East Asia Squadron
The German East Asia Squadron (German: Kreuzergeschwader / Ostasiengeschwader) was an Imperial German Navy cruiser squadron which operated mainly in the Pacific Ocean between the mid-1890s until 1914, when it was destroyed at the Battle of the Falkland Islands. It was based at Germany's Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory in China.
Background[edit]
The Treaty of Peking of September 1861 between the Kingdom of Prussia and China allowed Prussian warships to operate in Chinese waters. As East Asia grew in economic and political importance to the recently united Germany, in 1881 a flying squadron was formed for the area under the command of a flag officer.[1] Since African colonies were then seen as of greater value, an African Cruiser Squadron was established in 1885 with permanent status, and shortly thereafter the Imperial German Navy reduced the East Asia presence to two small gunboats.
From 1888 to 1892, Leipzig was flagship of the German East Asia Squadron, initially under Vice Admiral Karl August Deinhardt, appointed July 14 when the ship was in Aden and took command of the ship at Zanzibar on August 2, and of the squadron August 31 at Manda-Bay (Kenya). The planned voyage to the South Sea was cancelled with the first signs of troubles in East Africa. As such she took part in the suppression of the Abushiri Revolt in German East Africa. On 8 May 1889 a landing party from the ship also took part in the storming of the Buschiri lager near Bagamojo. Another landing party from the ship took part in the capture of Pangani on 8 July 1889. After the end of the uprising, the ship put into Cape Town for an overhaul (August/September). In early September Deinhardt received a telegram from Emperor Wilhelm II to report to his ship in the eastern Mediterranean.
The ship entered the Mediterranean on October 28 and joined the training squadron off the island of Mitilini on November 1. The emperor met Deinhardt on November 6, who was returning from Constantinople, honored the members of the East-African cruiser squadron with a special cabinet order. All the German vessels left for Italy and docked at Venice on November 12 to continue repairs interrupted at Cape Town. After December 15 they departed for Malta waters then headed to Port Said, where Christmas and New Years was spent.
Sailing solo, Leipzig set out for the Far East on January 27, 1890, with SMS Carola, SMS Schwalbe, and SMS Sperber returned to East Africa, traveling only with gunboats Iltis and Wolf. The squadron's new commander Rear Admiral Victor Valois assumed command on March 16. This was a routine period, including visits to Kotchin in India (March 20), traveled to Chinese and Japanese ports where Valois meet-up with his flagship at Nagasaki, From there they traveled to Hong Kong, and Manila to Singapore, where they meet up with SMS Sophie. They subsequently traveled in July through Indonesia, the Strait of Dampier, the Bismarck Archipelago, then to Newcastle, Sydney (September 15) and Jervis Bay in Australia. They were joined by SMS Alexandrine in Australia and after repairs to the Leipzig from damage that occurred in the Suez Canal, they traveled on to Samoa and New Zealand (November), and at the start of 1891 some visits to Hong Kong (February 14) and Chinese ports in March, running aground at Wusung-Road before its visit to Nanking.
In May 1891, at Jokohama, Valois was ordered to protect German interests in Chile against the Chilean Civil War. She ran out of coal on the way there and had to be towed for 97 hours. After stopping briefly in San Francisco, she traveled to Valparaiso arriving on July 9. They traveled on to Iquique and Coquimbo during July and August. As the war came to a head, they returned to Valparaiso on August 20 and Leipzig and the British corvette HMS Champion sent a joint landing party to Valparaíso to protect the British and German quarters of the city. At the end of the Civil War, Leipzig visited various South American ports and then Cape Town. In March 1892 she anchored in Delagoa Bay, from which the Cruiser Squadron's new commander Friedrich von Pawelsz led a delegation to Paul Kruger, the new president of the Boer Republic of Transvaal. The African Cruiser Squadron itself returned to Germany for deactivation at Kiel in 1893.[2]