Although the Austrian navy had won a remarkable victory against the Italians at the Battle of Lissa in the Adriatic on 20 July 1866, economic problems following the creation of the Dual Monarchy the following year meant that the new Austro-Hungarian navy had to struggle for funding against the competing demands of the army.
However, from about 1900, the navy began a programme of modernisation with the invaluable support of Kaiser Franz Josef’s heir, the ill-fated Archduke Franz Ferdinand. At this time, the far more powerful Italian navy dominated the Adriatic, but the situation changed with the revolution in naval technology following the launch of HMS Dreadnought in 1906.
All earlier battleships were suddenly obsolescent, and Ferdinand’s influence helped to push through approval for a succession of new vessels, the most important of which were the first Austro-Hungarian dreadnoughts: Viribus Unitis, Tegetthoff, Prinz Eugen, and Szent István – collectively known as the Viribus Unitis-class.
The exultation of discovery