SMS Zrínyi

At the time of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914, the battleships in the Austro-Hungarian Navy consisted of the Radetzky class, the Tegetthoff class (which still had one ship, SMS Szent István, under construction), the Erzherzog Karl class and finally, the older Habsburg class. Along with the remainder of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, Zrínyi was mobilized in late July 1914 to support the flight of SMS Goeben and SMS Breslau. The two German ships broke out of Messina, which was surrounded by the British navy and reached Turkey. The flotilla had advanced as far south as Brindisi in southeastern Italy when news of the successful breakout reached Vienna. The Austro-Hungarian ships were then recalled before seeing action.[14]

First World War postcard depicting SMS Zrínyi in action at Senigallia

On 23 May 1915, between two and four hours after news of the Italian declaration of war reached the main Austro-Hungarian naval base at Pola,[lower-alpha 3] Zrínyi and the rest of the fleet departed to bombard the Italian and Montenegrin coast.[15][16] Their focus was on the important naval base at Ancona,[17] and later the coast of Montenegro. The bombardment of Montenegro was part of the larger Austro-Hungarian campaign against the Kingdoms of Montenegro and Serbia, which were members of the Entente, during the first half of 1915. The attack on Ancona was an immense success, and the ships were unopposed during the operation. The bombardment of the province and the surrounding area resulted in the destruction of an Italian steamer in the port of Ancona itself, and an Italian destroyer, Turbine, was severely damaged further south. On the shore, the infrastructure of the port of Ancona, as well as the surrounding towns, were severely damaged. The railroad yard in Ancona, as well as the port facilities in the town, were damaged or destroyed. The local shore batteries were also suppressed.[18] During the bombardment, Zrínyi also helped to destroy a train, a railway station, and a bridge at Senigallia.[19] Additional targets that were damaged or destroyed included wharves, warehouses, oil tanks, radio stations, and the local barracks. Sixty-three Italians, both civilians and military personnel, were killed in the bombardment.[18] By the time Italian ships from Taranto and Brindisi arrived on the scene, the Austro-Hungarians were safely back in Pola.[20]

The objective of the bombardment of Ancona was to delay the Italian Army from deploying its forces along the border with Austria-Hungary by destroying critical transportation systems.[16] The surprise attack on Ancona succeeded in delaying the Italian deployment to the Alps for two weeks. This delay gave Austria-Hungary valuable time to strengthen its Italian border and re-deploy some of its troops from the Eastern and Balkan fronts.[21]

Aside from the attack on Ancona, the Austro-Hungarian battleships were largely confined to Pola for the duration of the war.[9][22] Their operations were limited by Admiral Anton Haus, the commander of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, who believed that he would need to husband his ships to counter any Italian attempt to seize the Dalmatian coast. Since coal was diverted to the newer Tegetthoff-class battleships, the remainder of the war saw Zrínyi and the rest of the Austro-Hungarian Navy acting as a fleet in being. This resulted in the Allied blockade of the Otranto Strait.[23] With his fleet blockaded in the Adriatic Sea, and with a shortage of coal, Haus followed a strategy based on mines and submarines designed to reduce the numerical superiority of the Allied navies.[24]

SMS Zrínyi after being handed over to the United States

After the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed in 1918, the Austrians wanted to turn the fleet over to the newly created State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (later to become a part of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) in order to prevent the Italians from claiming the ships as spoils of war. However, the victorious Allies refused to acknowledge the conversations between the Austrians and the south Slavs and, in due course, reallocated the ships.[17] The ship had been boarded by a scratch Yugoslav crew on 10 November 1918, one day before the Armistice, and had left Pola along with her sister ship, Radetzky. They were soon spotted by heavy Italian ships, so the two battleships hoisted American flags and sailed south along the Adriatic coast to Castelli Bay near Spalato (also known as Split). They appealed for American naval forces to meet them and accept their surrender, which a squadron of United States Navy (USN) submarine chasers in the area did.[9] She had apparently been turned over to the fledgling south Slav state, as it was a Croat naval officer, Korvettenkapitän Marijan Polić, who presented the ship as a prize of war to representatives of the United States Navy on the afternoon of 22 November 1919 at Spalato (Split) in Dalmatia. Simultaneously she was commissioned as USS Zrínyi and Lieutenant E.E. Hazlett, USN, assumed command. The initial American complement consisted of four officers and 174 enlisted men—the latter entirely composed of United States Navy Reserve Force personnel. The ship remained at anchor at Spalato for nearly a year while the negotiations that would determine her ultimate fate dragged on. Only once did she apparently turn her engines over, and that occurred during a severe gale that struck Spalato on 9 February 1920.[17]

On the morning of 7 November 1920, Zrínyi was decommissioned. USS Chattanooga took her in tow and, assisted by Brooks and Hovey, towed the battleship to Italy. Under the terms of the treaties of Versailles and St. Germain, Zrínyi was ultimately turned over to the Italian government at Venice. She was broken up for scrap later that year and into 1921.[1][17]