Qualla: SMS Iltis (1878)

SMS Iltis (1878): Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Willy Stower (1864–1931), Public domain. Named after the polecat, SMS Iltis was a gunboat that weighed less than 500 tons and could barely make nine knots. She was not built to fight fleet actions or project imperial power on a grand scale. She was built to show up -- at treaty ports where German merchants needed protection, at islands where rival empires planted flags, at coastlines where pirates raided commerce. For sixteen years, from 1880 to 1896, this small ship with a barque sailing rig and a crew of eighty-five men was often the only German warship in the vast waters of East Asia.

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Image: Willy Stower (1864–1931) | Public domain

SMS Iltis (1878): The Polecat Goes East

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown, CC BY-SA 3.0 de. Iltis was laid down at the Imperial Shipyard in Danzig in June 1877 and launched on 18 September 1878. She was 47.2 meters long, armed with a pair of medium-caliber built-up guns and three Hotchkiss revolvers, and fitted with recycled engines from an older class of gunboat. On 1 ...

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Image: Unknown | CC BY-SA 3.0 de

SMS Iltis (1878): Pirates, Flags, and the Pope

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit see below, Public domain. Iltis spent the 1880s in constant motion across a staggering range of waters. She surveyed the Paracel Islands, searching for a suitable coaling station. She recovered stolen cargo from pirates in the Pescadores. She guarded German nationals in Guangzhou during anti-European riot...

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Image: see below | Public domain

SMS Iltis (1878): Witness to War

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Matthias Süßen, CC BY-SA 4.0. When the First Sino-Japanese War broke out in 1894, Iltis and the gunboat Wolf were the only German vessels in East Asian waters. Iltis sent twenty-three men ashore at Incheon to guard the German embassy in Korea. After the Battle of Pungdo on 25 July, she rescued some two hundre...

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Image: Matthias Süßen | CC BY-SA 4.0

SMS Iltis (1878): Broken by the Storm

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit various, Public domain. On 23 July 1896, Iltis departed Yantai bound for Qingdao under orders from Rear Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, who wanted to survey the port as a potential permanent naval base. The morning was calm, winds at a gentle 2 on the Beaufort scale. By afternoon, rain and hail had closed i...

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Image: various | Public domain

SMS Iltis (1878): Monuments Lost and Found

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The Germans erected a memorial near the lighthouse where their sailors had perished. During World War I, it was destroyed. A second monument, raised in Shanghai's International Settlement in 1898, was knocked down in November 1918 after Germany's defeat. Local Germans restored it...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain