EPILOGUE

Íme, hát megleltem hazámat. a földet, ahol nevemet hibátlanul irják fölébem, ha eltemet, ki eltemet.

E föld befogad, mint a persely. Mert nem kell (mily sajnálatos!) a háborúból visszamaradt húszfi lléres, a vashatos.

József Attila611

Th e year 1904 was a milestone in the history of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Several important symbolic events occurred that year. Th e fi rst was the extraordinary credit that was voted for the Navy. Th anks to this credit, for the fi rst time in its history, the Navy’s budget exceeded ten percent of the armed force’s total budget. In September 1904, the Österreichische Flottenverein (Austrian Navy League) was established following the example of the successful German Flottenverein. Over the next ten years the membership of the Austrian Flottenverein increased by a thousand times. Th e strength of the Flottenverein was not only the dynamically growing number of members, but also in the advocacy capacity of the joining politicians and industrialists. Among the external factors the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War had a decisive role. Th e successful Japanese raid on Port Arthur fundamentally questioned the Austro-Hungarian doctrine of “pure coastal defense,” and the reviving Italian threat was more imminent than since 1866. Last, but not least that is when the Navy decided to make a qualitative leap in battleship construction. Th is intention marked a break with the doctrine of “pure coastal defense.”

Th e story told by this book also began in 1904. Design works were started in that year on the fi rst “dreadnought” battleships which were offi cially designated as battleship (Schlachtschiff ) and which later became the Radetzky class. Th e next ten years were characterized by intensive development of the Austro-Hungarian fl eet. During this period the Navy’s budget nearly tripled and the proportion of the naval budget’s share of the armed force’s total budget reached 25 percent. Between December 1906 and May 1914, the delegations voted the expenses of three battleship classes with a total value of 688.6 million Kronen. Th e total price of the seven battleships actually built was 360.4 million Kronen. Th e Austro-Hungarian Navy spent 891.6 million Kronen on ship construction, repair and naval artillery between 1900 and 1914, the price of the last two battleships classes totaled up to 40 percent of this amount.

Already at the time of the construction of these battleships the question was raised: would the Dual Monarchy need these ships? Since the end of the World War I this question has been raised time and again. Th e other frequently asked question is: was the Austro-Hungarian fl eet a “luxury fl eet,” as Winston Churchill labeled the Imperial German Navy? Th e answers to these questions are not as obvious as many people may think. True, if one looks at the history of the war and at the role of the Austro-Hungarian capital ships which spent almost the entire war moored idly in their naval bases, one can easily come to the conclusion that building these battleships was a tremendous waste of money. However, it should be taken into account that the development of an army or a navy is determined by the experiences of the wars of the past and by the trends of the present, and not by the expectations of the future. It is unfair to call the Navy to account for not taking into account the experiences of 1914-1918 in 1911. In 1911, both past experiences and current trends suggested that the Dual Monarchy should build dreadnought battleships.

Compared to the ideology and propaganda behind the German naval buildup, the reasons for the Austro-Hungarian fl eet development were more realistic: the Italian threat to Austria-Hungary was much less imaginary than the British threat to Germany. Th e defi ning experience of the Austro-Hungarian Navy and the cornerstone of the naval thinking was the Battle of Lissa of 1866. Th e Austro-Hungarian Navy’s primary task was fi ghting a local war with the Italian Navy and in 1914 it would have had a much better chance against the

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Italian fl eet than the German Navy had against the Royal Navy. Unluckily, in August 1914 the Austro-Hungarian Navy found itself in a global war instead of a local war and had to face the combined naval forces of France and Britain. Th e situation became even worse, when in May 1915 Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary.

Th e Austro-Hungarian Monarchy had the lowest per capita military spending of any of the European Great Powers excluding Russia. Some calculations suggest that Austro-Hungarian military spending per capita when adjusted for purchasing power was considerably below the level of Russia. Th e proportion of the Dual Monarchy’s naval budget’s share of the armed force’s total budget was the second lowest among the European Great Powers, this share was the lowest again in Russia. Th ese fi gures do not suggest that the Austro-Hungarian naval buildup in the last decade prior to 1914 would have exceeded the Empire’s fi nancial burden-bearing capacity. Th is naval buildup and the rise of the naval budget seemed only to be so enormous because it started from a very low level. It should be noted that this development was aimed at countering a real threat, unlike the German naval buildup.

After the lost war several army generals of the former Empire were complaining in their memoires about the prewar “Fleet folly”. Th ese generals did not understand the true nature of navalism. Th ey did not realize that in the age of navalism armies often did not share the same popularity as the navies. Th is was especially true for the Dual Monarchy. In Austria the South Slavs and the Czechs supported the development of the Navy while in the case of the common Army they were much less enthusiastic. In Hungary the common Army was the symbol of the Habsburg oppression while the Navy was regarded as a distant, exotic and Austrian matter. Because the Navy was less of a symbol of oppression it was easier to fi nd a way to sway the thinking of the Hungarian political elite. Th ey were converted to the cause of the Navy through their pockets. On the other hand, the postwar laments of generals were not entirely true. Th e new Army Service Law of 1912 (Kriegsleitungsgesetze in Austria and Véderőtörvény in Hungary) signifi cantly increased the number of the yearly contingent of the new recruits and also in 1912 the delegations voted a 250 million Kronen extraordinary credit for the Army. Th is credit enabled the long needed modernization of the Army artillery. Th e only problem was that a fraction of this modernization program was implemented until 1914. Blaming only the development of the Navy for the shortcomings in the development of the Army seems to be a bit unjust and similar statements do not fully live up to the facts.

Looking at the history of the Austro-Hungarian naval buildup between 1904 and 1914, there may be many criticism of it. First, there is the question of how the budget was spent eff ectively. Compared to the British and German prices the Austro-Hungarian Navy had to pay a price 20 percent higher for almost every item. Th e Navy was forced to order items from the more expensive domestic industry because it was the only way to secure the voting of its budget. Th e Navy’s attempts to break down the prices of the Austrian naval industry regularly failed. Involvement of the Hungarian industry in the warship building did not resolve this problem because it was a result of a political deal, and the Hungarians tried to ask for even higher prices. Th e other problem was the asymmetry of the development of the fl eet. Th e absolute priority of the battleship construction resulted in that there were not enough funds in the naval budget for the smaller vessels. Th ese were badly missed during the war especially the lack of the modern destroyers and submarines. Th is asymmetry is perfectly refl ected in the fact that while in 1914 Italy had only a modest superiority in modern battleships over the Dual Monarchy the Italian Navy’s superiority in destroyers, torpedo boats and submarines was twofold over the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Last, it has to be mentioned that the two battleship classes built after 1904 while more expensive compared to the Western ships suff ered from many design fl aws. Th e armament of the Radetzky class battleships, thanks to the pressure from the Marinekommandant Admiral Montecuccoli, was obsolete even on the drawing board. Th e Tegetthoff class battleships, primarily thanks also to Montecuccoli and the artifi cial weight limit of 20,000 tons were too small for the amount of weapons carried. Th is caused stability problems and a weak hull structure thanks to the weight savings needed to accommodate four triple turrets on a small ship. Th e torpedo protection system of both classes was fl awed as its design was based purely upon useless theoretical

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calculations. It is incomprehensible why the Navy accepted the fl awed design for the dreadnoughts in late 1909 while from May 1909 they knew the results of the German underwater explosion tests which, had they been used, would have eliminated these fl aws.

Th rough the expansion of the Navy and the construction of its real battleships, especially the four dreadnoughts, Austria-Hungary secured a full membership in the club of the great powers. In the age of the navalism, especially after the revival of the Italian threat in 1902, the Dual Monarchy had to build battleships in order to deter Italy at sea. Th e memory of the Battle of Lissa was still vivid on both sides. Without its dreadnoughts Austria-Hungary would not have been a strategic factor in the Mediterranean on the eve of the World War I.

As was mentioned previously, the Habsburg Empire’s navy was primarily developed for fi ghting a local war with Italy. In August 1914, the Austro-Hungarian Navy, the eighth largest navy of the world, found itself in a global war and was gradually confronted with the fi rst and the third to seventh largest navies of the world. From 1917, aside the Italian, British and French units already present, Japanese and American warships also appeared on the Adriatic. Without the prewar naval buildup especially the dreadnoughts and the submarines even securing the Empire’s long Adriatic coastline would have been endangered. Th e only things that kept these forces from invading the Empire were the fear of the lethal torpedoes of the submarines and of the Austro-Hungarian dreadnoughts. Together they deterred every large scale Allied naval operation on the Adriatic and the Empire’s Adriatic frontier was never really endangered until October 1918.

As the Adriatic was a secondary theater, the Allied naval commanders, considering the possible gains and losses followed a cautious policy and especially after the summer of 1915 they kept off their large, armored units out of the Adriatic. Th e largest units of the Austro-Hungarian Navy spent almost the entire war at Pola in inactivity, but their “fl eet in being” status posed an active threat throughout the war. Th e Empire’s navy and its newest battleships tied down a part of the naval power of the Allies, warships that could have been better used elsewhere.

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