SS Fürst Bismarck was a Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) ocean liner.

The ship was the first of a pair of sisters that HAPAG commissioned, one from the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company in Glasgow, and the other from Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft in Kiel.

They were laid down as Wettin and Wittelsbach respectively, but launched as Fürst Bismarck and Kronprinzessin Cecilie.

The combined power of her twin engines was rated at 783 NHP[5] or 6,500 ihp,[1] and gave her a speed of 15 knots (28 km/h).

HAPAG planned her maiden voyage to start on 8 July, and to be a cruise around the British Isles and Norway.

[9] However, HAPAG abandoned the idea, and had her completed as a normal ocean liner, intended for its route between Genoa in Italy and Hoboken, New Jersey via Naples and Gibraltar.

[8][10] That November she landed in Hoboken 48 Sioux who had been performing in France in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, and were going home to Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

[12] On one voyage she left Havana on 21 December 1909, and grounded in fog off Octeville on the Cotentin Peninsula of France on 6 January 1910.

She rammed through the Government pier, hit the police wharf, and destroyed the Harbourmaster's launch.

[16] In April 1912 Francisco León de la Barra, former President of Mexico, returned from Europe to Vera Cruz aboard her.

[19][20] In January 1914 Fürst Bismarck made a crossing from Hamburg to Boston via Boulogne.

She faced continuously stormy weather from 11 to 15 January, one of her hatches was torn off, and part of her steerage passenger accommodation was flooded.

[21] In April 1914 the USA caught the HAPAG ship Ypiranga gun-running for President Victoriano Huerta's army in the Mexican Revolution.

HAPAG said she was there to load 3,000 tons of "miscellaneous cargo" to take to Vera Cruz and Puerto Mexico (now Coatzacoalcos).

[1] The Shipping Controller took ownership of her, and appointed the Orient Steam Navigation Company to manage her.