Austro-Hungarian Kriegsmarine
An introduction to the Austro-Hungarian Navy on the eve of the First World War.
When I do submarine tours and I mention that torpedos were first developed by a chap called Whitehead for the Austro-Hungarian navy it often raises a few eyebrows.
Austria was not always landlocked and the Dual Monarchy was quite a powerful European force during the nineteenth century though much like Ottoman Turkey it was very much on the wane by the twentieth century.
But what was their Navy like by 1914 and were they a threat?
Austro-Hungary, unlike Britain, France and Germany did not have any overseas colonies… well they did have a small sector of the port of Tianjin in China along with the Germans, British, French, Italians, Japanese,Russians and Americans but it hardly counts. With most of the Empire’s colonial ambitions being in mainland Europe there was little need for a large navy which was further compounded by the Dual Monarchy’s parliaments with the mostly landlocked Hungary unwilling to spend money on warships which little benefitted them,
There was, however, Italy.
In the UK we often forget that there were other things going on and concentrate on our Naval race with Germany but at the same time Italy and Austro-Hungary were competing for the Adriatic. Neither power was happy with a large Maritime power within striking distance of their coastlines.
The Triple Alliance actually benefited both powers against France and Italy’s neutrality if Russia got involved in a conflict with Austro-Hungary and Germany.
The problem was that both powers were brow beaten into the agreement by Germany and both had designs on the Balkans and Adriatic islands as well as having three wars in a thirty four year period, especially with Austro-Hungary opposing Italian unification.
Does seem to be a convenience thing grudgingly held together and although both would be challenging France’s navy for control of the Mediterranean they were also eyeing each other suspiciously and building an insurance force.
In 1905 Admiral Montecuccoli the relatively newly appointed Marinekommandant of the fleet put forward a proposal for a massive expansion of the fleet including twelve battleships, though relatively smaller than the dreadnoughts that would appear, whilst Ivan Sustersic suggested three larger warships of around 20,000 tons but with smaller calibre guns. The Hungarian side of the Empire were not as enthused about it (for the reasons I’ve already mentioned) and the cost of the warships though the Austrian Naval league argued that theit growing Merchant marine and the rise in Italian naval spending as incentive enough to have a larger force of warships.
Montecuccoli submitted a proposal in 1908 to Franz Joseph I with the plan of 16 battleships, 12 cruisers, 24 destroyers, submarines and torpedo boats including four dreadnoughts displacing 20,000 tons. Three months later the proposals were in the Italian Press and by June 1909 the Italian dreadnought Dante Alighieri was on the slips undergoing construction.
Meanwhile the Austro-Hungarian dreadnoughts were nowhere to be found as there had been a political crash in the Hungarian Diet leaving them leaderless and unable to verify budgets. The Wilkowitz Iron Works and Skoda were willing to build three of the four ships at their own expense with the agreement that they would get paid as soon as the budgets were ratified but this was soon reduced to two and the Chief of General Staff, Conrad von Hotzendorf, alluded in his memoirs to a deal that would see a “reliable ally” purchasing them if the money was not forthcoming *cough* Germany *cough*,
This was no small financial risk as they looked to cost some 60 million Krone each! There was also no garauntee that they would raise the funds from the budget as previous allocations of cash had been a lot smaller with the 1909 budget being 100 million Krone so the Navy was already 40 million in the hole just from the two ships they’d purchased and that didn’t cover all the other yearly expenses. It had got to the point where Archduke Franz Ferdinand was courting the favour of the owner of the Witkowitz Iron works, Albert von Rothschild, to get his family’s money to prop up the project until the Government came through.
So what did Austria have on the eve of the War?
By 1914 three of the Tegetthoff dreadnoughts had been built, the Tegetthoff, Viribus Unitis and Prinz Eugen with the Szent Istvan launched but still being fitted out and awaiting commission. These vessels were relatively small compared to their Anglo-German counterparts but ideally suited to war in the Adriatic, They were the first dreadnoughts to carry triple mounted guns (12 inches) in four turrets as well as twelve single mounted 6 inch guns and eighteen 2.6 inch guns as well as four torpedo tubes which were bow mounted. Armour wise they sported an 11 inch belt, 2 to 11 inch turret armour and a 1-2 inch deck armour all with a top speed of 20 knots. They were small capable ships with a punch. I’m not sure how well they would have stood up against British dreadnoughts - and of course the Super dreadnoughts, but for the region they were a definite force to be reckoned with and powerful enough that the British were concerned at one stage that the Austrians were actually building them for the Germans.
Most of the fleet’s battleships were Pre-dreadnoughts though and although they were obsolete compared to a dreadnought they were still battleships and could offer quite a bit of fire power.
The newest were the Radetzky class pre/semi dreadnought consisting of Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand, Radetzky and Zrinyi who similar to the Tegetthoff’s, sported four 12 inch guns in two turrets, eight 9.4 inch guns and a selection of smaller calibre whilst having a 9 inch belt and a top speed of 20.5 knots so broadly similar to Britain’s last pre-Dreadnought, the Lord Nelson class.
There was also the three older Erzherzog Karl class and three even older Habsburg class which were much less useful to the fleet but could be used for bombardments.
Cruiser wise they had three very new, fast, light cruisers, the Novara class. Their armament was a little light compared to British and German cruisers (nine 3.9 inch guns compared to the British 6 inch and German 4.1 inch average armaments) but they had a top speed of 27 knots. There was also the Admiral Spaun which was slightly older but broadly similar. There were also the three obsolete Zenta class light cruisers, the elderly armoured cruiser Sankt Georg, Kaiser Karl VI and the Kaiserin und Konigin Maria Theresia which had been commissioned in 1894. There was one class of cruiser left, the Kaiser Franz Joseph I protected cruiser (which means it has armoured deck to protect the engine rooms) which had been built in 1890 but only the Kaiser Franz Joseph I was in the Adriatic and her sister Kaiserin Elisabeth was in the Pacific.
Finally the fleet had a smattering of destroyers, torpedo boats and a small (but growing) U-boat arm though they were still outnumbered in the region by Italy… and France in fact the only maritime powers who didn’t outnumber them were Britain and Germany.
Admiral Haus, the fleet commander on the eve of War, was in a similar quandary as his German counterparts in Berlin as although his force could provide quite a punch if it was engaged by superior force he would suffer losses he could not replace.
The obvious target at the commencement of War with France would be the troop transports carrying a French Division from Algeria to the South of France. If this could be intercepted it would cause massive problems for French defenders in the face of German aggression.
Talking of Germany, for their part had the battlecruiser SMS Goeben operating from Austro-Hungarian ports flying the Imperial standard (but I’ll talk about the Mittelmeergeschwader another time.) under Vizeadmiral Wilhelm Souchon.
Souchon was keen to enact such a raid on French reinforcements with a combined German, Austro-Hungarian and Italian task force which could disrupt the (believed) French cordon and decimate the Merchant vessels laden with soldiers.
Haus was non-committal and was interested to see what Italy did first or if their own High Command wanted to do as plans already existed to preemptively strike at Italy.
As the July crisis moved on and Germany backed Austro-Hungary to the hilt and vice versa the Italians seemed to waiver and everyone held their breath .
If you want to know more about Austro-Hungary’s naval war it is something I want to write more about as part of my First World War at Sea posts so do please subscribe if you haven’t already!
If you want a short handbook guide to the ships of the Austro-Hungarian navy which gives a short biography of each class and all their statistics, most of which I’ve left out here, then you can’t really go wrong with Russell Phillip’s “A Fleet in Being, Austro Hungarian Warships of WW1”.
Chris when I did the graphic novel, the Von Trapps … I am sure one page was how senior Von Trapp worked on R@D for torpedos? … I think I drew him as a Heinz Wolff mad professor (reference for the kids) 🙏
Fascinating Chris, looking forward to hearing more. Cheers