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c h a p t e r o n e THE NAVAL WAR IN THE ADRIATIC the naval war in the Adriatic was shaped by certain peculiar geographical features. The Adriatic Sea is really an arm of the Mediterranean in the rough shape of a long narrow rectangle. The Strait of Otranto forms the entrance to the Mediterranean and is roughly sixty miles wide. The distance between the eastern and western shores of the Adriatic is usually not much more. Consequently, after the entry of Italy into the war on the side of the Entente , the opposing naval forces were really only a few hours steaming distance apart. The Strait of Otranto seemed a convenient place to prevent exit from the Adriatic into the waters of the Mediterranean as well as to block access by sea to the Habsburg Monarchy from the rest of the world. The Austrian ¤eld for potential maneuver was therefore relatively limited. On the other hand, within the Adriatic, geography compensated the Austrians for this handicap. The eastern or Austrian side of the Adriatic has a large number of islands forming a protective offshore defensive chain endowed with internal passages that the Austrians could navigate at least partially sheltered from outside attack. In contrast , the western or Italian side of the Adriatic was open, making the Italian coast much easier to attack, particularly at dawn when the rising sun would be in the eyes of the defenders. The two major Austrian naval bases were located near the extremities of the Adriatic, notably Pola at the tip of the Istrian peninsula in the north and the Gulf of Cattaro in the south. The latter was usually referred to as the “Bocche” by the Austrians, and the term appears in the majority of both private and of¤cial correspondence. The leading Austrian 2 the battle of the otranto straits commercial port and shipbuilding center—Trieste—was virtually in the front line once Italy entered the war, and its shipbuilding yards were largely unusable . The major Italian naval bases were at Venice in the north and, with limited capacity and primarily used by light forces, Brindisi in the south. The Italian battle ¶eet was not in the Adriatic but was located at Taranto, in the arch of the Italian boot. The talk of an Austrian ¶eet might puzzle a reader not familiar with nineteenthcentury European history. It has been more than eighty years since the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary disappeared from the ranks of the great powers. After 1918 both Austria and Hungary were separated, drastically reduced in size, and limited to the Danube River for access to the sea. Matters were quite different at the outbreak of the First World War. Austria had direct access to the sea through possession of Trieste and the Istrian peninsula in the north and Dalmatia on the eastern shores of the Adriatic. Hungary’s link to the sea came through rule over Croatia and possession of the port of Fiume, today Rijeka. The navy enjoyed some success in the nineteenth century. The Austrian naval victory at Lissa in 1866 provided one of the few bright spots in that otherwise disastrous year for Habsburg fortunes. However, until the turn of the century, the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine—the navy of Austria-Hungary—remained essentially a coast defense force. The Austrians had made good use of the invention of the automotive torpedo, and the famous Whitehead torpedo factory was located at Fiume. Torpedo boats operating in the maze of Dalmatian islands were a common feature of Austrian naval maneuvers. Outside of the Adriatic, the navy was represented by cruisers of one sort or another in events like the 1900 Boxer Rebellion in China. This situation changed after the turn of the century, and the Austrians began building larger ships to form a true battle ¶eet. The phenomenon of navalism had reached the Habsburg Monarchy, and among other things the navy had the support of the heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. By the outbreak of the First World War the Austrian navy had three semi-dreadnought Radetzkys and three Tegetthoff-class dreadnoughts, with a fourth on the stocks. A second class of four dreadnoughts had also been approved. Austrian naval power was now something that naval staffs had to take into account.1 The primary motivation for the Austrians was probably fear of their traditional nineteenth-century rival Italy. Italy and Austria-Hungary were both allied to Germany by the Triple Alliance...

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