During this period, "Wörth" was commanded by Prince Heinrich, the younger brother of Wilhelm II; the senior watch officer aboard the ship in 1894 was Franz von Hipper, who went on to command the German battlecruiser squadron during World War I and later the entire High Seas Fleet. On 1 November, Czar Alexander III of Russia died; Wilhelm II initially planned to send his brother to St. Petersburg to represent Germany at the funeral aboard his flagship. But General Bernhard Franz Wilhelm von Werder suggested that sending a warship named for the Battle of Wörth of the still-recent Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 would antagonize the French delegation and would be unwise, given the recently signed Franco-Russian Alliance. Wilhelm II agreed, and so Prince Heinrich traveled to the funeral by train. After her sister entered service, she replaced "Wörth" as the fleet flagship. "Wörth" was thereafter assigned to I Division of I Squadron, in turn replacing the old ironclad .