.jpg) Illustration of Augusta in 1864
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Builders | Arman Brothers, Bordeaux |
| Preceded by | Nymphe-class corvette |
| Succeeded by | Ariadne-class corvette |
| Built | 1863–1864 |
| In commission | 1864–1891 |
| Completed | 2 |
| Lost | 1 |
| Scrapped | 1 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Screw 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 | 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 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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The Augusta class of screw corvettes were a pair of vessels acquired by the Prussian Navy in the 1860s. The class comprised two ships, Augusta and Victoria. The ships were originally secretly ordered by the Confederate States Navy in 1863 from Arman Brothers shipyard in Bordeaux, France, purportedly for the Japanese fleet. The ships, intended to be named Mississippi and Louisiana, were given the cover names Yeddo and Osaka in an attempt to hide their destination, but their delivery was blocked by the French Emperor Napoleon III in 1864. Both ships were sold to the Prussian Navy in May 1864, as the Prussians had been in search of vessels to strengthen their fleet before and during the Second Schleswig War against Denmark, though they entered service too late to see action in the conflict. The ships were intended to be used as blockade runners, but once they entered service they were too slow to be used in that capacity.
Augusta and Victoria spent most of their careers abroad. They saw no action during the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, and thereafter began a series of deployments overseas. Augusta caused a minor diplomatic incident with Costa Rica and the United States in 1868 over an attempt to secure a naval base in the Caribbean Sea, and Victoria joined her there later in the year. During the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, Augusta was used as a commerce raider and had some success off the French Atlantic coast, but Victoria did not see action during the war. Both ships went on deployments abroad in the mid and late 1870s, with destinations including the Caribbean, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Pacific Ocean.
By the early 1880s, the ships were withdrawn from front line service. Victoria was decommissioned in 1882 and slated to become a training ship, but the German navy decided that she could not adequately perform the task, so she was instead used as a fishery protection ship very intermittently through the rest of the 1880s. In 1885, Augusta was sent to carry a set of replacement crews for ships that were deployed to the South Pacific, but she sank in a cyclone in the Gulf of Aden with the loss of all aboard. Victoria continued in service until 1890; she was stricken from the naval register in 1891 and sold to ship breakers in 1892.