SMS Vineta was a protected cruiser of the Victoria Louise class, built for the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) in the 1890s.

During her deployment in the Americas, she participated in the Venezuela Crisis of 1902–1903 and shelled several Venezuelan fortresses, including the bombardment of Fort San Carlos.

During another training voyage to the Caribbean Sea in early 1914, she embarked the deposed Haitian president Michel Oreste as he fled into exile.

The experience of Japanese cruisers during the contemporaneous First Sino-Japanese War showed the benefit of larger 21 cm (8.3 in) guns, which were adopted for the main battery of the Victoria Louise class.

In April, KzS von der Groeben relieved Fonseca-Wollheim, but he then died of a stroke on 19 May before Vineta could embark on her first major cruise abroad.

[11] In May, Vineta inspected Margarita Island off the coast of Venezuela for its potential as a naval base, but the Germans determined the port was insufficient for their purposes.

While there, she received orders to remain in the area to protect German nationals and business interests during the Thousand Days' War that involved Venezuela and Colombia.

[11] In addition to protecting Germans in the area, the deployment was intended as a show of force to compel the Venezuelan government to make reparations for grievances related to internal conflicts in the 1890s.

[13] On 6 October, two sailors from Vineta were arrested in Caracas, Venezuela, prompting the cruiser to send a landing party ashore in La Guaira to demand their release, which was quickly granted.

As the threat to German interests in the region proved to be less than expected, Vineta was sent to Newport News, United States, for periodic maintenance that lasted from 26 November to 17 December.

[10] By this time, tensions between Venezuela and Britain, Germany, and Italy had risen significantly over measures that the Venezuelan president, Cipriano Castro, had imposed to try to suppress a rebellion, including a blockade of several coastal cities.

No incidents involving German ships materialized, however, but the European powers concluded an agreement on 1 December to put an end to the blockade.

By that time, Germany had assembled a cruiser division led by Vineta, and including Falke, Gazelle, and Panther, along with the training ships Stein and Charlotte.

Scheder sent Gazelle to capture the gunboat Restaurador while Vineta responded to a request for assistance from the German consul in La Guaira.

In response, the British protected cruiser HMS Charybdis bombarded the forts at Puerto Cabello, and enlisted Vineta in the attack.

[15][16] Because Castro refused to give into German and British demands, those countries declared a blockade of the Venezuelan coast on 20 December, which Italy also joined.

By that time, the British Vice Admiral Archibald Douglas had arrived aboard his flagship, the protected cruiser Ariadne; as the most senior naval officer in the area, he relieved Scheder as the commander of the international squadron.

The Europeans nevertheless requested the United States to arbitrate a settlement, which resulted in an agreement that Venezuela would receive all of the naval and civilian vessels that had been seized in return for resuming debt payments.

Vineta embarked on a tour of ports in the West Indies, including Santo Domingo, Haiti, where civil unrest had broken out.

While Vineta lay there on 15 November, KzS Ludwig von Schröder arrived to replace Scheder as the commander of both the vessel and the division.

At that time, the island belonged to Denmark, but due to the country's weak economy, the Danish government was interested in selling Saint Thomas.

[19] Vineta departed for a tour of the eastern coast of South America, stopping in several Brazilian ports before reaching Rio de Janeiro by October.

The situation in the region was tense, as the neighboring Portuguese colony of Angola was delivering arms to the Herero rebels, and at the same time, the Russian Second Pacific Squadron had stopped to coal at Lüderitz Bay in German South West Africa, en route to its ultimate destruction at the Battle of Tsushima of the Russo-Japanese War.

Vineta was not directly involved in any action in the colony, instead only assisting the steamer SS Gertrud Woermann in unloading soldiers, horses, and supplies, which had arrived on the night of 19–20 November.

In June, Korvettenkapitän (KK—Corvette Captain) Eberhard von Mantey took command of the ship, though he served in the position for just a month before being replaced by KzS Schäfer.

She then went into dry-dock for periodic maintenance from 6 July to 5 September, by which time the new armored cruiser Friedrich Carl had replaced her in the Torpedo Testing Command.

After exchanging her cadets for another cohort for the 1912–1913 training year, she made a short cruise in July to visit Stockholm, Sweden, and Libau, Russia.

[26] As the Bulgarian army was poised to march on Constantinople during the First Balkan War, the Great Powers deployed a naval force to ensure the safety of foreign nationals in the Ottoman Empire.

Another period of domestic unrest had broken out in Haiti in January 1914, leading Vineta to steam to Port-au-Prince to protect German nationals in the city.

She went on a tour of Swedish ports, including Stockholm, Visby, and Gothenburg, along with Glücksburg, Germany, over the summer of 1914, shortly before the outbreak of World War I.