Th e Fate of the “Improved Tegetthoff” Class

In a draft agreement made in April 1914, 283.13 million Kronen was the share of the Austrian and 135.71 million Kronen (two battleships, six destroyers and two monitors) the share of the Hungarian industry.417 Th is meant only 32.4 % instead of 36.4 % of the orders for Hungary. Because a written formal agreement is missing from the fi les of the Kriegsarchiv, it is not known what the Navy exactly presented to the Hungarian negotiating party led by Finance Minister Teleszky. Doubtlessly, it should have been satisfactory for the Hungarians because on 20 May the Hungarian delegation voted in favor of the credit without any debate. On 28 May the Austrian delegation voted in favor of the credit as well, but only after a brief debate. Th e Austrian Social Democrat Karl Leuth ner lamented that still more big, expensive battleships would be launched “into the ocean of the Austrian state debt.”418

Th e Fate of the “Improved Tegetthoff” Class

As was mentioned previously, on 1 July 1914 the Navy approved the fi nal design of the “Improved Tegetthoff” class. Unfortunately, there are a few unanswered questions about the fate of these battleships. Th e fi rst problem is that in the fi les of the Kriegsarchiv in Vienna there is no sign of an offi cial contract with either of the two shipyards.419 Only the ten plus one spare 35 cm guns were ordered from the Škoda works.420 In the spring of 1914, the Navy made the following building schedule for the battleships VIII-XI:421

VIII August 1914 – July 1917

IX August 1914 – August 1917

X January 1916 – January 1919

XI January 1916 – January 1919

However, in March 1914 the II Geschäftsgruppe questioned if the detailed plans of the 24,500 ton battleship would be completed in time.422 Th is may mean that the schedule above was too optimistic. Whatever the Navy actually ordered one or more battleships or not, some preparatory works continued after the outbreak of the war. On 5 August, the joints of the barbette armor were tested by fi ring a 30.5 cm projectile on them,423 but probably nothing signifi cant happened after this test. It is almost completely certain that neither of the fi rst two battleships was laid down, because the average time in Austria-Hungary between the order and the laying down of the keel of a battleship was 6 to 8 months and the battleships were cancelled a little more than four months after the outbreak of the war. Allegedly the Hungarian Finance Ministry tried to achieve the cancellation of the construction of the 24,500 ton battleships in October 1914. In December 1914, the 24,500 ton battleships were cancelled unoffi cially by the Navy,424 the offi cial cancellation occurred at the 3 February 1915 meeting of the common Council of Ministers. Formally the battleships were not cancelled but their construction was postponed until the end of the war.

From the eleven 35 cm guns ordered two were certainly fi nished and a third may have been fi nished.425 Th e fi rst gun, the Rohr Nr. 1 (Barrel No. 1) was tested at Pilsen in November 1914. Th ese guns were designated as 35 cm M16 and were used on the Italian Front and on the Romanian Front. On the latter front a 35 cm gun along with two 42 cm howitzers provided artillery support for the Mackensen-Army which crossed the Danube at Shvistov in November 1916. Th e Rohr Nr. 1 after fi ring 122 rounds was sent back from the Italian Front to the Škoda where it was found that despite its damaged chamber the gun was still serviceable.426 Th e ultimate fate of these guns after the war is unknown.

Little more than half a year after the cancellation of the 24,500 ton battleships, the Navy began to work on new battleship and battlecruiser designs. Th e MTK presented a series of battlecruiser proposals of 30,000 – 32,000 tons armed with 9×35 cm, 6×38 cm or 4×42 cm guns. In addition, two battleship proposals were made between 1915 and 1917, a 30,000 ton ship armed with 8×38 cm guns and a 37,000 ton ship armed with 8×42 cm guns.427 Th ese plans were completely unfeasible, in fact the Navy could not build ships larger than destroyers of 800 tons during the war, and the budget of the Navy declined after 1914. In sharp contrast to the ambitious battleship and battle cruiser proposals of the MTK, the sad reality was that the Navy had to keep in commission the tiny and obsolete coastal defense ships of the Monarch class which would have been replaced by the new battleships.

Finally, some remarks on the ship’s names: there is a popular belief that the fi rst 24,500 ton battleship to be laid down in the STT yard was to be named Laudon, while her sister which would have laid down in the Ganz and Co. Danubius was to

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