SMS Rheinland[a] was one of four Nassau-class battleships, the first dreadnoughts built for the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine).

The navy built Rheinland and her sister ships in response to the revolutionary British HMS Dreadnought, which had been launched in 1906.

These sorties culminated in the Battle of Jutland on 31 May – 1 June 1916, in which Rheinland was heavily engaged by British destroyers in close-range night fighting.

She returned to the Baltic as the core of an expeditionary force to aid the White Finns in the Finnish Civil War in 1918, but ran aground shortly after arriving in the area.

The damage done by the grounding was deemed too severe to justify repairs and Rheinland was decommissioned to be used as a barracks ship for the remainder of the war.

In 1919, following the scuttling of the German fleet in Scapa Flow, Rheinland was ceded to the Allies who, in turn, sold the vessel to ship-breakers in the Netherlands.

Over the next two years, the design was refined into a larger vessel with twelve of the guns, by which time Britain had launched the all-big-gun battleship HMS Dreadnought.

[2] This type of machinery was chosen at the request of both Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz and the Navy's construction department; the latter stated in 1905 that the "use of turbines in heavy warships does not recommend itself.

[4] Rheinland carried a main battery of twelve 28 cm (11 in) SK L/45[b] guns in an unusual hexagonal configuration.

He was temporarily replaced by Korvettenkapitän Wilhelm Bunnemann when the ship's crew was reduced to commission the battlecruiser Von der Tann in September 1910.

[8] Like her sister Nassau, construction proceeded under absolute secrecy; detachments of soldiers guarded the shipyard itself, as well as contractors such as Krupp that supplied building materials.

[11] At the conclusion of trials on 30 August 1910, Rheinland was taken to Wilhelmshaven, where a significant portion of the crew was transferred to the new battlecruiser Von der Tann.

Following the autumn fleet maneuvers in September, the crew was replenished with crewmembers from the old pre-dreadnought battleship Zähringen, which was decommissioned at the same time.

[12] During the operation, the German battle fleet of some 12 dreadnoughts and 8 pre-dreadnoughts, which was serving as distant support for the battlecruisers, came to within 10 nmi (19 km; 12 mi) of an isolated squadron of six British battleships.

However, skirmishes between the rival destroyer screens convinced the German commander, Admiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, that he was confronted with the entire Grand Fleet.

The assembled German fleet included Rheinland and her three sister ships, the four Helgoland-class battleships, and the battlecruisers Von der Tann, Moltke, and Seydlitz.

[15] On 16 August 1915, a second attempt was made to enter the Gulf: Nassau and Posen, four light cruisers, and 31 torpedo boats managed to breach the Russian defenses.

The following day, Nassau and Posen engaged in an artillery duel with Slava, resulting in three hits on the Russian ship that forced her to retreat.

[17] Admiral Hipper later remarked that "To keep valuable ships for a considerable time in a limited area in which enemy submarines were increasingly active, with the corresponding risk of damage and loss, was to indulge in a gamble out of all proportion to the advantage to be derived from the occupation of the Gulf before the capture of Riga from the land side.

Another bombardment mission followed two days later; Rheinland was part of the battleship support for the I Scouting Group battlecruisers that attacked Yarmouth and Lowestoft on 24–25 April.

[24] Some ten minutes later Rheinland again opened fire on the British cruisers, targeting what was most likely HMS Southampton, though without success.

[26] At 21:22, crewmen aboard Rheinland and Westfalen, the two leading ships in the German line, spotted two torpedo tracks that turned out to be imaginary.

[32] Despite the ferocity of the night fighting, the High Seas Fleet punched through the British destroyer forces and reached Horns Reef by 04:00 on 1 June.

As only two of the four German battlecruisers were still in fighting condition, three dreadnoughts were assigned to the Scouting Group for the operation: Markgraf, Grosser Kurfürst, and the newly commissioned Bayern.

[19] On 22 February 1918, Rheinland and her sister Westfalen were tasked with a mission to Finland to support German army units to be deployed there.

[42] Following the German collapse in November 1918, a significant portion of the High Seas Fleet was interned in Scapa Flow according to the terms of the Armistice.

[43] However, a copy of The Times informed Ludwig von Reuter, the commander of the interned fleet, that the Armistice was to expire at noon on 21 June 1919, the deadline by which Germany was to have signed the peace treaty.

On the morning of 21 June, the British fleet left Scapa Flow to conduct training maneuvers; at 11:20 Reuter transmitted the order to his ships.