Kyler’s Kaiserliche Marine Blog
Post #5 – The Only German Dreadnought Visit to the USA
After a Baltic Sea visit from the US Navy’s Second Battleship Division in 1911, Kaiser Wilhelm made plans to send one of his newest battlecruisers to the USA for a reciprocating visit. The SMS Moltke was accompanied by the light cruiser SMS Stettin and met the light cruiser SMS Bremen at Hampton Roads on May 30th, 1912. The three ships would prepare themselves for visitors by cleaning & painting for two days.
On June 3rd, eight American battleships officially received the three German warships. The three vessels were reviewed by President Howard Taft & Naval Secretary Meyer from the Presidential yacht Mayflower. Over the next few days, officers & sailors would visit Fort Monroe, Washington DC, and the Naval Academy at Annapolis.
On Friday June 7th, four US battleships including the dreadnought USS South Carolina accompanied the SMS Moltke and the other ships to New York City. There the warships anchored on the Hudson over a distance of a mile. The group of ships would draw thousands of onlookers from the surrounding area. The German sailors would enjoy a few days in the city before departing for home.
While the Kaiser had hoped the visit of the German Squadron would quash the bad blood between the USN & HSF that had developed over the past thirty years, it in actuality only reinforced the worries on the American Continent. The US’s Monroe Doctrine forcibly made it known in Europe that the American Hemisphere was off-limits for further colonization. Germany had interest in the recent past of acquiring a coal port in the Caribbean near the Panama Canal. That past news still caused a lot of anxiety within the US Navy.
The Moltke had completed its journey in record time alarming many casual naval observers. Though US intelligence quickly found out the battlecruiser had to be stocked with coal in uncommon spaces including secondary gun casemates to make the journey so quickly. It was obvious to anyone SMS Moltke was a superior ship to the South Carolina and argued the rest of the US dreadnoughts. The German battlecruiser’s guns were comparable, her speed much faster, her range was enough to be threatening, and her armor was anyones best guess (their fears would prove true). Even after the visit, the USN would still consider Germany its primary threat in the Atlantic if not the world’s oceans.
Sources Photograph: Personal Collection
Sources Content: Cole, Merle. (2001). S.M.S. Moltke Visits America: International Tensions and the German Threat to the Western Hemisphere Before 1914. Coast Defense Journal. 15. 9-16.