 SMS Marie
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
 German Empire | |
| Name | Marie |
| Namesake | Princess Marie of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt |
| Builder | Reiherstieg AG, Hamburg |
| Laid down | 1880 |
| Launched | 20 August 1881 |
| Commissioned | 1 May 1883 |
| Decommissioned | 16 September 1895 |
| Stricken | 29 October 1904 |
| Fate | Sold, 1909 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Carola-class corvette |
| Displacement | Full load: 2,424 t (2,386 long tons) |
| Length | 76.35 m (250 ft 6 in) |
| Beam | 12.5 m (41 ft) |
| Draft | 4.98 m (16 ft 4 in) |
| Installed power |
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| Propulsion | |
| Speed | 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph) |
| Range | 3,420 nautical miles (6,330 km; 3,940 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Crew |
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| Armament |
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SMS Marie was a member of the Carola class of steam corvettes built for the German Kaiserliche Marine (Imperial Navy) in the 1880s. Intended for service in the German colonial empire, the ship was designed with a combination of steam and sail power for extended range, and was equipped with a battery of ten 15-centimeter (5.9 in) guns. Marie was laid down at the Reiherstieg AG shipyard of Hamburg in 1880, the first Imperial German warship built in the city. She was launched in August 1881. In May, 1883, she was completed and commissioned into the fleet. The namesake was Princess Marie of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, who married Frederick Francis II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in 1868.
Marie was sent abroad immediately after entering service, initially to South America, where she picked up the German participants of the first International Polar Year at South Georgia Island. After observing the aftermath of the War of the Pacific in late 1883 and early 1884, she was transferred to Deutsch-Neuguinea in the western Pacific Ocean; this deployment was cut short when she ran aground off Neu-Mecklenburg and was badly damaged, necessitating a return to Germany for extensive repairs.
The ship was reactivated for a second overseas tour in 1892. She was sent to Chile to protect German nationals in the aftermath of the Chilean Civil War of 1891, before joining two of her sister ships off Brazil in 1893 in response to the Revolta da Armada (Revolt of the Fleet) there. The three ships were then sent to East Asia in 1894, where they formed the nucleus of the East Asia Division, and were tasked with protecting German nationals in China during the First Sino-Japanese War. Marie was recalled to Germany in mid-1895 and stopped in Morocco on the way back to enforce a settlement over the murder of two German citizens. After reaching Germany in September 1895, she was decommissioned. Later assigned to the reserve training unit, she was never activated for the role. Instead, she was eventually stricken from the naval register in 1904 and sold for scrap three years later.