Study of the former german battleship 'baden', listing and under fire as a gunnery target in 1921
inscribed 'baden' by the artist, lower right. This is the former german battleship 'baden', launched on 30 october 1915 and completed in october 1916. Following th armistice in november 1918, she was interned at scapa flow on 14 december, being the last german ship to arrive there. Her crew attempted to scuttle her, with the rest of the interned fleet, on 21 june 1919 but the british intervened and managed to tow her to shallow water and beach her, as the only german capital ship saved that way. After being refloated in july 1919 she was towed to portsmouth for full examination and then designated to be destroyed as a gunnery target. On 2 february 1921 she was sunk in shallow water by 17 hits from the monitor 'terror' (1916) but again refloated and, on 10 august, badly damaged by 14 hits from the monitor 'erebus' (1916) off the isle of wight. She was then towed away and scuttled in deep water off the casquet rocks in the channel islands on 16 august 1921. This shows her from broad on the starboard quarter, with a list to starboard and a shell exploding towards the bow during one of the target days. The smoke coming from her second funnel is probably artistic licence, since her boilers were not lit. The ship implied in the right distance is presumably the monitor firing at her. Note that all wyllie's studies of her in her target days show her main armament trained to starboard, which no doubt contributed to the list shown in them. See also pae2736, pae3133, paf1873, paf1876 and paf1877. Date: 1921. Dimensions: Sheet: 291 x 454 mm. Collection: Fine art.
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