Heinrich Pergler from Perglas

Henry Simon Wenzel Baron Pergler of Perglas (* 26. March 1871 in Ceske Budejovice , Bohemia ; † 17th December 1941 in Vienna ) was a Rear Admiral of the Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian navy and last commander of the battleship SMS Tegetthoff .

Life

Heinrich was the son of Johann Nepomuk Pergler von Perglas and Theresia Höfer and came from the noble family of Pergler von Perglas . As a frigate captain, he commanded the cruiser SMS Panther and the battleship Tegetthoff during the First World War .

After completing high school in Vienna, Pergler von Perglas entered the Austrian Naval Academy in Fiume in 1886 . In 1890 it was retired and transferred to the Austro-Hungarian Navy.

Pergler received his first command in 1900 with the torpedo boat Kukuk. After a period in the Trieste Maritime District Command in 1913, he took command of the small cruiser Panther in August 1914 .

When the Montenegrin army attacked the Bocche di Cattaro , a large Austro-Hungarian naval base in the southern Adriatic, in the autumn of 1914 , he was involved in the defense with his cruiser Panther, as well as in the following year in driving back the Montenegrins in the XIX. Corps Command .

After a time as Chief of Staff of the Second Division, he took command of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand in March 1918 , and finally as the captain of the Tegetthoff as its last in command. After the sinking of the sister ship SMS Szent István during the joint march to the barrier of Otranto, Pergler von Perglas and the commander Szent István had to face an admiral commission to clarify the circumstances, which investigated the behavior of the two captains of the line during the attack.

On January 1, 1919, Heinrich Freiherr Pergler von Perglas was retired with a simultaneous promotion to the rank of rear admiral. From then on, he devoted his time to the Austrian Navy Association, which he headed as Vice President until its dissolution after the annexation of Austria in 1938.

The sinking of the SMS Szent István

Pergler von Perglas is mentioned in the naval histories about the events of the First World War as commander of the Tegetthoff . The ship was under his command when the sister ship Szent István was sunk by an Italian torpedo boat while sailing from Pula to the southern Adriatic Sea .

On June 9, 1918, both ships ran south from Pula to Isola Grossa (today Dugi Otok ), as the first stage on the march to Otranto Strait in the southern Adriatic, where allied naval units had set up a barrier. The company of the Austro-Hungarian Navy should serve to break this barrier and gain the opportunity to continue operating with the fleet in the Mediterranean.

Two Italian torpedo boats fired at the two battleships in the hazy dawn, and the Szent István was hit by one or two torpedoes. The Tegetthoff was able to avoid two torpedoes fired at the ship. While the Szent István stayed afloat for a long time and only slowly began to list, the Tegetthoff was looking for the attackers and had to perform some time-consuming maneuvers due to several erroneous submarine alarms.

After about two hours an attempt was made to tow the Szent István , but the attempt came too late. The Tegetthoff was able to save 1,005 men from the water, 89 sailors went down with the Szent István .

From the deck of the Tegetthoff , an official camera team and the amateur filmmaker of the liner lieutenant Mensburg filmed the tragic moments after the accident up to the sinking of the Szent Istvan . As a promotional film for the support of the Austrian Red Cross , these tragic contemporary documents achieved notoriety all over Europe and the United States in a compilation.

The Admiralskommission, which was entrusted with the clarification of the circumstances of the accident, came to no final judgment before the end of the war. Of course, Pergler and the commander of the Szent Istvan , the liner of the line Seitz, were also accused of having reacted incorrectly at the moment of the catastrophe. The Tegetthoff should have towed her sister ship immediately to prevent her sinking by moving the ship into shallow waters. But she herself was under fire and had to avoid two Italian torpedoes in order not to be sunk herself. The Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Rear Admiral Miklós Horthy , and other officers, judged Pergler's reaction to the attack to be the right one to protect their own ship, as otherwise the Navy might have lost two ships.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Hans Hugo Sokol, Theodor Braun: Austria-Hungary Sea War 1914-18 , Academic Printing and Publishing Institute, 1967, page 13 ( excerpt )
2. ^ Antonio Schmidt-Brentano: The Austrian Admirals . Volume III: 1915-1924. Bissendorf 2005, 349f.
3. ^ Antonio Schmidt-Brentano: The Austrian Admirals . Volume III: 1915-1924. Bissendorf 2005, 350
4. ↑ ibid.
5. ↑ Aichelburg, Baumgartner a. a. (Ed.): The "Tegetthoff" class. Austria-Hungary's largest battleships . Mistelbach 1979, 96f.
6. ↑ Aichelburg, Baumgartner a. a. (Ed.): The "Tegetthoff" class. Austria-Hungary's largest battleships . Mistelbach 1979, 97f.
7. ^ Antonio Schmidt-Brentano: The Austrian Admirals . Volume III: 1915-1924. Bissendorf 2005, 354.

literature

• Aichelburg, Baumgartner u. a. (Ed.): The "Tegetthoff" class. Austria-Hungary's largest battleships . Mistelbach 1979
• Antony Preston, John Batchelor: Battleships 1856-1919 . London 1977
• Lothar Baumgartner (Ed.): Because Austria was once by the sea. The life of Admiral Alfred von Koudelka . Graz 1987
• Antonio Schmidt-Brentano: The Austrian Admirals . Volume III: 1915-1924. Bissendorf 2005
• Hans Hugo Sokol, Theodor Braun: Austria-Hungary Sea War 1914-18 , Academic Printing and Publishing Company, 1967