She measured 14,349 gross tons, and appeared in 1897. The Germans were jealous of the achievements which had been made by the Cunard _Campania_ and _Lucania_, and by attaining a mean speed of 22·81 knots on her trip from New York to Europe did outstrip the Cunarders’ fine record; and thus for the first time the “blue riband” of the Atlantic temporarily passed to Germany. She was “made in Germany”—at Stettin—and this triumphant voyage did a great deal to encourage the German Mercantile Marine and German shipbuilders. She had been constructed on the understanding that if during the trial trip across the Atlantic she did not come up to the requirements of the contract, the North German Lloyd were to be allowed to reject her. Actually she surpassed the builders’ undertaking. In 1907, whilst coming across the Atlantic in October weather eastward-bound, this handsome ship fractured her rudder; but instead of taking her into Halifax, the nearest port, her captain held on for Plymouth and thence to Bremerhaven, the ship having been manœuvred by means of her twin screws. It was a fine achievement, but some ships are born to be adventurous. At the beginning of the Great War the _Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse_ was in Germany. She was fitted out as a raider, left Hamburg on August 4, 1914, evaded the Grand Fleet, passed round the north of Iceland, and on August 7 sank a British trawler, then proceeded down the Atlantic, sank a couple and molested two more ships, and finally went into the Rio de Oro, a lonely anchorage in Spanish territory in North-West Africa. But on August 26 arrived H.M.S. _Highflyer_, and as the German refused to leave territorial waters, the British cruiser opened fire and destroyed her. Thus, after nearly twenty years’ service, this former Atlantic greyhound ended her days as an armed merchant cruiser.