List of Battleships of Austria-Hungary - Tegetthoff Class

Tegetthoff Class

The Tegetthoff-class battleships were the first and only group of dreadnought battleships to be constructed by Austria-Hungary. The Austro-Hungarian Navy needed to update its fleet following the construction of HMS Dreadnought. After the announcement in 1908 of the start of construction for the first dreadnought of the Regia Marina (the Italian Navy), the Dante Alighieri, the Austro-Hungarian Navy formally ordered the construction of a series of four dreadnought battleships. Unlike the previous classes of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, the Tegetthoff-class was made up of four battleships instead of three. They were the Viribus Unitis, Tegetthoff, Prinz Eugen, and Szent István. The first three battleships were constructed in the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard in Trieste, while the fourth battleship, Szent István was constructed at the Danubius shipyard at Fiume. All of the battleships were constructed between 1910 and 1915.

Two of the Tegetthoff-class battleships were commissioned less than two years prior the beginning of World War I, while Prinz Eugen was commissioned the same month as the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. The last battleship of the class, Szent István, was commissioned during the war in November 1915. Prior to the war, the battleships in commission were assigned to the 1st Battleship Division of the 1st Battle Squadron of Austro-Hungarian Navy. During the war, the ships had limited service due to the Otranto barrage, which prevented the battleships from leaving the Adriatic Sea. As a result, they rarely left Pola. However, three of the battleships participated in the flight of the German battleships SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau in 1914, and in the bombardment of the Italian city of Ancona in May 1915. (Szent István was still under construction). Following these operations and the completion of the Szent István, the Tegetthoff-class battleships remained in port for the remainder of the war.

The final operation for the Tegetthoff-class ships was an attempt to break through the Otranto barrage in June 1918. During the journey to the strait of Otranto, the battleship Szent István was torpedoed and sunk on 10 June 1918, resulting in the operation being called off. Viribus Unitis was also sunk prior to the end of the war on 1 November 1918 when a team of Italian frogmen sank the battleship with mines while she was moored at port in Pola. Following Austria-Hungary's defeat in World War I, the remaining two battleships of the class were handed over to Allies with the Tegetthoff being given to Italy and scrapped in 1924 and Prinz Eugen being handed over to France and sunk as a target ship in 1922.