page_title: Dresden-class cruiser
section_title: Dresden
hierarchical_section_title: Dresden-class cruiser / Service history / Dresden
caption_attribution_description: English: The German light cruiser SMS Dresden at Juan Fernandez Island, 14 March 1915. The white flag of surrender is flying from the foremast.
context_page_description: The Dresden class was a pair of light cruisers built for the Imperial German Navy in the early part of the 20th century. The class comprised SMS Dresden, the lead ship, and SMS Emden. Both ships were laid down in 1906; Dresden was launched in 1907, and Emden followed in 1908. They entered service in 1908 and 1909, respectively. The design for the ships was an incremental improvement over the preceding Königsberg class, being slightly larger and slightly faster, but with the same primary armament of ten 10.5 cm guns. Dresden and Emden were powered by steam turbines and triple expansion engines, respectively, as part of continued experiments with the new turbine technology.
  Both ships served extensively on foreign stations; Emden was assigned to the East Asia Squadron from her commissioning, and Dresden was sent to Caribbean waters in 1913. Dresden was due to return to Germany for periodic maintenance shortly before the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, but this became impossible with the onset of hostilities. She therefore operated as a commerce raider, before linking up with Vizeadmiral Maximilian von Spee's East Asia Squadron.
context_section_description: Dresden spent most of her career on foreign stations. After her commissioning, she visited the United States in 1909 as part of Germany's delegation to the Hudson–Fulton Celebration. She returned to North American waters in late 1913, when she was stationed off the Mexican coast to protect German nationals during the Mexican Revolution. Following the rebels' victory the following year, Dresden evacuated the former dictator Victoriano Huerta to Jamaica, where the British had granted him asylum. In need of repairs, the cruiser was scheduled to return to Germany in July 1914, but the outbreak of World War I prevented this from taking place. Instead, Dresden operated as a commerce raider in South American waters in the Atlantic in the first months of the war before moving to the Pacific Ocean in September and thereafter joining Maximilian von Spee's East Asia Squadron.
  Dresden participated in two major battles with the East Asia Squadron. The first, the Battle of Coronel, took place in November, and Dresden engaged the British cruiser HMS Glasgow. The second, the Battle of the Falkland Islands, followed in December, where British battlecruisers annihilated the German squadron; Dresden was the only vessel to escape. She eluded her British pursuers for several more months, until she put into Más a Tierra in March 1915. Her engines were worn out and she had almost no coal left for her boilers; the ship's captain contacted the local Chilean authorities to have his vessel interned for the duration of the conflict. There, she was trapped by British cruisers, including her old opponent Glasgow; the British violated Chilean neutrality and opened fire on the ship. The Germans scuttled Dresden and the majority of the crew escaped to be interned in Chile for the duration of the war. The wreck remains in the harbor and was first surveyed in 2002.
caption: Dresden, flying a white flag, moments prior to her scuttling
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