amidships. As built, the ship was also equipped with a single L/22 gun. After being rebuilt in 1891–1895, her armament was increased by six L/22 guns and one 8.8 cm L/30 gun, four and later twelve auto-cannons for defense against torpedo boats. She also received five torpedo tubes, all mounted in the ship's hull below the waterline. Deutschlands armor consisted of wrought iron; her armor belt was thick, above which a strake of armor that was thick protected the main battery guns. Her main armor deck was thick. Service history Deutschland was ordered by the Imperial Navy from the Samuda Brothers shipyard in London, UK; her keel was laid in 1872. Deutschland and her sister Kaiser were ordered shortly after the end of the Franco-Prussian War, under the assumption that the French would quickly attempt a war of revenge. The ship was launched on 12 September 1874 and commissioned into the German fleet on 20 July 1875. She was the last German capital ship built by a foreign shipbuilder. Following her commissioning in July 1875, a German crew sailed Deutschland to Germany. She arrived too late, however, to participate in the annual summer training maneuvers. The ship was ready for the 1876 maneuvers; the squadron consisted of Deutschland, her sister , and the older ironclads and , commanded by Rear Admiral Carl Ferdinand Batsch. At around the time Batch's squadron was working up for the summer cruise, the German consul in Salonika, then in the Ottoman Empire, was murdered. Further attacks on German citizens living in the area were feared, and so Batsch was ordered to sail to the Mediterranean Sea to stage a naval demonstration in June 1876. After arriving with the four ironclads, he was reinforced by three unarmored vessels. After the threat of violence subsided in August, Batsch departed with Kaiser and Deutschland; the other two ironclads remained in the Mediterranean for the rest of the summer. For the 1877 maneuvers, the new turret ironclad replaced Kronprinz. The squadron was again sent to the Mediterranean, in response to unrest in the Ottoman Empire related to the Russo-Turkish War; the violence threatened German citizens living there. The squadron, again under the command of Batsch, steamed to the ports of Haifa and Jaffa in July 1877, but found no significant tensions ashore. Batsch then departed and cruised the Mediterranean for the remainder of the summer, returning to Germany in