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Imperial German Navy

1871–1919 maritime warfare branch of the German Empire's military

22 dated entries naming Imperial German Navy, drawn from 12 separate years between 1878 CE and 1918 CE. Nothing here is written by us: each line is the sentence a Wikipedia year article used, and the link beside it opens the exact revision.

Also written as German Imperial Navy, Kaiserliche Marine in the source articles; Wikipedia redirects those to the same subject, so their entries are on this page.

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19th century

  • 187831 May – the Imperial German Navy ironclad turret ship SMS Grosser Kurfürst is accidentally rammed and sunk by SMS König Wilhelm on manoeuvres off Folkestone with the loss of more than 275 crew (an event witnessed by Arthur Sullivan).source
  • 189830 April – The German Fleet Association is founded in Berlin to arouse popular understanding and interest in the Imperial Navy. The government favors the construction of battleships in the Reichsmarineamt under Alfred von Tirpitz.source
  • 189914 March – Kaiser Wilhelm II takes direct command of the Imperial Navy.source
  • 1900June 14 – The Reichstag approves the second of the German Naval Laws allowing expansion of the Imperial German Navy.source

20th century

  • 1904April - The German Imperial Navy introduces SOS as a distress signal.source
  • 1906August 4 – The first Imperial German Navy submarine, U-1, is launched.source
  • 1913September 9 – Helgoland Island air disaster: The first fatalities aboard a German airship occur, when the Imperial German Navy Zeppelin dirigible LZ 14 is forced down into the North Sea off Heligoland during a thunderstorm, killing 16 of the 22 men on board.source
  • 1914August 7 – The United Kingdom (Japan's ally since 1902) officially asked Japan for assistance in destroying the raiders from the Imperial German Navy in and around Chinese waters.source
  • 1914December 8 – World War I: Battle of the Falkland Islands: A superior British Royal Navy squadron under Doveton Sturdee defeats ships of the Imperial German Navy under Maximilian von Spee (who goes down with his ship).source
  • 1914December 16 – World War I: Raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby: Imperial German Navy battlecruisers bombard British North Sea ports, resulting in 137 deaths, mostly civilians.source
  • 1915January 1 – WWI: British Royal Navy battleship HMS Formidable is sunk off Lyme Regis, England, by an Imperial German Navy U-boat, with the loss of 547 crew.source
  • 1915January 24 – WWI: Battle of Dogger Bank – The British Grand Fleet defeats the German High Seas Fleet, sinking the armoured cruiser SMS Blücher.source
  • 1915March 11 – WWI: British armed merchantman HMS Bayano is sunk in the North Channel off the coast of Scotland by Imperial German Navy U-boat SM U-27. Around 200 crew are lost, a number of bodies being washed up on the Isle of Man, with only 26 saved.source
  • 1915Sinking of the RMS Lusitania: RMS Titanic's main rival, the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania, is sunk by Imperial German Navy U-boat U-20 off the south-west coast of Ireland, killing 1,199 civilians en route from New York City to Liverpool. The best-known of the celebrities on board is American sportsman Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt.source
  • 19157 May – Sinking of the Lusitania: British ocean liner RMS Lusitania was sunk by Imperial German Navy U-boat U-20 about 11 mi off Old Head of Kinsale, County Cork, killing 1,198 civilians en route from New York to Liverpool, among them the Irish-born art dealer and benefactor Sir Hugh Lane and Irish composer and conductor Thomas O'Brien Butler.source
  • 1915October 23 – WWI: The torpedoing of armored cruiser SMS Prinz Adalbert results in only 3 men being rescued from a crew of 675, the greatest single loss of life for the Imperial German Navy in the Baltic Sea during the war.source
  • 1916May 31–June 1 – WWI: Battle of Jutland, between the British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet and the Imperial German Navy's High Seas Fleet in the North Sea, the war's only large-scale clash of battleships. The result is tactically inconclusive, but British dominance of the North Sea is maintainedsource
  • 19171 May – Imperial German Navy Zeppelins L 43 and L 45 conduct reconnaissance patrols over the North Sea off the coast of Scotland, above the Firth of Forth and Aberdeen, respectively.source
  • 19181 March – Imperial German Navy U-boat SM U-19 sank HMS Calgarian off Rathlin Island.source
  • 19181 March – armed merchant cruiser HMS Calgarian is torpedoed and sunk off Rathlin Island, Ireland, by Imperial German Navy U-boat SM U-19 with the loss of 49 lives.source
  • 191815 May – World War I: Imperial German Navy submarine SM U-90 shells the Royal Navy wireless station on Hirta in St Kilda.source
  • 1918July 17 – WWI: RMS Carpathia (famed for rescuing survivors of the RMS Titanic) is torpedoed and sunk off the east coast of Ireland, by Imperial German Navy submarine U-55; 218 of the 223 on board are rescued.source

Named in the same entries