SS Prinz Adalbert was a twin-screw cargo liner that was launched in Germany in 1902 for Hamburg America Line (HAPAG).

Later that year she sailed from Hamburg to Mexico, on a direct service that did not call at ports in the West Indies.

Steerage fares from New York would be $15 to Naples and Genoa, and $16 to Trieste in Italy and Fiume in Austria-Hungary (now Rijeka in Croatia).

He wrote that "On one side red paint was plainly visible, which has the appearance of having been made by the scraping of a vessel on the iceberg."

At the time, no-one aboard Prinz Adalbert' was aware that on the night of 14–15 April RMS Titanic had struck an iceberg and sunk.

[11][12] By 1914 she and Prinz Oskar served a North Atlantic route between Hamburg and Philadelphia, sometimes with an intermediate call at Emden.

Her Master was advised to put to sea,[clarification needed] but he chose to keep his ship in Falmouth,[14] where the Admiralty seized her.

[15] Prinz Adalbert was renamed Prince, and on 17 December 1914 became a accommodation ship at Invergordon, Scotland.

[16] On 17 January 1917 Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique (CNSA) of Marseille bought her at auction in a damaged condition.

In September 1917 Alesia left Bordeaux for Cardiff carrying coal and general cargo.