SMS Gneisenau
"Gneisenau" was laid down at the AG Weser shipyard in Bremen, Germany in 1904, under construction number 144. She was launched on 14 June 1906, and commissioned into the fleet nearly two years later on 6 March 1908. The ship cost the German government 19,243,000 goldmarks. The ship had been designed for service with the High Seas Fleet, though it was found to be too weak for service with the battle fleet; instead it was deployed overseas, a role in which it performed well.
SMS Gneisenau
Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen, the former Chief of the General staff, christened the ship at her commissioning on 6 March 1908. Captain Franz von Hipper was the ship's first commanding officer; he took command of the ship the day she was commissioned. He was tasked with conducting the ship's shakedown cruise, which lasted from 26 March to the middle of July. She officially joined the fleet on 12 July. The ship then departed for Asia, though Hipper left the ship and went on to command the I Torpedo-boat Division in Kiel. "Gneisenau" was assigned to the "Ostasiengeschwader" (East Asia Squadron), where in 1910 she joined "Scharnhorst", which had been assigned to the unit the previous year. The two ships formed the core of the squadron, with "Scharnhorst" serving as the flagship. The pair were crack gunnery ships; "Gneisenau" won the Kaiser's Cup four times during her career: twice while in German waters in 1908 and 1909 and twice in Asia in 1910 and 1911, and "Scharnhorst"s finished in second place in 1913 and 1914.