Italian Regia Marina (Royal Navy)
The Kingdom of Italy during World War I had six dreadnought battleships (Dante Alighieri as a prototype, Giulio Cesare, Conte di Cavour and Leonardo da Vinci of the Conte di Cavour class, Andrea Doria and Caio Duilio of the Andrea Doria class).
During the war, the Italian Royal Navy spent her major efforts in the Adriatic Sea, fighting the Austro-Hungarian Navy. The resulting so-called Adriatic Campaign of World War I consisted mainly of Austro-Hungarian coastal bombardments of Italy's Adriatic coast, wider-ranging German/Hungarian submarine warfare into the Adriatic and the Mediterranean, and Italian use of new weapons (mainly MAS and human torpedoes) that were successful in the sinking of two Austrian battleships.
For most of the war the Italian and Austro-Hungarian navies each kept a relatively passive watch over their counterparts. The Italian fleet lost the pre-dreadnought battleship Benedetto Brin at Brindisi (27 September 1915) and the dreadnought Leonardo da Vinci at Taranto (2 August 1916) due to magazine explosion (although some historians argue of Austrian sabotage). In the last part of the war, the Regia Marina developed new naval weapons: the MAS boats that sank the Austro-Hungarian battleship SMS Szent István in the Adriatic Sea on 10 June 1918, and an early type of human torpedo (Mignatta) that entered the harbour of Pula and sank the Austro-Hungarian flagship SMS Viribus Unitis on 1 November 1918.
Read more about this topic: Naval Warfare In The Mediterranean During World War I
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—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)