SMS Niobe

Niobe at her launching

Niobe was ordered under the contract name "B" and was laid down at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen on 30 August 1898 and launched on 18 July 1899, after which fitting-out work commenced. Named after Niobe, a figure from Greek mythology, she was commissioned on 25 June 1900 to begin sea trials, which lasted until 22 August. She was thereafter placed in reserve. On 11 April 1901, the ship returned to service and was assigned as the flagship of I Torpedo-boat Flotilla on the 18th, replacing the elderly aviso Blitz, which was by then worn out. Niobe served in this position until 26 June, and during this period, took part in training exercises in the Baltic Sea and the Kattegat. On 28 June, she left I Flotilla and escorted the imperial yacht Hohenzollern on a trip to Norway. The visit was cut short following the death of Kaiser Wilhelm II's mother, Victoria. Niobe then joined I Squadron for the annual fleet exercises in late August and early September. At the conclusion of the maneuvers, the Germans held a naval review for the visit of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia; Niobe was again tasked with escorting Wilhelm II in Hohenzollern while he met with Nicholas from 11 to 13 September. Niobe then returned to Wilhelmshaven, where she went into drydock for alterations that lasted from 1 October to 1 April 1902.[3]

After Niobe returned to active service in April 1902, she resumed operations with I Torpedo-boat Flotilla, and was stationed in the Baltic. On 2 July, she was transferred back to I Squadron for the annual training exercises and a winter cruise toward the end of the year.[4] During this period, Korvettenkapitän (Corvette Captain) Franz von Hipper served as the ship's commander.[5] In early 1903, she again returned to the I Torpedo-boat Flotilla, her last stint as the flotilla flagship. The Navy initially planned on sending Niobe to reinforce the squadron participating in the naval blockade of Venezuela of 1902–1903, but the incident concluded before she could be sent. Instead, on 1 March, she joined the cruisers of I Scouting Group for her second trip to Norway. She remained in I Scouting Group for the annual maneuvers that followed later in the year, and through 1904 as well. Following the fleet maneuvers in August and September 1904, Niobe was decommissioned on 29 September. She spent the following two years out of service, during which time she underwent a major overhaul.[4]

On 19 June 1906, Niobe was recommissioned for an overseas deployment as part of the East Asia Squadron. She left Wilhelmshaven on 9 July and rendezvoused with the squadron, the flagship of which was the armored cruiser Fürst Bismarck, on 8 September. The ship cruised Chinese and Japanese waters for the next three years; her time in the East Asia Squadron was uneventful. On 31 January 1909, Niobe steamed out of the main German port in the region, Tsingtao, and made the return voyage to Germany. She reached Kiel on 21 March, and having become badly worn out during her three years abroad, she was decommissioned ten days later.[4]

Niobe in port, c. 1902

After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Niobe was recommissioned for coastal defense, stationed in the German Bight. Between 28 August to 2 September, and from 23 December, Niobe's commander also served as the commander of the torpedo-boat flotillas defending the Jade Bight and the mouth of the Weser River. She was removed from front-line service on 5 September 1915, and her crew was reduced four days later. The commander of the torpedo-boat flotillas returned to Niobe on 14 January 1916, as his previous flagship, the old coastal defense ship Siegfried, was decommissioned. Niobe nevertheless remained in service with a reduced crew. Kommodore (Commodore) Ludwig von Reuter, the commander of the IV Scouting Group, and his staff briefly used Niobe as a headquarters ship, from 6 June to 3 July. Starting on 20 August, she became the headquarters ship for now-Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) von Hipper, the commander of the I Scouting Group.[6][7]

During this period, Hipper organized the office of Befehlshabers der Sicherung der Nordsee (BSN—Commander of the Defense of the North Sea), which was also stationed on Niobe.[8] In 1917, she was disarmed so her guns could be used to reinforce the defenses of Wilhelmshaven.[7] In October that year, Konteradmiral Friedrich Boedicker, then the commander of the I Squadron, came aboard Niobe; the bulk of the High Seas Fleet had gone into the Baltic to launch Operation Albion, and Boedicker temporarily took control of the BSN. Hipper and his staff left Niobe on 11 August 1918,[8] having been promoted to command of the High Seas Fleet.[9] The BSN remained aboard Niobe until January 1919, two months after the war ended with the Armistice; it was then transferred to the old pre-dreadnought battleship Kaiser Wilhelm II, also in use as a headquarters ship. Niobe was then decommissioned on 3 February.[8]

Niobe was among the ships permitted by the Treaty of Versailles after the end of the war, and so she continued on in service with the newly reorganized Reichsmarine. During this period, she was significantly modernized; her old ram bow was replaced with a clipper bow. Her old 10.5 cm SK L/40 guns were replaced with newer SK L/45 guns in U-boat mountings and two 50 cm (20 in) torpedo tubes in deck-mounted launchers were installed. On 24 June 1925, Niobe was stricken from the naval register and sold to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia).[8][10]

The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes had initially been given the ships of the old Austro-Hungarian Navy after the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the closing days of World War I, but the Allied powers quickly seized the majority of the ships and allocated them to the various Allied countries. Left with only twelve modern torpedo boats, the new country sought more powerful vessels. It therefore purchased Niobe when Germany placed her for sale in 1925.[11] Since Germany was forbidden from exporting armed warships, Niobe was taken to the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Kiel and disarmed. She also had her conning tower removed. On 7 August 1926, she began sea trials before being transferred to her new owners. Niobe was taken to the Tivat arsenal in the Bay of Kotor, arriving on 3 September 1927.[12] There, she was renamed Dalmacija (Dalmatia), and received her new armament before she entered Royal Yugoslav Navy service, though the details are uncertain. According to Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, she was equipped with six Škoda 8.5 cm (3.35 in) L/55 quick-firing guns, and initially four and later six 2 cm (0.79 in) anti-aircraft (AA) guns were added.[10] The naval historian Henry Lenton states that the main battery caliber was 8.6 cm (3.4 in), states that they were dual-purpose guns, and specifies four 2 cm single-mount AA guns.[13] But naval historian Milan Vego states that she carried six 8.3 cm (3.27 in) L/35 anti-aircraft guns, four 47 mm (1.9 in) guns, and six machine guns.[14] The historian Aidan Dodson concurs with Vego that the ship received six 8.3 cm guns, but instead states that they were 55-caliber guns of the Skoda M27 type. Dodson also agrees that she had four 47 mm guns but states her armament was rounded out by two 15 mm (0.59 in) Zbrojovka ZB-60 anti-aircraft machine-guns.[12]

After entering service, Dalmacija was employed as a gunnery training ship.[15] In May and June 1929, Dalmacija, the submarines Hrabri and Nebojša, the submarine tender Hvar and six torpedo boats went on a cruise to Malta, the Greek island of Corfu in the Ionian Sea, and Bizerte in the French protectorate of Tunisia. According to the British naval attaché, the ships and crews made a very good impression while visiting Malta.[16] In 1930, the ship underwent a minor refit and her foremast was modified, including by the addition of supporting struts that converted it into a tripod mast. Throughout the 1930s, the ship went on several training cruises in the Mediterranean Sea, and during this period she served as a flagship on a number of occasions.[12]

Dalmacija in Kotor after the German invasion in April 1941

In April 1941, during the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia, Dalmacija remained in Kotor and did not see action. Some forty years old by that time, the ship was kept in port as a harbor defense vessel, since her relatively heavy anti-aircraft armament could be used to defend against air attacks.[17] Following the Yugoslav surrender, the ship was captured by the Italians in Kotor on 25 April.[18] Renamed Cattaro, the ship was placed in service with the Regia Marina as a gunboat and gunnery training ship, based in Pola. On 31 July 1942, the cruiser was attacked by the British submarine HMS Traveller south of the village of Premantura on the Istrian coast, but all of the torpedoes missed.[19][20]

The ship's fate is somewhat unclear; according to Hildebrand et al., Cattaro was later transferred to the Navy of the Independent State of Croatia, where she was commissioned as a training ship under the name Znaim. She returned to German service in September 1943 after Italy surrendered to the Allies, which significantly reduced the warships operating in the Adriatic Sea. A German and Croatian crew operated the ship, once again named Niobe, under the German flag.[8] According to Twardowski, however, the ship remained in Italian hands until Germany seized it in September 1943, thereafter turning her over to the Independent State of Croatia as Znaim before retaking the ship and restoring her original name at some point thereafter.[15] Aidan Dodson concurs that the ship remained in Italian hands until their surrender, and states that she was undergoing boiler repairs at Pola at the time. After falling into German hands, there was some debate as to what her name should be, with consideration given to Zenta or Novara in honor of Austro-Hungarian cruisers, but the Germans eventually settled on reverting to her original name.[20]

Nevertheless, after leaving Italian service the ship's armament was six 8.4 cm (3.3 in) AA guns, four 47 mm AA guns, four 20 mm Oerlikon AA guns, and twenty-six 20 mm Breda AA guns, and she was commissioned on 8 November.[10] On the night of 21/22 September, while she was still refitting, two British Motor Torpedo Boats—MTB 226 and MTB 228—attacked the ship to the northwest of Zara without success.[21] Niobe began escorting convoys in the Adriatic, the first taking place on 13 November,[8] in support of Operation Herbstgewitter.[20] This convoy consisted of several transports carrying units from the 71st Infantry Division to the islands of Cres, Krk, and Lussino.[22]

On 19 December, Niobe ran aground on the island of Silba at around 18:00 as a result of a navigational error. The crew requested tugboats from Pola, but they were unable to pull the ship free. Local Partisans informed the British about the ship's location, and three days later, the British Motor Torpedo Boats MTB 276 and MTB 298 attacked the ship and hit her with two torpedoes, and the tug Parenzo, which had been moored alongside to assist the salvage effort, was hit by a third torpedo and sunk.[23][24] Nineteen men were killed in the attack. The Germans then abandoned the wreck, apart from a small group tasked with removing or destroying weapons and other equipment. The wreck was then damaged further by the Germans before they abandoned it, and it was later cannibalized for spare parts by the Partisans. The wreck remained on Silba until 1947, when salvage operations began. She was raised and broken up for scrap by 1952.[10][23]