The Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel: Austri-Hungary Battleship Prinz Eugen

Laid down on January 16, 1912, launched on November 30, 1912 and commissioned on July 8, 1914, Prinz Eugen carried a main armament of twelve 12 inch main guns mounted three per centerline superfiring turret, two forward and two aft. Austria-Hungary invented the three guns per turret arrangement. Prinz Eugen was a member of the four-ship Tegetthoff battleship class and was named after the great Austrian General who was a famous partner with the British Duke of Marlborough during the War of Spanish Succession and won many other victories of his own. These four ships were the only class of dreadnoughts ever built by the dual monarchy. Austria-Hungary had lacked a navy for centuries but ports on the Adriatic Sea had been finally used to build one in the mid Nineteenth Century and the Austrians, under Admiral Tegetthoff, had won a notable victory against a superior Italian fleet at Lissa in 1866. The class was initially started without parliamentary approval to quickly counter the Italian building program. In company with most of the Austro-Hungarian Navy during World War One, the Prinz Eugen spent most of the war riding at anchor and serving as a "fleet in being" to force the superior Italian Navy (supported by French units) to remain in or near the Adriatic Sea to face them. The ship’s only real warlike exploit was the bombardment of Ancona in May 1915. Since prewar Italy was a member of the Central Powers and later switched to join the Allies after the war had started, it is interesting to contemplate how the Allies would have dealt with the powerful combined Italian and Austrian fleets in the Mediterranean. It would have made for a more exciting war for the French Navy! With the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the surrender of the Central Powers, the Prinz Eugen was awarded to France and used as a target ship. It was sunk by gunfire near Toulon on June 28, 1922.

See other battleships: Viribus Unitis, Dante Alighieri, Jean Bart