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The Central Powers submarines in the Mediterranean during WWI

作者:Robert Derencin 来源: 日期:2007-10-17 9:01:09 浏览: 次

Introduction

The Central Powers was name of military alliance of Germany and Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in WWI. Turkey and Bulgaria then joined the alliance during WWI. On the other side, there was military alliance of Great Britain, France and Russia- "Entente" or "Triple Entente". During the war some countries joined the Entente, for example the USA, Italy and Japan. The Central Powers planned (before the war) that Italy would be part of their alliance. But, in 1915 Italy joined the Entente.

For easier understanding of this article members of the Entente will be called "the Allies" and their ships and units will be called "Allied".

On the Central Powers’ side in the Mediterranean there were the Austro-Hungarian Navy, German Mediterranean division and (small) Turkish Navy. In 1914, immediately after the beginning of the war, German Mediterranean division (battle cruiser Goeben and light cruiser Breslau, under command of Rear Admiral Souchon) succeeded in arriving at Istanbul. Then, the Mediterranean division formally joined the Turkish Navy, with the both warships and the warships’ crews. Rear Admiral Souchon became commanding officer of the Turkish Navy.

On the Allied side, in the Mediterranean, there were the French Navy, the British Royal Navy and the Italian Navy. From 1917 the naval warfare in the Mediterranean also involved the US Navy and the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Naval warfare in the Mediterranean Sea was vital for the war efforts of all nations involved. There were several war theatres around the Mediterranean basin; Balkan, Asian-Turkish (Palestine, of that time) and Italian battlefields. But, naval operations in the Mediterranean Sea also affected situation on others war theatres such as West European (France and Belgium), East European (Russian front) and Asian-Turkish (Caucasus). Intention of this article is to explain activities of the Central Powers (Austro-Hungarian and German) submarines in the Mediterranean Sea and their effect on WWI.

Austro-Hungarian Navy
The Austro-Hungarian Navy is not as well known as navies of other big countries involved in WWI. The Austro-Hungarian Navy (k.u.k. Kriegsmarine) was well organised and a very interesting navy. In the Navy there was a submarine flotilla and its submarines succeeded in keeping enemy (i.e. the Allied) warships out of Austro-Hungarian waters, as much as possible. For easier understanding, Austro-Hungarian coast was on East Side of the Adriatic Sea, from Trieste to Kotor (Cattaro). Austro-Hungarian main naval base was in Pula (Pola), a town placed on the south part of Istrian peninsula. As the time passed, the Austro-Hungarian Navy organised itself, built a strong and modern fleet and created all kinds of naval infrastructure like ports, fortifications, the naval shipyard, chain of lighthouses along the Eastern Adriatic coast and so on. Also, the Austro-Hungarian Navy charted the whole Adriatic. The Austro-Hungarian ships (cruisers) even went on very distant voyages to China and Japan, for example. The Navy also had a lot of naval hydroplanes. Together the official improvements, there were some unofficially improvements, very important to naval history, like the invention of the torpedo.