Battle of Lissa (1866) - Ramming Attacks

Ramming Attacks

Seeing things going badly, Persano found the courage to throw himself into battle, deciding to ram the unarmoured screw battleship Kaiser rather than one of the armoured ships engaged with the Italian 2nd Division much nearer him. However, Kaiser managed to dodge Affondatore. Taking heart from his admiral, the captain of Re di Portogallo decided to hurl his ship at Kaiser, maintaining a heavy fire with her rifled guns as he did so. At the last moment, von Petz turned the tables on her and turned into the ram, in effect conducting a counter ram. The impact tore off Kaiser’s stem and bowsprit, leaving her figurehead embedded in Re di Portogallo. The Italian used the opportunity to rake Kaiser with fire, putting her mainmast and funnel into the sea. The smoke was so great that as they backed off for another ram they lost sight of each other and ended the duel.

At roughly the same time, Tegetthoff threw his flagship Erzherzog Ferdinand Max (commanded by Maximilian Daublebsky von Sterneck) at first at the former Italian flagship, Re d'Italia, and then at Palestro. In both cases he scored only glancing blows, but these caused serious damage, especially to Palestro, which was dismasted and set afire.

Palestro's captain, Cappellini, told his men that they could abandon ship but he would stay, and pulled his ship out of the line. His crew refused to leave their Captain and Palestro finally blew up and sank at 2.30pm, with only 19 survivors out of the ship's complement of 230.

Meanwhile Erzherzog Ferdinand Max was circling Faà di Bruno's Re d'Italia, pouring on fire before surging forward and achieving a good impact with her ram, aided by the Italian ship having reversed her screws (in a poorly thought-out attempt to avoid crossing the Austrian's bows) at the crucial moment. This put an 18 foot hole below the Italians' waterline, and the Italian ship struck her colours and sank two minutes later. According to legend her Captain shot himself after giving the order to strike the colours.

As the Erzherzog Ferdinand Max limped away, damaged after conducting three ramming attacks, the Ancona closed on her attempting to ram. The Italian gunners got a full broadside off at point blank range, but while they had remembered the gunpowder, in the excitement they had forgotten to load the shot.

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. Despite being a perfect target for a ram, Kaiser survived when Persano ordered Affondatore to turn away.

Tegetthoff's victory was saluted by his mariners - mainly Croats and a few Venetian - with the traditional Venetian cry of victory: "Viva San Marco!" ("Hurrah with Saint Mark!"). In fact, Tegetthoff had his naval training in Venice and was a fluent speaker of Venetian, the most used language in the fleet. During the battle he gave his orders in that language. The official name of the imperial navy had been Oesterreich-Venezianische Marine (Austrian-Venetian Navy) until 1849. Of the 7,871 sailors on the Austrian ships, around 5,000 were Croats.

Members of the crew coming from Italian families of Venetia, Istria and Dalmatia gave no signs of irredentism, and national hero Giuseppe Garibaldi became very angry when he understood that some Venetian people had shown no desire to become part of the Italian state. Later he admitted those crew members were bound to their military orders and duty.

In Italy, the outrage over the loss of two ironclads was huge and Persano after the battle was forced to resign with dishonor, together with Albini (whose ships only participated in landings and never fired a shot against the Austrian ships).