Construction and First Years
Built to a design by Chief Engineer (Tenente Generale del Genio Navale) Edoardo Masdea, Conte di Cavour was based in Taranto, in the impending war against Austria-Hungary (World War I). At the beginning of the war, 24 May 1915, Conte di Cavour became the flagship of the Rear-Admiral Luigi Amedeo di Savoia. During the war, the battleship had no active missions, since it was impossible to engage the enemy: it performed 966 hours of training exercises compared to 40 hours spent in 3 war actions.
After the war, Conte di Cavour had a propaganda cruise in North America, entering the ports of Gibraltar, Ponta Delgada, Fayal, Halifax, Boston, Newport, Tompkinsville, New York, Philadelphia, Annapolis, and Hampton Roads.
In the summer of 1922, King Victor Emmanuel III travelled on Conte di Cavour to pay visit to the freed Italian cities in the Adriatic sea. It was also used by Benito Mussolini to travel to Tripoli, in April 1925.
On 12 May 1928, in Taranto, it was disarmed; five years later, in October 1933, Conte di Cavour was transferred to Trieste, to be re-constructed.
Read more about this topic: Italian Battleship Conte Di Cavour
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