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AUSTRO
HUNGARIAN
BATTLESHIPS 1914
18
RYAN NOPPEN
ILLUSTRATED BY PAUL WRIGHT
© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
NEW VANGUARD 193
AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN
BATTLESHIPS 1914–18
RYAN NOPPEN
ILLUSTRATED BY PAUL WRIGHT
© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
4
MONARCH CLASS
5
t
Armament
t
Armor and Machinery
HABSBURG CLASS
9
t
Armament
t
Armor and Machinery
ERZHERZOG KARL CLASS
13
t
Armament
t
Armor and Machinery
RADETZKY CLASS
17
t
Armament
t
Armor and Machinery
TEGETTHOFF CLASS
21
t
Armament
t
Armor and Machinery
AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN BATTLESHIP ACTIONS IN
WORLD WAR I
28
t
Securing the Cattaro Naval Base
t
The Bombardment of Ancona
t
The Cortellazzo Bombardment
t
The Loss of
Wien
t
The Loss of
Szent István
t
The Last Days of Austria-Hungary’s Battleships
BIBLIOGRAPHY
47
INDEX
48
© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN
BATTLESHIPS 1914–18
INTRODUCTION
The Battle of Lissa on July 20, 1866, in which Austrian Admiral Wilhelm von
Tegetthoff won a decisive naval victory over a numerically superior Italian foe,
is typically celebrated as the greatest maritime event in the history of the
Habsburg Empire, but ironically it also marked the beginning of some of the
most stagnant years in the history of the Kaiserlich Königlich (k.k.) Kriegs-
Marine (known as the Kaiserliche und Königliche [k.u.k.] Kriegsmarine after
23 October 1889). When peace was made with Italy on October 3, 1866,
ofcial interest in Habsburg naval power rapidly waned. One of the principal
reasons for this was the establishment of the dual monarchy of Austria-
Hungary in 1867, which gave a Hungarian parliament in Budapest an equal
say in the governing of the empire. Since the Hungarian half of the empire had
minimal manufacturing capability and little interest in overseas trade, the
Hungarian parliament almost always refused
to grant new funds for imperial naval
construction and expansion. The cause of
naval expansion took another serious blow in
1882 when, politically, Italy was no
longer seen as a potential naval rival after
the Triple Alliance between Germany,
Austria- Hungary, and Italy was formed.
With no prospect of naval war on the horizon
and Hungarian refusal to maintain a modern
eet, which it considered unnecessary and
not pertinent to Hungarian interests, the k.k.
Kriegs-Marine languished with a motley
collection of old casemate battleships and
only a sliver of the empire’s annual
defense budget.
The lack of funding pushed the Austrian
naval leadership, particularly Admiral
Maximilian Daublebsky von Sterneck, to
pursue a minimal eet program of smaller
torpedo vessels inspired by the Jeune École.
As the captain of Tegetthoff’s agship at the
Battle of Lissa, Sterneck also clung to the idea
that ramming a more powerful opponent was
Kaiser Wilhelm II and Archduke
Franz Ferdinand. Like the
German Kaiser, Franz Ferdinand
was keen to expand Austria-
Hungary’s navy and was one of
its strongest supporters in the
years leading up to World War I.
(Author’s collection)
4
© Osprey Publishing • www.ospreypublishing.com
still a viable combat tactic. As the theories of the
Jeune École were laid to rest by the increasing
size and more effective guns of the rst modern
battleships, the k..k. Kriegs-Marine found itself
woefully outclassed compared to other navies.
Even the veterans of Lissa came to realize that
the future of naval combat lay with the long-
range naval rie instead of the ram bow. Under
the tenures of Admiral Hermann von Spaun and
Admiral Rudolf Graf von Montecuccoli degli
Erri, and with the backing of the naval-minded
heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand,
the k.k. Kriegs-Marine experienced, in its own
unique way, a modern naval renaissance
beginning at the turn of the century. Inuenced
by the theories of Alfred Thayer Mahan and the
concept of a “eet-in-being,” these leaders
realized that a fleet made up of modern
battleships was necessary to protect not just the
hundreds of miles of coastline of the empire but
also the growing domestic maritime industries
and overseas commerce against the increasing
threat of Italian irredentism. By the beginning of
World War I, despite intense domestic political
opposition, draconian budget limitations, and
the use of extralegal means, the k.u.k.
Kriegsmarine possessed a compact but powerful
force of modern battleships.
The launch of the Monarch-
class battleship
Budapest
at
STT’s San Rocco yard near
Muggia on April 27, 1896. In
less than two decades the k.u.k.
Kriegsmarine would possess
battleships almost four times
larger.
MONARCH CLASS
As the navies of the world’s Great Powers gradually accepted as standard the
pre-dreadnought conguration for their battleships throughout the 1890s,
even Admiral Sterneck felt compelled to compromise his adherence to the
Jeune École and the strategies of Lissa, and follow international developments.
In 1892 he requested funds for the construction of a class of three identical
coastal defense battleships. The designer of the resulting Monarch class was
Generalschiffbauingenieur Siegfried Popper, who would design all of the
Austro-Hungarian battleships and dreadnoughts that served in World War I.
After studying engineering at universities in Prague and Karlsruhe, Popper
joined the k.k. Kriegs-Marine in 1869 as an assistant engineer and eventually
worked his way up into the design and construction department. In 1907 he
retired as head of the 1st Department of the Navy Technology Committee.
His rst experience was supervising the construction of the torpedo cruisers
Panther
and
Leopard
, built by Armstrong Mitchell & Company in Great
Britain, but he was eventually called upon to prepare designs for a new class
of coastal defense ships. For the rest of his career, Popper faced the arduous
task of trying to design powerful battleships under what were probably the
most strictly limited budgets enforced upon a navy by any of the Great Powers.
He would design ve different battleship classes under these conditions over
the course of two decades.
5
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