Fleet of the Austro-Hungarian Navy

Flag of the Austro-Hungarian Navy

The fleet of the Imperial Navy was at the beginning of the first World War as one of the ten largest fleets in the world, however, was the smallest of the fleets of the major European powers. The reason for this was that the monarchy was a decidedly continental power with no particularly pronounced overseas interests. For your main tasks:

Securing your own coast
Securing Austro-Hungarian merchant shipping
Presence on the oceans

but the Navy was adequately armed. The light units ( destroyers (officially: torpedo vehicles) and torpedo boats ) and the rapid cruisers were very well suited for warfare on the Adriatic and especially on the Dalmatian coast. The modern battleships of the Tegetthoff class were designed as an answer to battleship building in Italy, also for use on the Adriatic and the rest of the Mediterranean.

The naval command under the commandant Admiral Anton Haus reckoned with (the actually allied Triple Alliance ) Italy , Russia and possibly France as possible enemies, a war against Great Britain was inconceivable.

The fleet of the k. u. k. The Kriegsmarine was divided into squadrons , flotillas and divisions . Since 1911 the reconnaissance forces of the fleet were combined in the independent cruiser flotilla.

Fleet of ships of the line

1st squadron

The 1st squadron of the fleet was under the command of Viceadmiral Maximilian Njegovan . It consisted of the ships of the 1st and 2nd Heavy Division.

1st Heavy Division

The 1st Heavy Division comprised the Tegetthoff class dreadnoughts . The command led the chief of the 1st squadron:

Another battleship of this class, the SMS Szent István , was still under construction when the war began.

2nd Heavy Division

The second severity Division under the command of Rear-Admiral Anton Willenik consisted of the battleships of the Radetzky class :

2nd squadron

The 2nd Squadron, led by Admiral Franz Löfler , was formed from the ships of the 3rd and 4th Heavy Divisions. The ships of the 4th Heavy Division were already out of date when the war began.

3rd Heavy Division

The ships of the line of the Archduke class were combined in the 3rd Heavy Division . The command was led by Admiral Franz Löfler.

4th Heavy Division

The 4th Heavy Division , consisting of the ships of the line SMS Habsburg , SMS Arpad and SMS Babenberg , was led by Kontreadmiral Karl Seidensacher . The ships of the 4th Heavy Division were already out of date when the war began.

The 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Heavy Divisions formed the fleet of ships of the line for active war missions.

The battleships took part in only a few operations during the First World War. Most of the time they were in the harbors by their anchor buoys .

Cruiser flotilla

The cruiser flotilla comprised the light forces of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, cruisers, torpedo vehicles and torpedo boats. The command of the flotilla was Vice Admiral Paul Fiedler.

1st cruiser division

The armored cruisers Sankt Georg and Kaiser Karl VI belonged to the 1st cruiser division . , the rapid cruiser Helgoland and the small cruisers Aspern , SMS Kronprinz Archduke Rudolf and Zenta .

1st Torpedo Vehicle Division

In the 1st torpedo vehicle division of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, the modern destroyers of the Tátra class (officially called torpedo vehicles) of the Navy and nine torpedo boats were combined. The lead ship was the rapid cruiser Saida , commander of the frigate captain Heinrich Seitz .

SMT Tátra , SMT Balaton , SMT Lika , SMT Csepel , SMT Triglav , SMT Orjen . (SMT as a prefix stands for S of a M ajestät T orpedo vehicle.)

2nd torpedo vehicle division

In the 2nd Torpedo Boat Division , 6 torpedo vehicles and 18 torpedo boats were combined under the command of frigate captain Benno von Millenkovich . The lead ship was the rapid cruiser SMS Admiral Spaun .

The cruiser flotilla, along with the submarines, carried the brunt of the fighting during the war.

The outdated small cruiser SMS Kaiserin Elisabeth was at the start of the war as a station ship in East Asia. He took part in the defense of the German naval base in Tsingtau and was sunk by his own crew.

Ships for guard and security duties

The outdated ships of the line of the 5th Heavy Division SMS Monarch , SMS Wien and SMS Budapest , as well as the old cruisers of the 2nd cruiser division SMS Kaiser Franz Joseph I and SMS Panther, were used for guard and security tasks (e.g. position of the harbor guard ships) used.

Submarine station

See also: SM submarines

The submarine was the newest weapon in the navy at the beginning of the 20th century. How the optimal boat should be made and how it should be used was not yet clear in the navies of that time. The Austro-Hungarian Navy wanted to test boats of various types in order to find out the most suitable type for warfare near the coast in the Adriatic.

In the spring of 1914, the submarine station (subordinate to the Port Admiralate of Pola ) consisted of the boats SMU 1, SMU 2, SMU 3, SMU 4, SMU 5 and SMU 6.

SMU 1 and 2 were built from SMU naval arsenal in Pola, SMU 3 and 4 SMU boats of the Germaniawerft in Kiel and SMU 5 and 6 were SMU boats Whitehead shipyard in Fiume on the design principles of the American John Philip Holland .

After the war began, the boats were moved to Brioni , which became the first kuk submarine base.

literature

Austria-Hungary's last war 1914–1918 . Published by the Austrian Ministry for Army Affairs and the War Archives, Verlag der Militarywissenschaftlichen Mitteilungen, Vienna 1931
Erwin Sieche: The cruisers of the Austro-Hungarian Navy . In: Marine-Arsenal , Volume 27, Podzun-Pallas, Wölfersheim 1994
Erwin Sieche: The battle cruiser projects of the kuk Naval Technical Committee Pola . In: Schiff und Zeit , No. 43, Koehler, Hamburg 1996