German Imperial Navy

World War I

By the start of the First World War, the German Imperial Navy possessed 22 pre-Dreadnoughts, 14 dreadnought battleships and 4 battle-cruisers. A further three ships of the König class were completed between August and November 1914, and two Bayern-class battleships entered service in 1916. The battlecruisers Derfflinger, Lützow, and Hindenburg were completed in September 1914, March 1916, and May 1917, respectively. All but the latest pre-Dreadnoughts were soon decommissioned, so that their crews could be transferred to more useful vessels. The main fighting forces of the navy were to become the High Seas Fleet and the U-boat fleet. Smaller fleets were deployed to the German overseas protectorates, the most prominent being assigned to the East Asia Squadron at Qingdao. The German Navy's U-boats were also instrumental in the sinking of the passenger liner and auxiliary cruiser, the RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915, which was one of the main events that led to the USA joining the war two years later in 1917.