Coast Defense Ship

Siegfried

A.G. Wesser
Bremen, Germany

N/A

N/A

November 8, 1890

January 1890

April 1, 1892

1921 sold to Norddeutsche Tiefbaugesellschaft and scrapped in Danzig.

Beowulf was laid down in 1890 at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen. She was launched on 8 November 1890, and completed on 1 April 1892. Among the crew that commissioned the ship was the officer Franz von Hipper, who would go on to command the German battle fleet during World War I. Directly after her commissioning, she joined the I Division of the fleet for its annual training exercises, along with the three ironclads Baden, Bayern, and Württemberg. Beowulf remained on active service through the winter of 1892-1893, when she and her sister ship Siegfried joined the elderly ironclads König Wilhelm and Deutschland for a winter training cruise in the Mediterranean Sea.

In 1893, Beowulf again participated in the annual fleet maneuvers, this time alongside her recently-commissioned sister Frithjof and several old ironclads. On the first set of maneuvers, Beowulf and the other capital ships performed as the hostile French fleet, which was "attacked" by torpedo boats in the North Sea. The second set of maneuvers took place in the Baltic Sea, and Beowulf and the ironclads again simulated a French fleet. In 1897, Beowulf again participated in the annual summer maneuvers in the III Division, along with Siegfried and Hildebrand. Her other three sisters were assigned to the IV Division. Following her service in the 1899 summer maneuvers, Beowulf was placed in reserve, as the flagship of the reserve squadron in the North Sea.

Beowulf served on active duty with the fleet until 1900, when she was taken into drydock at the Kaiserliche Werft shipyard in Danzig for an extensive reconstruction. The ship was lengthened to 86.13 m (282.6 ft), which increased displacement to 4,320 tons (4,250 long tons; 4,760 short tons). Her old boilers were replaced with eight new Marine type boilers, and a second funnel was added. Her secondary battery was increased to ten 8.8 cm guns, and the 35 cm torpedo tubes were replaced with three 45 cm (18 in) tubes. Work was completed by 1902. She then returned to service with the fleet, and in 1903, was assigned to the II Division, along with three of her sister ships.

She remained in the fleet until the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, when she was mobilized into the VI Battle Squadron for coastal defense, along with her sister ships. In May 1915, Beowulf participated in a combined naval and ground assault on the port of Libau in the Baltic. The attack took place on 7 May, and consisted of Beowulf, the armored cruisers Prinz Adalbert, Roon, and Prinz Heinrich, and the light cruisers Augsburg, Thetis, and Lübeck. They were escorted by a number of destroyers, torpedo boats, and minesweepers. The IV Scouting Group of the High Seas Fleet was detached from the North Sea to provide cover for the operation. The bombardment went as planned, though the destroyer V-107 struck a mine in Libau's harbor, which blew off her bow and destroyed the ship. German ground forces were successful in their assault however, and took the city. On 31 August 1915, the VI Battle Squadron was demobilized, and Beowulf's crew was transferred to other warships. She was then used as a target ship for U-boats. Starting in 1918, she was used as an icebreaker in the Baltic Sea. On 17 June 1919, she was stricken from the naval register. She was sold to Norddeutsche Tiefbaugesellschaft in Berlin. Beowulf was broken up for scrap in 1921 in Danzig.

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