Career
When Teutonic was launched on 19 January 1889, she was the first White Star ship without square rigged sails. The ship was completed on 25 July 1889 and participated in the Spithead Naval Review on 5 and 6 August, in conjunction with the state visit of Kaiser Wilhelm II.[3] Although Queen Victoria remained aboard the royal yacht, the Kaiser was given a two-hour tour of the new ship hosted by the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII. During the tour, Wilhelm is reputed to have turned to a subaltern and remarked: "We must have one of these ..." The Kaiser's reaction is generally credited as the impetus for the creation of Germany's four funnel liners known as the Kaiser Class. She sported eight 4.7 in guns. These were removed after the military reviews.[1]
On 7 August 1889, she left on her maiden voyage to New York City. In August 1891, Teutonic won the Blue Riband from her sister Majestic, with a timing of 5 days, 16 hours and 31 minutes between Queenstown and Sandy Hook, with an average speed of 20.35 kn, she would hold the title for one year before losing it to City of Paris. Teutonic would be the last White Star ship to hold the Blue Riband, as from then on the company focused on size and comfort over speed in its subsequent ships.[1]
Teutonic became known for her rivalry with City of New York, and there were a series of well publicised races across the Atlantic between the two ships, which lasted for as long as both ships were on the front line.[1]
In 1897 Teutonic reassumed her military role for a Naval review commemorating Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. In 1898, she had a minor collision in New York Harbor with the United States Lines' Berlin, but neither ship suffered major damage.[1] Because of her Naval subsidy, in 1900, she served as a troop transport during the Boer War. In 1901, Teutonic encountered a tsunami, which washed two lookouts out of the crows nest who survived. The tsunami hit at night, so there were no passengers up on deck.[1]
In 1907 Teutonic, along with Majestic, Oceanic and the new Adriatic was transferred to White Star's new 'Express Service' between Southampton and New York via Cherbourg and Queenstown. She made her first sailing on this route on 12 June that year.[1]
In 1911, the now ageing Teutonic was replaced in the White Star lineup by the new Olympic. By the end of her career on White Star's UK-US services, she had carried a total of 209,466 passengers westbound[4] and another 125,720 eastbound[5] for a total of 335,186 passengers carried. She was transferred to White Star's sister company Dominion Line for a Canadian service, which ran from Liverpool, and terminated at Montreal in the summer season, and Portland, Maine in the winter. In order to prepare her for this service, she underwent a major refit at Belfast, in which her promenade decks were enclosed in order to protect passengers from the cold weather which could be expected on the route. Her accommodation was also extensively modified in order to carry 550 second class, and 1,000 third class passengers, with first class being discontinued.[1]
In October 1913[6] the ship narrowly avoided the same fate as Titanic when, at 172 nmi east of Belle Isle off the Newfoundland coast, she ran so close to an iceberg that she avoided collision only by reversing her engines and putting the helm hard aport. According to the 28 October 1913 issue of the Chicago Tribune, "the liner passed within twenty feet of the iceberg. The fog was so thick that even at that small distance the berg could scarcely be distinguished. It was so close that there was danger that the propeller of the ship would strike it as the vessel went around. The passengers were not aware of their peril until it had been averted. They signed a testimonial to the captain and his officers expressing their gratitude and admiration for the care and skill displayed by them."[7]
War service and last years
In August 1914, with the start of World War I, Teutonic was requisitioned by the Royal Navy for use as an Armed Merchant Cruiser which she had been designed for. She was commissioned into the 10th Cruiser Squadron, where she took up position on the Northern Patrol between the Faroe Islands and the ice belt, and in the Denmark Strait between Iceland and Greenland. In 1916, she was bought outright by the Navy, and refitted with larger 6 inch guns. In 1917, she served as a White Sea convoy escort. The following year, she was used as a troopship, transporting soldiers between Britain and Alexandria in Egypt, with a capacity for 1,500 soldiers.[1]
She continued to be used for transport duties by the Navy until early 1921, when she was sold to German shipbreakers, and scrapped at Emden.[1]
