 Victoria in 1880
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| History | |
|---|---|
.svg){kind=small} Prussia | |
| Name | Victoria |
| Namesake | Victoria |
| Builder | Arman Brothers, Bordeaux |
| Laid down | 1863 |
| Launched | 1864 |
| Acquired | 13 May 1864 |
| Stricken | 14 April 1891 |
| Fate | Broken up, 1892 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Augusta-class corvette |
| Displacement | Full load: 2,272 metric tons (2,236 long tons) |
| Length | 81.5 meters (267 ft 5 in) (loa) |
| Beam | 11.1 m (36 ft 5 in) |
| Draft | 5.03 m (16 ft 6 in) |
| Installed power |
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| Propulsion |
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| Sail plan | Full ship rig |
| Speed | 13.5 knots (25.0 km/h; 15.5 mph) |
| Range | 2,500 nautical miles (4,600 km; 2,900 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) |
| Crew |
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| Armament |
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SMS Victoria was the second and final member of the Augusta class of steam corvettes built for the Prussian Navy in the 1860s. She had one sister ship, Augusta; the ships were armed with a battery of fourteen guns. Victoria was laid down in 1863 at the Arman Brothers shipyard in Bordeaux, France, and was launched in early 1864. Originally ordered by the Confederate States Navy, her delivery was blocked by the French Emperor Napoleon III, and she was instead sold to the Prussian Navy in May 1864. The Prussians had been in search of vessels to strengthen their fleet before and during the Second Schleswig War against Denmark, but Victoria arrived too late to see action in the conflict.
Victoria spent almost her entire active career abroad. After briefly serving in home waters in the mid-1860s, the ship went on three extended overseas deployments, all to the West Indies station. The first lasted from 1868 to 1869, and saw the ship protect German economic interests in Cuba and Haiti. Victoria remained largely out of service in the early 1870s, seeing no action during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. In 1875, she was reactivated for another deployment to the West Indies; this voyage was interrupted by a transfer to the Mediterranean Sea in 1877 during the Russo-Turkish War, which the German government considered might result in riots against Europeans in the Ottoman Empire. The ship returned to Germany in 1879 and began her third voyage abroad the following year.
Assigned to the West Indies station for a third time, Victoria spent most of her time abroad elsewhere, taking part in an international naval demonstration in the Adriatic Sea in late 1880 and retaliating for an attack on a German merchant vessel in Liberia in 1881. Her time in the West Indies station was confined to a tour of South American ports in mid-1881. She returned to Germany in 1882 and was slated to become a training ship the following year, but the navy decided her crew spaces were too small, and so used another vessel instead. Victoria served intermittently as a fishery protection vessel between 1884 and 1890, before being stricken from the naval register in April 1891 and sold the following year.