View source for Naval warfare in the Mediterranean during World War I

{{Short description|none}}
{{Infobox military conflict
| conflict          = Naval warfare in the Mediterranean (1914–1918)
| partof            = [[Naval warfare of World War I]]
| campaign          =
| image             = Mediterranean Relief, 1028 x 1024.jpg
| image_size        = 300px
| caption           = ''The Mediterranean Sea and surrounding regions''
| date              = August 1914 – October 1918
| place             = [[Mediterranean Sea]], [[Adriatic Sea]]
| result            = Entente victory
| combatant1        = ''{{naval|Kingdom of Italy}}''<br>{{naval|France}}<br>{{naval|United Kingdom}}<br>{{flag|United States Navy|1912}}<br>{{naval|Greece|royalnavy}} <br>{{naval|Empire of Japan}}<br>{{naval|Russian Empire}}
| combatant2        = {{naval|Austria-Hungary}}<br>{{naval|German Empire}}<br>{{naval|Ottoman Empire}}<br>{{naval|Bulgaria}}
| commander1        =
| commander2        =
| strength1         =
| strength2         =
| casualties1       =
| casualties2       =
| notes             =
}}
{{Campaignbox World War I}}
{{Campaignbox Mediterranean Sea 1914-1918}}
'''Naval warfare in the Mediterranean during World War I''' took place between the naval forces of the [[Allies of World War I|Entente]] and the [[Central Powers]] in the [[Mediterranean Sea]] between 1914 and 1918.
==Austro-Hungarian Imperial and Royal Navy==
Austria-Hungary was a medium-sized naval power in 1914. It had a coastline from between [[Venice]] and [[Trieste]] (in present-day Italy) to below [[Kotor|Cattaro]] in [[Montenegro]]. The [[Austro-Hungarian Navy]] had nine pre-dreadnought and four brand new dreadnought {{sclass|Tegetthoff|battleship}}s, 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 further [[U-boat]]s to the Mediterranean which operated from Austrian naval bases, initially under the Austrian navy flag, later under the German navy flag.
==Italian ''Regia Marina'' (Royal Navy)==
The Kingdom of Italy during World War I had six [[dreadnought]] battleships ({{ship|Italian battleship|Dante Alighieri||2}} as a prototype, {{ship|Italian battleship|Giulio Cesare||2}}, {{ship|Italian battleship|Conte di Cavour||2}} and {{ship|Italian battleship|Leonardo da Vinci||2}} of the {{sclass|Conte di Cavour|battleship|4}}, {{ship|Italian battleship|Andrea Doria||2}} and {{ship|Italian battleship|Duilio||2}} of the {{sclass|Andrea Doria|battleship|4}}). Only four saw service in [[WWI]] and none were engaged in combat.
[[File:GiulioCesare1914.jpg|thumb|right|200px|{{ship|Italian battleship|Giulio Cesare||2}}, Otranto 1915]]
During the war, both the Italian Royal Navy and the Austro-Hungarian Navy kept their most modern capital ships inside their bases ([[Pula|Pola]] and Cattaro for the Austrian Fleet, [[Brindisi]] and [[Taranto]] for the Italian fleet), leaving mostly submarines, destroyers, torpedo boats and [[scout cruiser]]s to do any fighting.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://worldatwar.net/chandelle/v1/v1n2/adriatic.html|title=Combined Operations in the Adriatic, 1915-18|access-date=29 May 2016}}</ref>  The so-called [[Adriatic Campaign of World War I]] consisted mainly of relatively minor fights between light forces, such as the [[Battle of Durazzo (1915)|Battle of Durazzo]] and the [[Battle of the Otranto Straits (1917)|Battle of the Otranto Straits]], a few coastal bombardments (such as the [[Bombardment of Ancona|Austro-Hungarian bombardment of Ancona]] and the [[Battle of Durazzo (1918)|Allied bombardment of Durazzo]]), wider-ranging German and Austro-Hungarian submarine warfare into the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, and Italian use of new weapons (mainly [[MAS (boat)|MAS]] and [[human torpedo]]es) 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 battleship {{ship|Italian battleship|Benedetto Brin||2}}, which exploded at Brindisi (27 September 1915); and on August 2, 1916, the Italian dreadnought ''Leonardo da Vinci'' exploded at Taranto, killing 249 of its crew.  Reminiscent of the {{USS|Maine|ACR-1|6}}, 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 in [[Zurich]], which was responsible for the sinking of the two battleships.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.marina.difesa.it/storiacultura/ufficiostorico/Pagine/Bollettinoarchivio.aspx|title=Bollettino d'Archivio dell'Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare – Marina Militare|access-date=29 May 2016}}</ref>
===Italian sinkings of Austrian battleships===
In December 1917, [[Luigi Rizzo]] with his [[MAS (motorboat)|MAS]] motor-torpedo boat sank the Austro-Hungarian [[pre-dreadnought battleship]] {{SMS|Wien}}, which was at anchor inside Trieste harbour.<ref>[https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/05/17/102702299.pdf NY Times article on Luigi Rizzo sinking of the ''Wien'' and other attacks]</ref>
[[File:Affondamento Santo Stefano (ritagliata).jpg|thumb|right|{{SMS|Szent István}} was one of the four Austro-Hungarian [[dreadnought]]s, sunk on 10 June 1918 by a torpedo attack by Italian [[Luigi Rizzo]]'s MAS]]
In the early hours of June 10, 1918, [[Admiral Horthy]] and a number of ships were heading for the [[Otranto Barrage]] to make a surprise attack. As the fairly new dreadnaught the {{SMS|Szent István}} was steaming past the island of [[Premuda]] 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 Italian [[human torpedo]], called a "[[mignatta]]", which carried two men, entered the base of Pola and placed a [[limpet mine]] below the hull of the anchored battleship {{SMS|Viribus Unitis}}. Unknown to them, the entire Austrian fleet had just been handed over to the new  [[National 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.worldwar1.com/sfvu.htm|title=Trenches on the Web – Special: Assault on the Viribus Unitis|access-date=29 May 2016}}</ref> 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 the ''Viribus Unitis'' to sink.
The Slav National Council made no efforts to raise the ship, as Italy occupied the region only a few days later.
==Campaigns==
{{See also|Adriatic Campaign of World War I|Mediterranean U-boat Campaign (World War I)|Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign}}
In the [[Mediterranean Sea]], the war began with most of the large, but elderly [[France|French]] fleet deployed on escort duty to protect convoys across the Mediterranean from the smaller, but newer [[Austria-Hungary|Austrian]] fleet and cover against possible [[Italy|Italian]] entry into the war on Austria's side. Several British ships were also sent to [[Malta]] to reinforce the [[British 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 cruiser {{SMS|Goeben}} and the light cruiser {{SMS|Breslau}}, were patrolling the western Mediterranean. The German ships had not found the French convoys, so proceeded to bombard the cities of [[Bizerte]] and [[Bône]] in the [[French protectorate of Tunisia]]. Pursued by larger French and British forces, the ''Goeben'' and ''Breslau'' ran for [[Turkey]], where they were nominally transferred to the Ottoman Navy when the [[Ottoman 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 the [[Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)|Kingdom of Italy]] entered the war on the Allied side in 1915, the strategy of the Allies was to blockade the [[Adriatic]] at the [[Otranto 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 submarine [[SM U-5 (Austria-Hungary)|''U-5'']], commanded by Lieutenant [[Georg von Trapp]] (of [[Sound of Music]] fame), sank the [[French cruiser Léon Gambetta|French cruiser ''Léon 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 (in [[Istria]]) and Cattaro (in southern [[Dalmatia]]).
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 at [[Gallipoli]] in 1915 and [[Salonika]] 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 the [[Dardanelles]] strait in order to supply Russia. The [[Battle 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 Captain [[Miklós 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 cruiser {{SMS|Novara|1913|6}}. 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 see [[Battle of the Strait of Otranto (1917)|the battle of the Otranto Barrage]].
==Secondary campaigns and interventions==
=== From the Allies ===
Allied fleets also played a role in coercing the Greek government to join the Allies and later supply the campaigns in [[Palestine (region)|Palestine]] and [[Macedonia (region)|Macedonia]]. Although Germany was able to gain control of the [[Black Sea]] and part of the Russian fleet after the collapse of the Russian Empire, they were never able to break out into the [[Aegean Sea|Aegean]]. The German–Turkish fleet finally sortied into the Aegean in 1918 at the [[Battle of Imbros]], but after destroying two British monitors sailed into a minefield. As a result, the ''Breslau'' was sunk and the ''Goeben'' almost followed that fate, but the captain was able to run the ship aground and beach it before capsizing.  The ''Goeben'' 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 the [[Armistice of Mudros]], until the new Turkish Republic under [[Mustafa Kemal Atatürk|Mustafa 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 the [[White movement|White]] armies in southern Russia.
Romania, a member of the Allies, had at least 1 armed merchant ship in the Mediterranean. On 1 February 1917, near [[Gironde]], a U-boat surfaced near the Romanian merchant ''București'', the latter being armed with two 120&nbsp;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.<ref>Raymond Stănescu, Cristian Crăciunoiu, ''Marina română în primul război mondial'', p. 260 (in Romanian)</ref>
[[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). 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).<ref>Falls, p. 295</ref><ref>[http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1004&context=hist_fac_pubs Timothy D. Saxon/Anglo-Japanese Naval Cooperation, 1914-1918]</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www3.ocn.ne.jp/~y.hirama/yh_e_papers_Italy.html|title=Page ON/サービス終了のお知らせ|access-date=29 May 2016|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120213005829/http://www3.ocn.ne.jp/~y.hirama/yh_e_papers_Italy.html|archive-date=13 February 2012}}</ref> Japan suffered 68 dead and heavy damage on the destroyer {{ship|Japanese destroyer|Sakaki|1915|2}}, torpedoed by Austrian submarine {{SMU|U-27|Austria-Hungary|2}}.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyJapanese.htm|title=Japanese Navy, IJN, World War 1|access-date=29 May 2016}}</ref>
=== From the Central Powers ===
The [[Bulgarian Navy]], since 1915, developed an independent naval branch of its own in the Mediterranean Sea to defend its territories of [[Belomorie]] (in the current Greek province of [[Eastern Macedonia and Thrace]]), which was called the [[:bg:Български беломорски флот|Bulgarian White Sea Fleet]] and patrolled in the former Bulgarian coastal territories in the [[Aegean Sea]]. On 1916, that fleet modernized as it got their first submarines its first permanently operating military ship, ''Iskra''. The bulgarian mediterranean participation resalted in the defense of [[Dedeagach]] (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 the [[Armistice of Thessalonica]], along with the Bulgarian territories in the White Sea, this entire fleet came under French administration.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2012-01-20 |title=BULGARIAN IN MACEDONIA AND AEGEAN THRACE |url=http://www.bulgarmak.x10.mx/belomorski%20flot.html |access-date=2024-03-28 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120120100633/http://www.bulgarmak.x10.mx/belomorski%20flot.html |archive-date=2012-01-20 }}</ref>
Austro-Hungarian navy lost nine submarines during the war: five sunk by the Italian navy ({{SMU|U-10|Austria-Hungary|2}}, {{SMU|U-12|Austria-Hungary|2}}, {{SMU|U-16|Austria-Hungary|2}}, {{SMU|U-20|Austria-Hungary|2}}, {{SMU|U-23|Austria-Hungary|2}}), one by Italian and French units ({{SMU|U-30|Austria-Hungary|2}}), one by British units ({{SMU|U-3|Austria-Hungary|2}}).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyAustrian.htm|title=Austrian or Austro-Hungarian Navy, World War 1|access-date=29 May 2016}}</ref>
==Notes==
{{Reflist}}
== Sources ==
* Falls, Cyril (1961). ''The Great War''. Capricorn Books.
* Halpern, Paul G. (1995). ''A Naval History of World War I''. Routledge. {{ISBN|1-85728-498-4}}.
* [http://www.naval-history.net/WW1NavyAustrian.htm Austrian Navy WWI] downloaded from Naval-History.net (May 2017)
* [http://www.naval-history.net/WW1AreaMed1914-18.htm Mediterranean Campaign] downloaded from Naval-History.net (May 2017)
==External links==
* Halpern, Paul G.: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/mediterranean_theater_naval_operations Mediterranean Theater, Naval Operations], in: [https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/home.html 1914-1918-online. International Encyclopedia of the First World War].
{{World War I}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Naval warfare in the Mediterranean (1914-1918)}}
[[Category:Mediterranean naval operations of World War I| ]]
[[Category:Naval warfare]]
[[Category:Naval warfare tactics]]
[[Category:Naval battles of World War I]]
[[Category:Campaigns and theatres of World War I]]