SMS Prinz Eugen (1912)

SMS Prinz Eugen  was an Austro-Hungarian dreadnought battleship of the. Prinz Eugen was built at the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino yard, Trieste. During World War I, Prinz Eugen supported the escape of SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau as well as the bombardment of Ancona.

She remained in port in Pola for the rest of the war until she took part in an ill-fated raid on the Otranto Barrage in 1918 that resulted in the loss of her sister ship, SMS Szent István. Following the end of the war in late 1918, Prinz Eugen was surrendered to France and later sunk as a target ship in 1922.

Characteristics
Launched in late March 1912, Prinz Eugen had an overall length of 152 m, a beam of 27.9 m, and a draught of 8.7 m at deep load. She displaced 20000 t at load and 21689 t at deep load.

Prinz Eugen had four Parsons steam turbines, each of which was housed in a separate engine-room. The turbines were powered by twelve Babcock & Wilcox boilers. The turbines were designed to produce a total of 27000 shp, which was theoretically enough to attain her designed speed of 20 kn, but no figures from her speed trials are known to exist. She carried 1844.5 t of coal, and an additional 267.2 t of fuel oil that was to be sprayed on the coal to increase its burn rate. At full capacity, she could steam for 4200 nmi at a speed of 10 kn.

Prinz Eugen mounted twelve 305 mm/45-caliber K 10 guns in four triple turrets. Her secondary armament consisted of twelve 15 cm/50 K 10 guns mounted in casemates amidships. Twelve 66 mm/50 K 10 guns were mounted on open pivots on the upper deck above the casemates. Three more 66 mm K 10 guns were mounted on the upper turrets for anti-aircraft duties. Four 21 in submerged torpedo tubes were fitted, one each in the bow, stern and on each broadside; twelve torpedoes were carried.

Construction
Prinz Eugen was ordered by the Austro-Hungarian Navy in 1908. She was the third battleship of the Tegetthoff class, the first dreadnoughts of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, to be built. The keel of Prinz Eugen was laid down in Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard in Trieste on 16 January 1912. Following 11 months of construction, Prinz Eugen was launched on 30 November 1912. After her fitting out, she was commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy on 8 July 1914, only ten days after Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination that initiated World War I.

World War I


Prior to the war, Prinz Eugen was assigned to the 1st Battleship Division of Austro-Hungarian Navy. During World War I, the battleship saw limited service due to the Otranto Barrage which prohibited Austro-Hungarian battleships from leaving the Adriatic sea. As a result, she hardly ever left Pola.

Prinz Eugen, along with her sister ships Viribus Unitis and Tegetthoff and the remainder of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, was mobilized on the eve of World War I to support the flight of SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau. The two German ships were stationed in the Mediterranean and were attempting to break out of the strait of Messina, which was surrounded by British troops and vessels and make their way to Turkey. After the Germans successfully broke out of Messina, the navy was recalled. The fleet had by that time advanced as far south as Brindisi in south eastern Italy. Prinz Eugen also participated in the bombardment of the Italian city of Ancona in May 1915. Following these operations Prinz Eugen remained in Pola for most of the remainder of the war.

Aside from the pursuit of the Goeben and Breslau in the early months of the war, Prinz Eugen and her sister ships only conducted one operation during the course of the war until the ill-fated attack on the Otranto Barrage in 1918, the bombardment of Ancona following Italy's declaration of war on Austria-Hungary in May 1915.

Though she would remain in port for another three years, Prinz Eugen's stay in Pola was enlivened by a visit from the new Emperor Karl I on 15 December 1916 and another by the German Kaiser Wilhelm II on 12 December 1917 during his inspection of the German submarine base in the port city. The Italian Air Force conducted at least eighty air raids on Pola between 1915 and 1917 which probably kept the crews of her anti-aircraft guns busy.

The Otranto Raid


By mid 1918, the new commander of the Austrian fleet, Konteradmiral Miklós Horthy decided to conduct another attack on the Otranto Barrage, similar to the Otranto Raid from December 1916, to allow more German and Austro-Hungarian U-boats to safely get through the heavily defended strait of Otranto. During the night of 8 June, Horthy left the naval base of Pola with Prinz Eugen and Viribus Unitis. Tegetthoff and SMS Szent István, along with one destroyer and six torpedo boats departed Pola on 9 June. At about 3:15 on the morning of 10 June, two Italian MAS boats, MAS 15 and MAS 21, spotted the Austrian fleet steaming south. The MAS platoon was commanded by Capitano di fregata Luigi Rizzo while the individual boats were commanded by Capo timoniere Armando Gori and Guardiamarina di complemento Giuseppe Aonzo respectively. Both boats successfully penetrated the escort screen and split to engage each of the dreadnoughts. MAS 21 attacked Tegetthoff, but her torpedoes missed the battleship. Despite missing Tegetthoff, the other boat, MAS 15, managed to hit Tegetthoff's sister ship Szent István with her torpedoes at about 3:25 am. Both boats were then chased away from the scene by Austrian escort vessels.

Following Szent István being hit by torpedoes, Tegetthoff attempted to take the crippled Szent István into tow. However this attempt, as well as training the ship's turrets and placing her crew to port as well as throwing any ready ammunition overboard failed and the battleship continued to sink. The attempt to tow Szent István was then abandoned. A few minutes after 6:00 am Szent István capsized and sank. Admiral Horthy soon canceled the attack because he thought that the Italians had discovered his plan and ordered the ships to return to Pola. On the contrary, the Italians did not even discover that the Austrian dreadnoughts had departed Pola until later on 10 June when aerial reconnaissance photos revealed that they were no longer there. This was the last military operation that Prinz Eugen was to take part in and she spent the rest of her career at port in Pola.

Post-war fate
After the war, Prinz Eugen was handed over to France. The French removed the main armament for inspection and used the ship to test aerial bombardment attacks, before she was finally used as a target ship by the battleships FRENCH BATTLESHIP Paris, FRENCH BATTLESHIP Jean Bart, and FRENCH BATTLESHIP France, and sunk in the Atlantic in June 1922.