886 onwards but their tenure
was to be brief. In 1899, in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, and its
loss of the Philippines, Spain sold the islands to Germany. This tenure was
also to be brief – Japan was to occupy them at the start of WW1 and they were
to see bitter fighting in WW2. Today they are divided between the Federated
States of Micronesia in the east and Palau in the west.
The Iltis returned to Germany in 1886 for a complete refit. She sailed
back to the Far East the following year. For the next decade she was engaged in
an endless and busy round of trade protection and flag-showing assignments in
China, Korea and Japan. In 1891 she cooperated with French, British and
American gunboats on the Yangtse to protect western interests during widespread
unrest. Four years later, during the Sino-Japanese War, she was to rescue
Chinese survivors from a transport sunk off Korea by the Japanese. Thereafter
she steamed to Formosa – now Taiwan – where Chinese forces were resisting Japanese
invaders, unsuccessfully, once more to provide protection for German lives and
property. In the process the Iltis
was to fire her guns in what might have been the only time she did so in anger,
hitting a fortified Chinese position with three shells.
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| SMS Iltis on the reef - with her ensign still lying |
The Iltis’s days
were now numbered. On 23rd June 1896 she was caught in a typhoon off
the Chinese coast. Her engine strained at full power to keep her off the reefs
of a lee shore but the effort was unavailing and she struck around midnight. The engine room was immediately filled with
water and the boiler fire was extinguished, leaving the vessel wholly helpless.
She broke amidships into two parts, initially held together by rigging. Some in
the forward section managed to hold on – it remained lodged on the reef – but
all but two of those on the after part died when it tore free and capsized. The survivors, eleven out of eighty-eight on
board, were finally rescued by local villagers. The captain and all the
officers died.
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| Iltis Memorial - Shanghai |
The loss of the Iltis
caused considerable shock in Germany, the more so since the new Kaiser, Wilhelm
II, was volubly “naval minded” and the empire was now embarked on creation of a
large navy. Memorials to the crew were erected on the Bund in Shanghai (is it
still there?) and in Kiel in Germany. The Iltis
of 1880 had provided sterling service over hundreds of thousands of miles
steaming and sailing and had provided invaluable training for the officers and
men of the growing navy.
The name Iltis
was to be kept alive by a new – and much more sophisticated – gunboat launched
in 1898, which was also to see active service in the Far East, in the Boxer
Rising in 1900 and in the defence of Tsingtao in 1914. But that’s another
story!
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| SMS Iltis II - 1898 |
Britannia’s Amazon by Antoine Vanner
This latest novel runs in parallel in time with the action of the earlier Britannia’s Spartan, and concentrates on the adventures of Nicholas Dawlish’s wife Florence while she is at home in Britain while he and his cruiser are in Korean waters. Dedicated to the welfare of seaman’s families, and especially to those of her husband’s crew, Florence intends to spend the months of separation caring for them. But a chance encounter is to plunge her into the maelstrom of vice, cruelty and espionage that is the corrupt underside of complacent Late-Victorian society. And if Florence is to survive - and to save innocent victims- she must face evil head-on, deal with conflicts of loyalty and employ guile as her most powerful weapon.
This volume also includes the long short-story Britannia’s Eye, which casts a new light on Nicholas Dawlish’s relationship with his uncle, an invalided naval officer who made him his heir. But Nicholas was never to know - or even guess - the truth about what his uncle had really been…
