SMS Panther

Design

Panther was 66.9 meters (219 ft) long overall and had a beam of 9.7 m (32 ft) and a draft of 3.54 m (11.6 ft) forward. She displaced 1,193 metric tons (1,174 long tons; 1,315 short tons) at full load. Her propulsion system consisted of a pair of vertical triple-expansion steam engines each driving a single screw propeller, with steam supplied by four coal-fired Thornycroft boilers. Panther could steam at a top speed of 13.7 knots (25.4 km/h; 15.8 mph) at 1,344 indicated horsepower (1,002 kW). The ship had a cruising radius of about 3,400 nautical miles (6,300 km; 3,900 mi) at a speed of 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph). She had a crew of between 9 officers and 121 enlisted men. Panther was armed with a main battery of two 10.5 cm (4.1 in) SK L/40 guns, with 482 rounds of ammunition. She also carried six machine guns.

Service history

Panther was laid down at the Kaiserliche Werft (Imperial Shipyard) in Danzig in 1900. She was launched on 1 April 1901 and was commissioned into the German fleet on 15 March 1902.

In September 1902, after the Haitian rebel ship Crête-à-Pierrot hijacked the German steamer Markomannia and seized weapons destined for the Haitian government, Germany sent the Panther to Haiti. The Panther found the rebel ship. The rebel Admiral Killick evacuated his crew and blew up the Crête-à-Pierrot, which was by then under fire from the Panther. There were concerns about how the United States would view the action in the context of the Monroe Doctrine. But despite legal advice describing the sinking as "illegal and excessive", the US State Department endorsed the action. The New York Times declared that "Germany was quite within its rights in doing a little housecleaning on her own account".

Some months later the Panther participated in the German naval contingent during the Venezuela Crisis of 1902-1903 and bombarded the settlement of Fort San Carlos, near Maracaibo. The shallow waters that connected lake Maracaibo with the sea were passable for major ships only in the strait that separated San Carlos from the island of Zapara, yet even there it needed the help of a local pilot to avoid the sand banks and shallow waters of the passage. The battle started when the fort's gunners opened fire as the Panther was crossing the bar. The Panther returned fire, but the shallow waters limited its effectiveness. Inside the fort, two gunners (Manuel Quevedo and Carlos José Cárdenas) managed to score several hits on the Panther with their 80-millimeter Krupp gun, causing considerable damage. After half an hour of exchanging fire, the Germans retreated.

In 1905, the Panther was deployed to the Brazilian Port of Itajahy, where its crew conducted an unauthorized search, capturing a German deserter on Brazilian soil. This incident became known as the "Panther Affair" ("Caso Panther").

The ship was scrapped in 1931.

Agadir Crisis

The Panther became notorious in 1911 when it was deployed to the Moroccan port of Agadir during the "Agadir Crisis" (also called the "Second Moroccan Crisis"). The Panther was supposedly sent to protect German citizens in the port. (A German sales representative, Hermann Wilberg, had been sent to Agadir on behalf of the Foreign office, but only arrived three days after the Panther.) The ship's actual mission was to apply pressure on the French, as the latter attempted to colonize Morocco, to extract territorial compensation in French Equatorial Africa. This was an example of "gunboat diplomacy". The incident contributed to the international tensions that would lead to the First World War.