SMS Panther
Encyclopedia
SMS Panther was one of six gunboat
Gunboat
A gunboat is a naval watercraft designed for the express purpose of carrying one or more guns to bombard coastal targets, as opposed to those military craft designed for naval warfare, or for ferrying troops or supplies.-History:...
s of the Iltis-class of the Kaiserliche Marine
Kaiserliche Marine
The Imperial German Navy was the German Navy created at the time of the formation of the German Empire. It existed between 1871 and 1919, growing out of the small Prussian Navy and Norddeutsche Bundesmarine, which primarily had the mission of coastal defense. Kaiser Wilhelm II greatly expanded...
and, like her sister ships, served in Germany's overseas colonies. The ship was launched on 1 April 1901 in the Kaiserliche Werft
Kaiserliche Werft
Kaiserliche Werften were government-owned shipyards which were responsible for the construction and repair of warships of the Prussian Navy from 1871 to 1920.There were three Kaiserliche Werften:* Kaiserliche Werft Danzig* Kaiserliche Werft Kiel...
, Danzig. She had a crew of 9 officers and 121 men.
Service history
In September 1902, after the HaitiHaiti
Haiti , officially the Republic of Haiti , is a Caribbean country. It occupies the western, smaller portion of the island of Hispaniola, in the Greater Antillean archipelago, which it shares with the Dominican Republic. Ayiti was the indigenous Taíno or Amerindian name for the island...
an rebel ship Crête-à-Pierrot hijacked a German ship and seized weapons destined for the Haitian government, Germany sent the Panther to Haiti. The Panther found the ship and declared that it would sink it, after which the rebel Admiral Killick, after evacuating the crew, blew up his ship, assisted by fire from the Panther. There were concerns about how the United States would view the action in the context of the Monroe Doctrine
Monroe Doctrine
The Monroe Doctrine is a policy of the United States introduced on December 2, 1823. It stated that further efforts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with states in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression requiring U.S. intervention...
, but despite US State Department legal advice describing the sinking as "illegal and excessive", the State Department endorsed the action, and the New York Times declared that "Germany was quite within her rights in doing a little housecleaning on her own account". Some months later the Panther participated in the German naval contingent of the Venezuela Crisis of 1902-1903 and ended up bombarding the settlement of Fort San Carlos, near Maracaibo
Maracaibo
Maracaibo is a city and municipality located in northwestern Venezuela off the western coast of the Lake Maracaibo. It is the second-largest city in the country after the national capital Caracas and the capital of Zulia state...
.
In 1905, the Panther was deployed to the Brazilian Port of Itajahy
Itajaí
Itajaí is a Brazilian city in the state of Santa Catarina.-History:The city was founded on June 15, 1860, but the colonization of Itajaí started in 1658, when the Paulista João Dias D’Arzão arrived in the region. In 1750, Portuguese colonists coming from Madeira and the Azores made this region...
, where her crew conducted an unauthorized search and the kidnapping of a German dissident on Brazilian soil. This incident became known as the "Panther Affair" ("Caso Panther").
The Panther became notorious in 1911 when she was deployed to the Moroccan port of Agadir
Agadir
Agadir is a major city in southwest Morocco, capital of the Agadir province and the Sous-Massa-Draa economic region .-Etymology:...
during the "Agadir Crisis
Agadir Crisis
The Agadir Crisis, also called the Second Moroccan Crisis, or the Panthersprung, was the international tension sparked by the deployment of the German gunboat Panther, to the Moroccan port of Agadir on July 1, 1911.-Background:...
" (also called the "Second Moroccan Crisis"). Germany
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
did this because they wanted to reinforce their demand of the French for regions of French Equatorial Africa
French Equatorial Africa
French Equatorial Africa or the AEF was the federation of French colonial possessions in Middle Africa, extending northwards from the Congo River to the Sahara Desert.-History:...
. This led to the term "gunboat diplomacy
Gunboat diplomacy
In international politics, gunboat diplomacy refers to the pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of military power — implying or constituting a direct threat of warfare, should terms not be agreeable to the superior force....
" which was used especially by the British. It involves, originally the deployment of a gunboat but now refers to any armed service, to a region to reinforce a request or demand made diplomatically. It can be said that this boat helped to increase the tension leading up to the First World War. The Panther was supposedly sent to protect German citizens in the port but actually piled pressure onto the French concerning their attempted colonization of Morocco.
The ship was scrapped in 1931.