which was damaged by a boiler pipe explosion. On 1 August 1894, was assigned as the flagship of the German fleet for the annual autumn maneuvers, under the command of Admiral Max von der Goltz. Goltz came aboard the new battleship on 19 August with his staff, which included then- (Captain at Sea) Alfred von Tirpitz. Toward the end of the maneuvers, which took place in both the North and Baltic Seas, Kaiser Wilhelm II came aboard and reviewed a fleet parade on 21 September. During this period, was commanded by Prince Heinrich, the younger brother of Wilhelm II; the senior watch officer aboard the ship in 1894 was Franz von Hipper, who went on to command the German battlecruiser squadron during World War I and later the entire High Seas Fleet. On 1 November, Czar Alexander III of Russia died; Wilhelm II initially planned to send his brother to St. Petersburg to represent Germany at the funeral aboard his flagship. But General Bernhard Franz Wilhelm von Werder suggested that sending a warship named for the Battle of Wörth of the still-recent Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 would antagonize the French delegation and would be unwise, given the recently signed Franco-Russian Alliance. Wilhelm II agreed, and so Prince Heinrich traveled to the funeral by train. After her sister entered service, she replaced as the fleet flagship. was thereafter assigned to I Division of I Squadron, in turn replacing the old ironclad . and the rest of the squadron attended ceremonies for the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal at Kiel on 3 December 1894. The squadron subsequently began a winter training cruise in the Baltic Sea; this was the first such cruise by the German fleet. In previous years, the bulk of the fleet was deactivated for the winter months. I Division anchored in Stockholm from 7 to 11 December, during the 300th anniversary of the birth of Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus. Further exercises were conducted in the Baltic before the ships had to put into their home ports for repairs. From 19 December to 27 March 1895, returned to her old duty as fleet flagship while was in dock for repairs. The ship was occupied with individual and divisional training in early 1895. In May, more fleet maneuvers were carried out in the western Baltic, concluding with a visit by the fleet to Kirkwall in Orkney. The squadron returned to Kiel in early