SMS Elisabeth

SMS Elisabeth was the final member of the Arcona class of steam frigates built for the Prussian Navy in the 1860s. The class comprised five ships, and were the first major steam-powered warships ordered for the Prussian Navy. The ships were ordered as part of a major construction program to strengthen the nascent Prussian fleet, under the direction of Prince Adalbert, and were intended to provide defense against the Royal Danish Navy. Elisabeth was armed with a battery of twenty-eight guns, and was capable of steaming at a speed of 12.1 knots (22.4 km/h; 13.9 mph). Elisabeth was laid down in 1866, launched in 1868, and commissioned in 1869, by which time the Prussian Navy had been replaced by the North German Federal Navy.

Elisabeth joined a squadron that was sent to the Mediterranean Sea for the opening ceremonies for the Suez Canal in late 1869. She was activated during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, first as a guard ship during the French blockade of the North German coast. Plans to deploy the ship as a commerce raider later in the war came to nothing due to repeated problems with her propulsion system. After the war, in late 1872, she joined a squadron sent to the Caribbean Sea to protect German interests in the region. The following year, the squadron was recalled to the coast of Spain to protect German interests during the Third Carlist War there. The squadron was disbanded in early 1874, allowing Elisabeth to be sent to East Asia, but she was ordered home in early 1875. The ship embarked on another major overseas voyage in 1876, intended to be a circumnavigation of the globe. During the voyage in early 1878, she led an intervention in Nicaragua to force a payment owed to a German businessman. Elisabeth arrived home later that year.

The ship made two further overseas cruises in the early 1880s; the first, from 1881 to 1883, took the ship back to East Asia. Her time there passed relatively uneventfully, apart from an intervention in Xiamen on behalf of a German business there. The second overseas cruise lasted from 1884 to 1886, and during this voyage, she was heavily involved with the expansion of the German colonial empire, first in West Africa, then formally proclaiming the colony of German South West Africa. In 1885, she participated in flag-raising ceremonies in the colonies of Neupommern and Kaiser-Wilhelmsland. The cruise ended with the ship participating in a naval demonstration to defend Germany's claim to Wituland, which would soon become German East Africa. Limited training activities followed in the mid-1880s, until she was struck from the naval register in 1887. She was then used as a barracks ship, and then as a stationary training ship from 1888 to 1903. She was sold to ship breakers the following year, though some parts of the ship were preserved.