The Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel: Austria-Hungary Battleship Viribus Unitis

Laid down on July 24, 1910, launched on June 20, 1911 and commissioned on October 6, 1912, Viribus Unitis 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, a major technological advance at the time. Viribus Unitis was a member of the four-ship Tegetthoff battleship class, the one and only class of dreadnoughts ever built by Austria-Hungary. The name means "with united force." After centuries without a real navy, ports on the Adriatic Sea were used to build one for Austria-Hungary in the mid Nineteenth Century and the Austrians, under the brilliant Admiral Tegetthoff, had won a notable victory against a superior Italian fleet at Lissa in 1866. The class was initially started by the self-assured Vice Admiral Count Rudolf von Montecuccoli, the commander-in-chief of the Austrian Navy, without parliamentary approval, to quickly counter the Italian building program while avoiding delays from political special interest groups. The guest of honor at her launching was the heir to the throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Three years later his assassination touched off World War One and his body was taken home in state aboard the Viribus Unitis. As it turned out, in company with the rest of the Austro-Hungarian Navy during World War One, the Viribus Unitis rode an anchor while serving as part of a "fleet in being," forcing the superior Italian Navy (supported by French units) to remain in the area to face them. 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. With the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the surrender of the Central Powers, the Viribus Unitis was awarded to the new Yugoslav Navy. There were no Serbs on the ship and only three percent of the crew had been Slovenes, so there was great difficulty manning the ship, which was to be renamed Frankopan, after a famous Croatian family. In the confused atmosphere of the time, Italy decided that prudence was required and Italian frogmen entered Pola harbor, placed limpet mines and sank the Viribus Unitis at her anchorage on November 1, 1918.

See other Battleships: Prinz Eugen, Dante Alighieri, Jean Bart