The Battle of the Otranto Straits: Controlling the Gateway to the Adriatic in World War I (review)

Paul G. Halpern is Professor of History at Florida State University and the author of the definitive history of the naval war in the Mediterranean during the Great War of 1914-18, as well as the superb Naval History of World War I. His most recent work is the latest publication in a series entitled Twentieth-Century Battles, edited by Spencer C. Tucker. Halpern's book is a comprehensive and detailed analysis of the Battle of the Otranto Straits that occurred in May 1917, and involved warships from the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary, Germany, Italy, Great Britain, and France. It is based upon source materials in the British Library, the Imperial War Museum, the state archives of Austria and Italy, as well as memoirs, personal histories, and an extensive bibliography of secondary works, among which are appropriately his own works.

The Strait of Otranto is a strategic stretch of water some sixty miles wide that separates the heel of the Italian boot from the eastern shore of the Adriatic just north of island of Corfu. British drifters laid nets and mines across the strait to keep Austrian and German submarines out of the Adriatic, hence the name Otranto barrage. Led by their light cruisers Novara, Helgoland and Saida, the Austrians attacked the drifters on 15 May 1917, severely damaging a number of them. As the Austrians steamed away, Allied forces sailed from Brindisi and cut off their retreat. A running battle ensued, severely damaging a number of ships, including the Novara and the British light cruiser Dartmouth. Reinforced by heavier ships like the Prinz Eugen from the Austrian base at Cattaro, that they referred to as the "Bocche," the Austrian vessels got away, outracing the slower Allied ships and causing a good deal more damage than they suffered.

Halpern sets the stage for the battle by noting the general conditions that influenced naval warfare in the Mediterranean and by describing in detail the specifications and fighting capabilities of the ships that would engage in the battle of 15 May. Notable is his praise of the rather surprising performance of the Austrian navy in the action and its daring and resourceful commander, Linienschiffskapitaen Nikolaus Horthy de Nagybanya. Following the defeat of the Dual Monarchy and the dissolution of the k. und k. Kriegsmarine, Horthy, usually addressed as "Admiral," went on to a controversial career in Hungary as a politician and statesman and died in exile in Portugal in 1957.

In the Epilogue, Halpern notes several broad and interesting similarities between the Battle of Jutland and the Otranto battle, sometimes called the "Mediterranean Jutland." He writes that, "the weaker fleet [Austrian] was able to escape after inflicting more damage than it suffered itself." Yet in one sense it was more complex than Jutland since it was "far more of a multi-national encounter," and on both sides aircraft and submarines "played a real though not decisive role." Photographs, maps, and sketches as well as complete and extensive citations complement this excellent analysis of naval warfare in the Mediterranean.