König-class battleship
The König class was a group of four dreadnought battleships built for the German Kaiserliche Marine in the early 1910s. All four ships were present at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, where they formed the front of the German line of battle. The four ships saw little activity thereafter and plans for a final attack on the Royal Navy in October 1918 led to the Wilhelmshaven mutiny. They were interned at Scapa Flow after the war and scuttled on 21 June 1919. Grosser Kurfürst was raised in 1938 and broken up, but the other three vessels remain on the sea floor,where they remain popular diving sites.
About König-class battleship in brief
The König class was a group of four dreadnought battleships built for the German Kaiserliche Marine in the early 1910s. The design for the ships was derived from the preceding Kaiser class, using the same basic hull but with a rearranged main battery of ten 30. 5 cm guns in five twin-gun turrets. Budgetary constraints and the need to begin construction quickly to compete with Britain in the Anglo-German naval arms race prevented any more radical changes. All four ships were present at the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, where they formed the front of the German line of battle. The four ships saw little activity thereafter and plans for a final attack on the Royal Navy in October 1918 led to the Wilhelmshaven mutiny. They were interned at Scapa Flow after the war and scuttled on 21 June 1919. Grosser Kurfürst was raised in 1938 and broken up, but the other three vessels remain on the sea floor,where they remain popular diving sites. The Germans began their own, the Nassau class, in 1907, followed by the Helgoland class in 1908. The ships were authorized under the Second Amendment to the Naval Law, which had been passed in 1908 as a response to the revolution in naval technology created with the launch of the British HMS Dreadnought in 1906. As a result, the funds that had been appropriated for the Navy in the First Amendment, passed in 1906, were going to be used up before they were scheduled to be replenished in 1911.
In the terms of the First amendment, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz had requested but failed to secure funding for new battleships; they had now been approved by the Reichstag under the 1908 amendment. Another effect of the amendment was to reduce the life of all large warships from 20 years to twenty-five years; this was done in an effort to force the Reich stag to allocate more funds for replacement of coastal defense ships. In March 1908, the bill was passed by a large margin, necessitating the reduction in service of the ships in service in service. In April 1908, Tirpitz threatened to resign from his post as State Secretary for the State Navy as a result of the additional funds needed to replace the ships, since vessels would then need to be replaced sooner than originally planned. The new amendment also increased the naval budget by an additional 1 billion marks, and the number of ships laid down per year was reduced from two per year to two per fiscal year and continuing through 1917. The first ship laid down in 1912 was the battlecruisers Markgraf, which was built in the beginning of 1912. The second ship was the battleship Grosser Kurfurst, built in 1913. The third ship, Markgraf was built in 1914. The fourth ship, König, was the lead ship, and was completed in 1915.
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