Balkan Studies | Info

The origin of the Austrian navy goes back its possession of the nautical city state of Trieste on the Adriatic Sea in 1382. Two fleets were maintained, one an oceangoing force in the Adriatic, the second an armed flotilla along the Danube River (which cuts through Vienna and eventually empties into the Black Sea). The Adriatic force expanded in 1797 with the Austrian acquisition of Venice with it the naval shipyards, docks and arsenal. By 1833 the Adriatic fleet had more than forty ships and was the sixth largest in the world. In 1840 a naval expedition to Syria led to the first overseas Austrian adventure. In 1853 the Austrian navy moved its main base to Pula (now in Croatia) and changed its command language to German from Italian after the loss of the state of Venice. In 1857 the steamship Navora circumnavigated the globe on a scitific voyage. The fleet fought the last ever combat between all wooden ships in the Battle of Heligoland on 9 May 1864 in Danish War. With the end of the wooden era, the fleet also fought the first battle between fully armored fleets against the Italian navy on 20 July 1866 at the Battle of Lissa which the Austrians also won. Austrian ships sailed to Brazil and Mexico in the 1860’s in an effort to prop up Austrian Emperor Maximilian (who had formerly been the commander of the Austrian navy) of Mexico’s doomed empire. In 1867 Austria became a dual monarchy with a union with Hungary in which the Hapsburg king ruled both countries. The turn of the century saw Austrian ships in the Pacific Ocean, fighting in China during the Boxer rebellion.

The Danube River as it stood in 1914 was had a length inside the empire of 2,840 kilometers and was an important defensive line. Not only trade plied its waters, but it became a supply line during wartime. From the 16th century the Austrians maintained armed flotillas on the river and in 1830 launched their first steamship the Franz I on the river from Vienna. In 1870 two revolving turret armored monitors were built, joined by another two in 1892 and a third pair in 1905. The first shots of the war were fired by these ships floating in the river in front of the Serbian capital of Belgrade on July 29, 1914. The river monitors fought the whole war against the allies in the Balkans and later in the Black Sea area. The cruiser Kaiserin Elisabeth, caught in the Pacific six thousand miles from home went down fighting Japanese naval forces in the German treaty port of Tsing-tau in China. The crew scuttled the ship in deep water after running out of ammunition.

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