| Naval warfare in the Mediterranean (1914–1918) | |||||||
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| Part ofNaval warfare of World War I | |||||||
 The Mediterranean Sea and surrounding regions | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
 Regia Marina French Navy Royal Navy United States Navy Hellenic Navy Imperial Japanese Navy Imperial Russian Navy |  Austro-Hungarian Navy Imperial German Navy Ottoman Navy Bulgarian Navy | ||||||
Naval warfare in the Mediterranean during World War I took place between the naval forces of theEntente and theCentral Powers in theMediterranean Sea between 1914 and 1918.
Austria-Hungary was a medium-sized naval power in 1914. It had a coastline from betweenVenice andTrieste (in present-day Italy) to belowCattaro inMontenegro. TheAustro-Hungarian Navy had nine pre-dreadnought and four brand new dreadnoughtTegetthoff-classbattleships, armoured cruisers, protected cruisers, light cruisers, destroyers, large numbers of fast torpedo-boats and a number of submarines. In addition, the Germans managed to send some furtherU-boats to the Mediterranean which operated from Austrian naval bases, initially under the Austrian navy flag, later under the German navy flag.
The Kingdom of Italy during World War I had sixdreadnought battleships (Dante Alighieri as a prototype,Giulio Cesare,Conte di Cavour andLeonardo da Vinci of theConte di Cavour class,Andrea Doria andDuilio of theAndrea Doria class). Only four saw service inWWI and none were engaged in combat.
During the war, both the Italian Royal Navy and the Austro-Hungarian Navy kept their most modern capital ships inside their bases (Pola and Cattaro for the Austrian Fleet,Brindisi andTaranto for the Italian fleet), leaving mostly submarines, destroyers, torpedo boats andscout cruisers to do any fighting.[1] The so-calledAdriatic Campaign of World War I consisted mainly of relatively minor fights between light forces, such as theBattle of Durazzo and theBattle of the Otranto Straits, a few coastal bombardments (such as theAustro-Hungarian bombardment of Ancona and theAllied bombardment of Durazzo), wider-ranging German and Austro-Hungarian submarine warfare into the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, and Italian use of new weapons (mainlyMAS andhuman torpedoes) that were successful in the sinking of three Austrian battleships.
For most of the war the Italian and Austro-Hungarian navies each kept a relatively passive watch over their counterparts. The Italian fleet lost the pre-dreadnought battleshipBenedetto Brin, which exploded at Brindisi (27 September 1915); and on August 2, 1916, the Italian dreadnoughtLeonardo da Vinci exploded at Taranto, killing 249 of its crew. Reminiscent of theUSS Maine, the events was widely reported in the Italian press, which immediately blamed Austrian or German saboteurs. The cause of the explosion was thought by others as having been unstable lignite, but the Italian counterintelligence later discovered an Austrian saboteur network, based inZurich, which was responsible for the sinking of the two battleships.[2]
In December 1917,Luigi Rizzo with hisMAS motor-torpedo boat sank the Austro-Hungarianpre-dreadnought battleshipSMS Wien, which was at anchor inside Trieste harbour.[3]
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In the early hours of June 10, 1918,Admiral Horthy and a number of ships were heading for theOtranto Barrage to make a surprise attack. As the fairly new dreadnaught theSMS Szent István was steaming past the island ofPremuda off the coast of Dalmatia, a small Italian motor boat carrying two torpedoes, again commanded by Luigi Rizzo on its way back to Italy, suddenly saw the battleship approaching with her escort. Approaching at high speed, the MAS fired both torpedoes and hit the battleship, before escaping unharmed. Despite valiant efforts by the crew with the pumps, and attempts to tow it to a port, after several hours water levels could not be contained and the ship capsized.
On the night between 31 October and 1 November 1918, a small Italianhuman torpedo, called a "mignatta", which carried two men, entered the base of Pola and placed alimpet mine below the hull of the anchored battleshipSMS Viribus Unitis. Unknown to them, the entire Austrian fleet had just been handed over to the newNational Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs; this had happened in the evening of 31 October, when the Italian ships assigned to the operation had already left the port, and thus could not be informed.[4] After placing the mines, the two Italian operators were captured, and they informed the crew that the ship was going to sink, although they did not reveal that they had placed mines on the hull; however, the explosions were delayed and the crew started reboarding the ship, believing they were lying. Shortly thereafter, the mines exploded, causing theViribus Unitis to sink.The Slav National Council made no efforts to raise the ship, asItaly occupied the region only a few days later.
In theMediterranean Sea, the war began with most of the large, but elderlyFrench fleet deployed on escort duty to protect convoys across the Mediterranean from the smaller, but newerAustrian fleet and cover against possibleItalian entry into the war on Austria's side. Several British ships were also sent toMalta to reinforce theBritish Mediterranean Fleet. Germany also had a small presence in the Mediterranean with a few ships based at the Austrian naval base of Pola (in current day Croatia) and at the commencement of hostilities, their powerful cruiserSMS Goeben and the light cruiserSMS Breslau, were patrolling the western Mediterranean. The German ships had not found the French convoys, so proceeded to bombard the cities ofBizerte andBône in theFrench protectorate of Tunisia. Pursued by larger French and British forces, theGoeben andBreslau ran forTurkey, where they were nominally transferred to the Ottoman Navy when theOttoman Empire entered the war on the Central Powers side, and fought several battles against the Russian Black Sea Fleet until Russia's surrender in 1917.
After theKingdom of Italy entered the war on the Allied side in 1915, the strategy of the Allies was to blockade theAdriatic at theOtranto Straits and monitor the movements of the Austrian fleet. In general, this strategy was successful, but the Austrians attacked the barrage on several occasions sinking many vessels: on the night of the 26/27 April 1915 the Austrian submarineU-5, commanded by LieutenantGeorg von Trapp (ofSound of Music fame), sank theFrench cruiserLéon Gambetta.
The Austrians and Germans were also able to send submarines out into the Mediterranean where they did some damage. Total Allied warship losses to Austrian and German submarines were: two battleships, two armored cruisers, five destroyers, and two submarines (in addition to many damaged navy ships and sunk freighters). The primary sea bases for the Austrian fleet in the Adriatic were Pola (inIstria) and Cattaro (in southernDalmatia).
The Allied navies were able to sail relatively freely throughout the Mediterranean by keeping the Central Powers' surface units bottled up in either the Adriatic or at Constantinople. This freedom of movement was tremendously important for the Allies, as they were not only able to keep open their supply routes (to Egypt for example), but to also evacuate the remains of the Serbian Army from capture and even launch (and supply) amphibious invasions atGallipoli in 1915 andSalonika in 1916.
In 1915, the major fleet action was the failed Allied attempt to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war by an attack on Constantinople. The Allies needed to pass theDardanelles strait in order to supply Russia. TheBattle of Gallipoli lasted for most of the year but was unsuccessful. An initial naval assault was defeated by mines and coastal fortresses, and the subsequent land assault was also defeated, but with heavy casualties on both sides.
After Gallipoli, the only significant naval battle occurred on May 15, 1917 when three Austrian cruisers under CaptainMiklós Horthy staged a raid on the Otranto Barrage, an Allied naval blockade of the Strait of Otranto. The raid was a partial success but the raiders were nearly destroyed by a shell hit which knocked out an engine on the Austrian cruiserSMS Novara. With heavier Allied forces closing in, the Austrians returned to Pola. The Austrians then decided to raid patrol boats guarding the Otranto Straits between Italy,Corfu and Albania. For further details seethe battle of the Otranto Barrage.
Allied fleets also played a role in coercing the Greek government to join the Allies and later supply the campaigns inPalestine andMacedonia. Although Germany was able to gain control of theBlack Sea and part of the Russian fleet after the collapse of the Russian Empire, they were never able to break out into theAegean. The German–Turkish fleet finally sortied into the Aegean in 1918 at theBattle of Imbros, but after destroying two British monitors sailed into a minefield. As a result, theBreslau was sunk and theGoeben almost followed that fate, but the captain was able to run the ship aground and beach it before capsizing. TheGoeben was not repaired until after the war and what Ottoman naval assets that remained were kept bottled up in the Black Sea.
Allied fleets occupied Constantinople briefly after theArmistice of Mudros, until the new Turkish Republic underMustafa Kemal took back control of the city in 1923.
Allied ships did continue to intervene in Russia after the war ended, bringing expeditionary forces and supplies via the Mediterranean to theWhite armies in southern Russia.
Romania, a member of the Allies, had at least 1 armed merchant ship in the Mediterranean. On 1 February 1917, nearGironde, a U-boat surfaced near the Romanian merchantBucurești, the latter being armed with two 120 mm guns. A short artillery duel ensued, between the merchant's aft gun (manned by officer Ciocaș Mihail) and the submarine's deck gun. Eventually, a shell from the merchant's gun fell 50 meters away from the submarine, prompting the U-boat to submerge and retreat.[5]
Japan, an ally of Great Britain, sent a total of 12 destroyers to the Mediterranean starting in April 1917 (later reinforced by two loaned from the Royal Navy) which formed the2nd Special Squadron (Japanese Navy). The Japanese ships were very effective in patrol and anti-submarine activity (The Japanese Navy spent 72 percent of their time at sea compared with 60 percent by the British and about 45 percent by the French and Italian Navy).[6][7][8] Japan suffered 68 dead and heavy damage on the destroyerSakaki, torpedoed by Austrian submarineU-27.[9]
TheBulgarian Navy, since 1915, developed an independent naval branch of its own in the Mediterranean Sea to defend its territories ofBelomorie (in the current Greek province ofEastern Macedonia and Thrace), which was called theBulgarian White Sea Fleet and patrolled in the former Bulgarian coastal territories in theAegean Sea. On 1916, that fleet modernized as it got their first submarines its first permanently operating military ship,Iskra. The Bulgarian Mediterranean participation resulted in the defense ofDedeagach (placing a compound of 52 mines in front of the city) against a bombardment by English, French and Russian ships. On February 6, 1917, the Bulgarians shot down an Allied seaplane in the Aegean. On May 4, 1917, the mobilized English trawler "Lord Salisbury" sank in the Mediterranean due to mines laid by the Bulgarians. After theArmistice of Thessalonica, along with the Bulgarian territories in the White Sea, this entire fleet came under French administration.[10]
Austro-Hungarian navy lost nine submarines during the war: five sunk by the Italian navy (U-10,U-12,U-16,U-20,U-23), one by Italian and French units (U-30), one by British units (U-3).[11]
