Seeing things going badly, Persano decided to ram the unarmoured screw battleship Kaiser rather than one of the armoured ships engaged with the Italian 2nd Division much nearer him. In this era — post Napoleon, post Crimea, pre-Italian unification — treaties were made and broken with impunity. She was the first ironclad built in Italy; her keel was laid January 1861, her hull was launched in September 1863, and she was completed in June 1865. The three Austrian divisions were formed up into three consecutive arrowhead or "V" formations; the armoured 1st division under Tegetthoff was in the van, the weaker gunboats and paddle steamers of the 3rd division to the rear, while the powerful but unarmoured vessels of Kommodor Petz's 2nd division were in the centre. The facts are even more dramatic than fiction, but I have to condense to capture and convey the flavour of the whole event….
Tegetthoff, seeing a gap opening between the 1st and 2nd Divisions, forced his fleet into it and concentrated on raking the Italians and ramming. 4 responses to “Battle of Lissa” Pingback: Vis (Lissa), Croatia « Age Of Sail. Furthermore, in face of these odds, Admiral Tegetthoff bravely and brilliantly used ramming as his winning tactic.
With a different kind of delving, perhaps Surgeon Ephraim Epstein’s English language epic poem will also emerge in this, the 150th anniversary year of the Battle of Lissa. Persano then broke off the action. The other (wooden) ships were dispersed into the battleline. The smoke was so great that as they backed off for another ram they lost sight of each other and ended the duel. Considerable gun smoke led to confusion on both sides, and Tegetthoff’s ironclad rams missed their targets. They displaced 57,300 tons, mounted 532 guns, and carried 7,870 men. Despite being a perfect target for a ram, Kaiser survived when Persano ordered Affondatore to turn away. She was scrapped between 1893 and 1895. Serving in Austrian Imperial Navy, Dr Ephraim M Epstein witnessed a historic naval battle on 20 July 1866. Vessels are ranked by fighting power (most powerful first).
Result: a new view and a mystery. Modern commentators now take the view that Lissa occurred during a period of weapons development when armour was considerably stronger than the guns available to defeat it.
I received a present of three hundred dollars from Emperor Franz Joseph for the poem.’. At this point, I will introduce my ancestor. Once through, Austrian vessels turned to barrage the Italians broadside-to-broadside in rolling, repeated roars. Instead they had hastily fitted joined-armor bow plates. The Austrians were also severely outmatched in rifled guns (276 to 121) and total weight of metal (53,236 tons to 23,538 tons). Later the Affondatore foundered in a squall off Ancona, largely as a result of damages sustained in the battle. SMS Don Juan d'Austria was the third member of the Kaiser Max class built for the Austrian Navy in the 1860s. On the morning of 20 July 1866 Tegetthoff ordered Austria’s armada into three divisions – his ironclads at the front, then unarmoured wooden ships, then smaller gunboats and auxiliaries, a total of twenty-six in all. Palestro's captain, Cappellini, pulled his ship out of the line. Ancona was laid down in August 1862, was launched in October 1864, and completed in April 1866. They also had suffered 619 dead and 39 wounded. The Italian fleet under Persano was divided into three divisions: Persano commanded the main battle force with 9 ironclads; his deputy, Albini, commanded a "support" division (engaged mainly in landings); and Admiral Vacca commanded a third "reserve" division with minor wooden ships. Kaiser engaged several Italian ironclads simultaneously, rammed one—Re di Portogallo—and damaged another—Affondatore—with gunfire. Suddenly, in 1862 a riveting new development in navies around the world had begun. During the Second Schleswig War in 1864, Salamander remained in the Adriatic to protect Austria from a possible Danish attack that did not materialize. Leading the wooden steam warships was the two-decker Kaiser. The Battle of Lissa claims several more remarkable historical points, including Austria’s defeat of Italy although outgunned and outnumbered. The Croatian Ministry of Culture and Ministry of Defense are said to have supported a December 2015 repeat of the expedition, with photographs and videos to be launched publicly. I chose to write The Extraordinary Dr Epstein as a biographical novel the better to know him psychologically and emotionally. A cogent, gripping account can be found in Chapter 11 of the book Famous Sea Fights, From Salamis to Tsu-Shima by John Richard Hale (tredition 2012). San Martino was laid down in July 1862, was launched in September 1863, and was completed in November 1864. It inspired me to write a description of the battle in English verse and I dedicated and presented it to the great Admiral and man, who thanked me for it in an autograph letter, and said it reminded him of Byron’s description of a sea storm in his Don Juan. The sinking was actually a fluke; the Re d’Italia had been dead in the water and was thus vulnerable to the ram. "The Emergence of the Moder Capital Ship." Austria, humbled by Prussia and bullied by Napoleon III of France, agreed to cede Venetia to Italy despite the overall failure of the Italian war effort. If so, kindly tell him via this blogsite. Tegetthoff then ordered his Erzherzog Ferdinand Maximilian to ram the Re d’Italia. A Collection of Images compiled by Michael Organ. [7] As Erzherzog Ferdinand Max limped away, damaged after conducting three ramming attacks, Ancona closed on her attempting to ram. Pingback: Captain Sir William Hoste « Age Of Sail. Formidabile was the lead ship of the Formidabile-class ironclad warships, the first ships of that type to be built for the newly formed Italian Regia Marina.
This put an 18 ft (5.5 m) hole below Re d'Italia's waterline, and she struck her colours and sank two minutes later. Kaiser's encounter with Affondatore was the last major action of the battle. She was built by the naval shipyard in Pola; she was laid down in March 1855, was launched in October 1858, and was completed the following year. Ferdinand Max scored a glancing blow against the armoured Portogallo, then went to defend the big wooden Kaiser. She carried her main battery—composed of sixteen 48-pounder guns and fifteen 24-pounders—in a traditional broadside arrangement, protected by an armored belt that was 110 mm (4.3 in) thick. The class comprised the ships Principe di Carignano, Messina, and Conte Verde. Ramming never featured as a viable battle tactic again. There he practised medicine in the wild West and the West Virginia mountains, fathered nine children, founded Dakota university and completed his career on the editorial staff of a medical journal in Chicago until his death in 1913 aged 83. They were followed by seven large wooden ships headed by the screw ship of the line Kaiser, and seven wooden gunboats made up the third division. Lissa, now called Vis and in Croatia, is an island on the Dalmatian coast. Today’s southern Germany was part of the empire too. At about 2:30 p.m. the blazing central-battery Italian ironclad Palestro suddenly blew up, with the loss of 204 officers and men. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1979. Eleven of the Italian ironclads began to form up in column. Ironically, at the end of World War I, the latter ship was given to the Italian Royal Navy, which in 1924–25 scrapped the ship that bore the name of the man who had defeated it in its first battle. The Austrian admiral ordered the scant plating available to go on the forward hull areas: if necessary he would ram. There were other key elements of warfare and command involved, sidelines to my purpose, but essential historically. And to find his descriptive poem on it which gained him a reward from the Emperor Franz Joseph. Kaiser did see action during the Seven Weeks' War two years later, during which she took part in the Battle of Lissa as the flagship of Anton von Petz, commander of the Austrian 2nd Division. Persano, now on the most powerful warship in either fleet, Affondatore, stayed clear of the engagement. This reminds us that the Austrian Empire in the 1860s was vast, extending into today’s northern Italy including Venice and Trieste, and today’s Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and more… even down to Serbia. Rear Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff commanded the Austrian Fleet. Nevertheless, due to this battle for the next fifty years navies worldwide built warships with ram bows – which were never used in combat again. A strong believer in the ram, the energetic 38-year-old Tegetthoff preferred it to naval gunfire even though not one of his warships had a true ram bow.
In the power struggle Prussia marched to take over territory that the two nations had wrested from Denmark in 1864.
Fighting between Italy and Austria occurred at sea in the Adriatic. For the Battle of Lissa fought in 1811, see, It has been pointed out the contradicting facts that the. After his encounter with Re di Portogallo earlier in the battle and having fought his way clear of Maria Pia, Kommodor von Petz's Kaiser found itself at close range with Affondatore. In a final historical note, I must add that although the Battle of Lissa had been won the war was lost.