Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant documents that answer the question.
Query: Did the SMS Gneisenau sink?
The crew attempted to drop the starboard anchor, but it did not catch in the stony ground. "Gneisenau" was driven into the mole repeatedly, striking it with her stern twice before being turned and pushed bow-first on the starboard side, forcing her aground. A merchant ship attempted to come to the crew's aid, but they were unable to connect a line between the two ships before "Gneisenau" began to list 35 degrees. A boat from shore also attempted to rescue the crew, but it too was forced ashore in the heavy seas. Wave action quickly smashed "Gneisenau"s hull against the mole, and part of her crew attempted to find safety by climbing the rigging. The ship rolled over onto her side, and the surviving crewmen reached shore with a line. Forty-one men were killed in the accident, including Kretschmann and the ship's first officer. "Charlotte" and the British ironclad were sent to aid the wounded. Those killed in the sinking were buried in Málaga's cemetery, and the survivors returned to Germany aboard the HAPAG steamship on 2 January 1901.
Point Judith is the site of the last sinking of an Allied ship in the Atlantic Ocean during World War II. On May 5, 1945, at 05:40, the torpedoed the collier, , en route to Boston, She was within sight of the United States Coast Guard lighthouse station at Point Judith. The lookout at the lighthouse was just preparing to enter the sighting in his logbook when he heard the sound of the torpedo exploding as it hit the ship. "Black Point" sank within twenty-five minutes. Twelve lives were lost among her crew, while thirty-four survivors were rescued. The resulting United States Navy and Coast Guard hunt for the U-853 is now often referred to as the Battle of Point Judith. A United States Navy frigate, destroyers, destroyer escorts, and Coast Guard cutters converged on the waters off Point Judith. Attacks with depth charges and hedgehogs continued until the U-853's destruction was confirmed the next morning by two blimps which dropped a few bombs on the Germans. U-853 may have been the last U-boat to sink a ship during World War II, but she also became the second to last one to be sunk. Her wreck lies in 135 feet of water and is a popular, but dangerous destination for sport divers; at least three divers have been killed there. "U-853" is recognized as a war grave with most of the 55 crew bodies remaining inside.
The first modern cruise, which defined the journey not just as transport but as the actual reward, commenced on 22 January 1891, when the SS "Auguste Victoria" (named after the German empress) set sail to cruise the Mediterranean for six weeks. The competitors initially sniggered at Ballin, who organized and supervised the voyage personally, but the project was a huge success. In order to accommodate the growing demand, another three of the SS "Auguste Victoria"'s sister ships operated as cruise liners, and in 1899, the Hamburg-America Line commissioned Blohm & Voss to construct the first purpose-built cruise ship, the "Prinzessin Victoria Luise". It was the very first cruise ship, one exclusively tailored for the needs of well-to-do passengers.
Royal Louis was a First Rank ship of the line of the French Royal Navy, but was never completed. Launch was scheduled to be in 1743, but on 25 December 1742 she was set alight while still on the stocks, and burnt. It was claimed that this was an act of sabotage by a Señor Pontleau, who was tried and executed for the offence.
The Germans used mustard gas for the first time, supported by a mass of heavy artillery, which captured part of the bridgehead over the Yser and annihilated two British battalions. After several postponements, Operation Hush was cancelled on 14 October 1917, as the advance during the Third Battle of Ypres did not meet the objectives required to begin the attack. In April 1918, the Dover Patrol raided Zeebrugge, to sink block ships in the canal entrance to trap U-Boats, which closed the canal for a short time. From September–October 1918, the Belgian coast was occupied by the Allies, in the Fifth Battle of Ypres.
The Second World War first reached Nauru in early December 1940 when two German armed merchantmen disguised as civilian freighters targeted the island. Their aim was to disrupt production of phosphate and thereby weaken the agriculture-based economies of Australia and New Zealand. , , and their supply ship "Kulmerland" headed for Nauru with the purpose of destroying the main infrastructure. Due to bad weather conditions, they were unable to make a landing on the island, but sank several merchantmen in the area. On 27 December, "Komet" returned to Nauru, and though again unable to land a shore party, severely damaged the mining facilities and exposed loading jetties with gunfire. The island's chief administrator, Frederick Royden Chalmers, a former lieutenant-colonel in the Australian Army who had served in the Boer War and First World War, reportedly stormed along the waterfront hurling verbal abuse at the German ship, which slipped away unharmed.
When "Titanic" sank in 1912 and "Britannic" sank in 1916, their sinkings did not receive the same attention, due to the death toll (1,517 on "Titanic" and 30 on "Britannic"). Because the exact position of the sinking of the "Britannic" is known and the location is shallow, the wreck was discovered relatively easily in 1975. "Titanic", however, drew everyone's attention in 1912. After several attempts, the wreck was finally located by Jean-Louis Michel of Ifremer and Robert Ballard following a top secret mission for the US Navy to investigate the wreckage of two nuclear submarines, USS Thresher (SSN-593) and the USS Scorpion (SSN-589), that sank in the North Atlantic in the 1960s. The discovery of the wreck occurred on 1 September 1985, at 25 kilometres from the position given of the sinking. The wreck lies about 4,000 metres deep, broken in two. The bow is relatively well preserved, but the stern partially imploded, and to a large extent disintegrated during the descent and impact on the seabed.
As war threatened to engulf Europe once more, the duke (by now an implacable enemy of the Nazis) reformed the group to undertake a mission Codeword – Golden Fleece in Poland and Romania. They succeeded in disrupting secret negotiations over Poland’s surrender to the Germans in September 1939, which were taking place on Baron Lubieszów’s estate (near Pinsk, and now to be found in Lyubeshiv Raion, Ukraine), between ‘General Mack’, the false name adopted by one of Poland’s “most famous statesmen”, and General Count von Geisenheim and a senior Nazi, Major Bauer. Trapped between the advancing German and Soviet armies, De Richleau and his friends escaped to Romania, where they sought to cut supplies of oil transported by barge up the Danube to Germany. A botched kidnap attempt on von Geisenheim and the German commercial attaché in Bucharest on 23 September 1939 left the two Germans injured and their driver dead. A subsequent gun battle with members of the pro-Nazi Romanian Iron Guard resulted in the death of a policeman and an Iron Guard militiaman. The duke was shot several times and only narrowly survived. The friends reached Istanbul safely and provided the British government with an option to buy the oil barges and prevent supplies from reaching the Germans.
By 1920, the Imperial Japanese Navy was the world's third largest navy and a leader in naval development:Japan entered World War I on the side of the Entente, against Germany and Austria-Hungary, as a consequence of the 1902 Anglo-Japanese Alliance. In the Siege of Tsingtao, the Imperial Japanese Navy helped seize the German colony of Tsingtao. During the siege, beginning on 5 September 1914, conducted the world's first successful sea-launched air strikes. On 6 September 1914, in the very first air-sea battle in history, a Farman aircraft launched by "Wakamiya" attacked the Austro-Hungarian cruiser and the German gunboat "Jaguar" off Tsingtao. from Jiaozhou Bay. Four Maurice Farman seaplanes bombarded German land targets like communication and command centers, and damaged a German minelayer in the Tsingtao peninsula from September to 6 November 1914 when the Germans surrendered.
On July 30, 1916, during World War I, German saboteurs set off a disastrous explosion on the Black Tom peninsula in Jersey City, New Jersey, in what is now part of Liberty State Park, close to Bedloe's Island. Carloads of dynamite and other explosives that were being sent to Britain and France for their war efforts were detonated, and seven people were killed. The statue sustained minor damage, mostly to the torch-bearing right arm, and was closed for ten days. The cost to repair the statue and buildings on the island was about . The narrow ascent to the torch was closed for public-safety reasons, and it has remained closed ever since.
In the years after Ferdinand Max's departure from Austria, the Imperial Austrian Navy suffered under further political and budgetary constraints. In April 1864, it was proposed that the naval ministry, which the former Archduke had helped to establish, be disbanded. In January 1865, Emperor Franz Joseph I dissolved the ministry and the Imperial Austrian Navy was again placed under the jurisdiction of the Austrian Ministry of War. Under the 1865 budget, just 7,100,000 Florins were allocated towards naval expenses, but once more, none of the funds were designated for warship construction. In 1866, the naval budget grew slightly to 7,800,000 Florins, but for the third consecutive year there would be no funds for additional ironclads, or other warships. Thus, when the Seven Weeks War began in June 1866, the Imperial Austrian Navy would possess only ships which had been constructed during Ferdinand Max's tenure as "Oberkommandant der Marine".
The SS "Great Eastern" was launched in 1858 and was six times bigger than any ship before. She was the third ship designed by Brunel. The "Great Eastern" had six masts as well as coal fired engines driving paddle wheels. It was designed to carry enough coal to travel to Australia and return, and was intended to carry 4,000 passengers (or 10,000 soldiers). Work started on the ship in 1854 but there were many problems in building and launching the ship. After fitting out at Deptford she undertook trials in September 1859 but the heater attached to the paddle engine boilers exploded. As the ship had been fitted with watertight bulkheads she survived and was repaired. Because of the opening of the Suez Canal, she was not used on the Australian route as envisaged but on the Atlantic crossings. Passengers did not like the rolling in storms and she was sold to a cable laying company after only six years. The "Great Eastern" was used to lay the first transatlantic telegraph cable and many others subsequently. She was broken up in 1888.
It has been suggested that it was he who, with a small party of stormtroopers, passed through a passage from the Palace of the President of the Reichstag, and set the Reichstag building on fire on the night of February 27, 1933. There is evidence indirectly to substantiate this: Gisevius at Nuremberg implicated Goebbels in planning the fire, Rudolph Diels stated that Göring knew how the fire was to be started, and General Franz Halder stated that he had heard Göring claim responsibility for the fire. However, according to Ian Kershaw, the consensus of nearly all historians is that Marinus van der Lubbe did set the "Reichstag" on fire. 
On 30 June 1934 Ernst had just married, and was in Bremen on his way to Madeira to honeymoon with his new wife. SA Leader Ernst Röhm had repeatedly called for a "second revolution" that would introduce socialism into the Reich and banish the old Conservative forces of business and government. Fearing the socialistic tendencies of the SA, along with Röhm's ambition to absorb the "Reichswehr" into the SA, conservative elements in the German Army and "Kriegsmarine" pressed for an elimination of SA power. Adolf Hitler—who had served as Ernst's best man at his wedding six weeks earlier—undertook a purge of the SA, an event known to history as the Night of the Long Knives. It lasted until 2 July 1934.
"Seeteufel (Sea Devil)" was a hand-powered submarine designed by Wilhelm Bauer in 1856. It was made of iron, and was long, wide and deep. It could hold 15 people. After his last submarine, "Brandtaucher" had sunk, Bauer included a diver's chamber in the design. Through this chamber, which worked like an airlock, divers could leave and enter the submerged vessel. He had tried to obtain support for his invention in several countries, like the Austria-Hungary, the British Empire or France. Finally, in 1855, Bauer made a contract with Russia. He built his submarine at the Leutemberg Works, and it was completed on 1 November. In May 1856 it was taken to Kronstadt and testing began. The submarine made 133 successful diving runs, including a dive on 6 September 1856, when musicians played the national anthem of Russia during the coronation of Alexander II. But during the 134th dive, the submarine got stuck in the sand of the seafloor and was later retrieved by a salvage crew.
After the German unification of 1871, a united Imperial Navy was established as successor of the Prussian Navy and the North German Federal Navy, from 1 January 1872 under the authority of the German Imperial Admiralty ("Kaiserliche Admiralität") led by Minister of State Albrecht von Stosch. With the accession of Emperor Wilhelm II in 1888, the naval forces strongly gained in importance. Soon after, the command structure was reorganized with the establishment of the Imperial Naval Cabinet, the German Imperial Naval High Command ("Kaiserliches Oberkommando der Marine") and the Naval Office, from 1897 under State Secretary Alfred von Tirpitz.
Seizing upon the decline of the Regia Marina in the years immediately after the Battle of Lissa, Tegetthoff worked to continue the efforts of Archduke Ferdinand Max of expanding the ironclad fleet of the now Austro-Hungarian Navy. Tegetthoff found political allies in the Austro-Hungarian Minister of War Carl von Franck and retired Admiral Bernhard von Wüllerstorf-Urbair. Wüllerstorf's and Franck's primary arguments in favor of continuing with the ironclad program Austria had engaged in prior to the Seven Weeks War lay largely along economic grounds. The two believed that constructing new ironclad warships would rejuvenate Austria-Hungary's economy following the defeat at the hands of Prussia and Italy, and that such a fleet would help to open up new commercial opportunities in the Levant and the Middle East. These proposals would be shelved however while Austria continued to reel from the military defeats inflicted by Prussia, and several cabinet reshufflings by Emperor Franz Joseph I resulted in a government more interested in pursuing revenge against Prussia than constructing new ironclads, which would be of little use in a hypothetical second war with Prussia.
Montecuccoli's plans for the construction of "Szent István" and her sister ships earned the approval of Emperor Franz Joseph I in January 1909, and by April plans for the design, construction, and financing for the battleships had been laid out. For a full year, the Austro-Hungarian Navy attempted to keep the looming construction of the first two battleships a state secret. This did not prevent rumors from circulating across Europe of two dreadnought battleships being constructed in Austria-Hungary. The French Naval Attaché in Vienna complained to Paris in 1910 of extensive secrecy within the Austro-Hungarian Navy, which manifested itself in several ways. Among these were a ban on photography in the Pola, future home port of "Szent István", and near-constant observation by the Austro-Hungarian police.
At the time the "Titanic" sank, the 1 May 1912 issue of "The Popular Magazine", an American pulp magazine, was on the news stands. It contained the short story "The White Ghost of Disaster," which described the collision of an ocean liner with an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean, the sinking of the vessel, and the fate of the passengers. The story, by Mayn Clew Garnett (the pseudonym of sea-story author T. Jenkins Hains), created a minor sensation. In 1898, fourteen years prior to the "Titanic" disaster,
Morgan Robertson wrote a book called "Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan". This story features an enormous British passenger liner called the "Titan", which, deemed to be unsinkable, carries insufficient lifeboats. On a voyage in the month of April, the "Titan" hits an iceberg and sinks in the North Atlantic with the loss of almost everyone on board. There are some similarities between the fictional sinking of the "Titan" and the real-life sinking of the RMS "Titanic".
On October 10, 1913, President Woodrow Wilson sent a signal from the White House by telegraph which triggered the explosion that destroyed the Gamboa Dike. This flooded the Culebra Cut, thereby joining the Atlantic and Pacific oceans via the Panama Canal. (a floating crane built by Lobnitz & Company and launched in 1887) was the first self-propelled vessel to transit the canal from ocean to ocean. This vessel crossed the canal from the Atlantic in stages during construction, finally reaching the Pacific on January 7, 1914. (a cargo and passenger ship built by Maryland Steel, and launched in 1902 as SS "Tremont") on August 3, 1914 was the first ship to transit the canal from ocean to ocean.
The Ems telegram had exactly the effect on French public opinion that Bismarck had intended. "This text produced the effect of a red flag on the Gallic bull", Bismarck later wrote. Gramont, the French foreign minister, declared that he felt "he had just received a slap." The leader of the monarchists in Parliament, Adolphe Thiers, spoke for moderation, arguing that France had won the diplomatic battle and there was no reason for war, but he was drowned out by cries that he was a traitor and a Prussian. Napoleon's new prime minister, Emile Ollivier, declared that France had done all that it could humanly and honorably do to prevent the war, and that he accepted the responsibility "with a light heart". A crowd of 15,000–20,000 people, carrying flags and patriotic banners, marched through the streets of Paris, demanding war. On 19 July 1870 a declaration of war was sent to the Prussian government. The southern German states immediately sided with Prussia.
The Russian right flank under Mikhail Mikhailovich Golitsyn moved to secure the sole bridge across the Lesnjanka in order to prevent the flow of Swedish reinforcements across it, while seeking to trap them with their backs to the river. However, the bridge was ferociously defended and the Russians were beaten off, suffering heavy losses. At this time, both sides were inconvenienced by a snowstorm, a rare event for early–October, even in Russia. At 17:00, Lewenhaupt ordered a concerted attack which, however, was blunted by a tactic of continuous fire which the Russians had devised to counter the Swedish "Gå–På" onslaught. The Swedes took heavy casualties and were driven further back towards the village. Their line was also split in two, one side against the Lesnaya (east of the bridge) and the other against the forest to the west. The all–important bridge was on the brink of being taken when it was saved by the arrival of 900 Swedish dragoons from across the river, whose fierce onslaught drove the Russians back. At 19:00 when night fell, the Russians left the field and drew back to the forest fringe. The Swedes stood in their battle formations for several hours, expecting a night attack which did not come.
"Gneisenau" departed Lamu on 6 September and went to Kismayu, before proceeding on to Zanzibar four days later. In the meantime, Paschen had been instructed to form a second cruiser squadron, which was to consist of his flagship "Stosch", along with "Gneisenau" and "Prinz Adalbert". The squadron was to proceed to the Caroline Islands, which were at the center of a dispute between Germany and Spain. "Gneisenau" first went to Cape Town, arriving on 11 October. While there, she received new orders to proceed instead to what was now German East Africa; on 9 November she was formally reassigned back to Knorr's squadron. "Gneisenau" patrolled the coast of East Africa until 6 March 1886, when Knorr's squadron, at that time consisting of "Gneisenau", "Bismarck", and the corvette , departed for Australia. After reaching the south Pacific, the ships toured Australian ports, New Zealand, Tonga, and Samoa before "Gneisenau" was detached first to the Gazelle Peninsula on the island of New Pomerania to suppress an uprising against German colonial rule. She then went to the Palau Islands, part of the Caroline group, to retrieve a German monument, as Germany had dropped its claim to the islands in favor of Spain. On 25 July, "Gneisenau" began the journey back to Germany, reaching Kiel on 27 September. She was decommissioned there on 14 October.
Upon returning to Germany, she underwent a short overhaul before joining the ships of III Division during the fleet training exercise in August and September. During the maneuvers she accidentally collided with the torpedo boat , which was badly damaged. "Gneisenau" continued in the exercises until she too was decommissioned for repairs on 30 September. On 3 April 1894, "Gneisenau" embarked on the summer training cruise, which this year just went to Christiana, Norway and concluded with the Kiel Week regatta. The ships thereafter took part in the fleet maneuvers in August and September again as III Division, with "Gneisenau"s commander now "KK" Hermann da Fonseca-Wollheim. On 1 October, "Gneisenau" began the winter training cruise to the Mediterranean, and while in La Valletta, Malta, she met the unprotected cruisers and . "Gneisenau" then visited Souda Bay, Crete from 16 November to 20 December, followed by Smyrna for three weeks. On 18 January 1895, she began the voyage back to Germany, arriving in Kiel on 27 March.
These two small vessels proved to be insufficient for the task, and so on 13 August, "Gneisenau", the corvette , the aviso , and the gunboat were commissioned to reinforce them. They departed Kiel on 19 August, under the command of "Gneisenau"s captain "KzS" Max von der Goltz, who was made "Kommodore" of the squadron. The ships arrived in Port Said on 21 August, and on 13 September the British defeated 'Urabi's forces at the Battle of Tell El Kebir, effectively ending the rebellion. The German squadron remained in the area until December, when it was disbanded; "Gneisenau" arrived back in Kiel on 24 December, where she was decommissioned on 9 January 1883, though "Nymphe" and "Cyclop" remained in the eastern Mediterranean Sea as a precaution against further unrest.
SMS "Gneisenau" was a built for the German Imperial Navy ("Kaiserliche Marine") in the late 1870s. The ship was named after the Prussian Field Marshal August von Gneisenau. She was the fifth member of the class, which included five other vessels. The "Bismarck"-class corvettes were ordered as part of a major naval construction program in the early 1870s, and she was designed to serve as a fleet scout and on extended tours in Germany's colonial empire. "Gneisenau" was laid down in June 1877, launched in September 1879, and was commissioned into the fleet in October 1880. She was armed with a battery of fourteen guns and had a full ship rig to supplement her steam engine on long cruises abroad.