SMS Scharnhorst[a] was an armored cruiser of the Imperial German Navy, built at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany.

Scharnhorst and her sister were enlarged versions of the preceding Roon class; they were equipped with a greater number of main guns and were capable of a higher top speed.

After the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, accompanied by three light cruisers and several colliers, sailed across the Pacific Ocean to the southern coast of South America.

The defeat prompted the British Admiralty to dispatch two battlecruisers to hunt down and destroy the German squadron, which they accomplished at the Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December 1914.

These improvements were made to allow for Scharnhorst and Gneisenau to fight in the line of battle should the need arise, a capability requested by the General Department.

[3][8] From 6 to 11 November, her trials were interrupted by a voyage to Vlissingen in the Netherlands and Portsmouth in Britain in company with Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht Hohenzollern and the light cruiser Königsberg.

On 1 May, she replaced Yorck as the flagship of the reconnaissance forces of the High Seas Fleet, under the command of Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) August von Heeringen.

After completing preparations for the voyage, Scharnhorst left Kiel on 1 April; aboard was Konteradmiral Friedrich von Ingenohl, who was to take command of the East Asia Squadron upon his arrival.

She spent December and early January 1910 in Hong Kong for the Christmas and New Year's festivities, in company with Leipzig and the gunboat Luchs.

[10] In January 1910 Scharnhorst, Leipzig, and Luchs went on a tour of East Asian ports, including Bangkok, Manila, and stops in Sumatra and North Borneo.

She thereafter steamed to the northern area of the German protectorate in early July; at the time tensions were high in Europe due to the Agadir Crisis.

On 10 October, the Xinhai Revolution against the Qing Dynasty broke out, causing a great deal of tension amongst the Europeans, who recalled the attacks on foreigners during the Boxer Uprising of 1900–1901.

From 14 to 24 January 1912, Scharnhorst toured the ports of the central China coast and returned to Qingdao on 9 March, where the rest of the squadron had assembled.

[24] On 13 August, Commodore Karl von Müller, captain of the Emden, persuaded Spee to detach his ship as a commerce raider.

[25] To keep the German high command informed, on 8 September Spee detached Nürnberg to Honolulu to send word through neutral countries.

On 1 November, Spee learned from Prinz Eitel Friedrich that the British light cruiser HMS Glasgow had been anchored in Coronel the previous day, so he turned towards the port to try to catch her alone.

[31] The East Asia Squadron arrived off Coronel on the afternoon of 1 November; to Spee's surprise, he encountered Good Hope, Monmouth, and Otranto in addition to Glasgow.

[37] Scharnhorst engaged Good Hope and hit her on the third salvo, striking between her forward gun turret and her conning tower and starting a major fire.

Since Chile was neutral, only three ships could enter the port at a time; Spee took Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Nürnberg in first on the morning of 3 November, leaving Dresden and Leipzig with the colliers at Mas a Fuera.

In Valparaiso, Spee's ships could take on coal while he conferred with the Admiralty Staff in Germany to determine the strength of remaining British forces in the region.

The ships remained in the port for only 24 hours, in accordance with the neutrality restrictions, and arrived at Mas a Fuera on 6 November, where they took on more coal from captured British and French steamers.

On 10 November, Dresden and Leipzig were detached for a stop in Valparaiso, and five days later, Spee took the rest of the squadron south to St. Quentin Bay in the Gulf of Penas.

[45] Once word of the defeat reached London, the Royal Navy set to organizing a force to hunt down and destroy the East Asia Squadron.

To this end, the powerful battlecruisers Invincible and Inflexible were detached from the Grand Fleet and placed under the command of Vice Admiral Doveton Sturdee.

Observers aboard Gneisenau spotted smoke rising from Port Stanley, but assumed it was the British burning their coal stocks to prevent the Germans from seizing them.

[54] Invincible opened fire at Scharnhorst while Inflexible attacked Gneisenau and Spee ordered his two armored cruisers to similarly engage their opposites.

[55] Sturdee attempted to widen the distance by turning two points to the north to prevent Spee from closing to within the range of his numerous secondary guns.

At 16:17, the ship finally capsized to port and sank; the British, their attention now focused on Gneisenau, made no attempt to rescue the crew.

The sailor had a watertight cartridge case from a 21 cm shell attached; inside was one of the Reichskriegsflaggen (Imperial war flags) flown aboard Scharnhorst.

The sailor was buried in Brazil and the flag was eventually returned to Germany, where it was placed on display at the Museum für Meereskunde (Marine Science) in Berlin, though it was lost during World War II.