Page - 260 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

260 Adjusting to a Longer War Fleet in Being It began with a severe loss. Already on 16 August 1914, French and British naval forces in the Adriatic had blocked the route to the Bay of Kotor of two older, small ships of the Imperial and Royal Navy, the cruiser Zenta and the torpedo boat destroyer Ulan, before finally sinking the Zenta. For many, the appearance of French and British naval forces came as a surprise.621 The Imperial and Royal Navy was far more oriented to the existence of the Triple Alliance than the army. When it came to the Fleet, it was assumed that Italy would play a role. While Conrad’s deliberations with regard to a preventive war against Italy and a certain aversion towards the Apennine state were ultimately reflected in the General Staff discussions with Moltke and in the plans made by the German Empire and Austria-Hungary in such a way that more enmity towards Italy was expressed than a willingness to approach it as an alliance partner, the attitude within the Navy was entirely different. Austria-Hungary’s Navy had been built up together with the Italian Navy as an instrument designed primarily to keep the French in check. Purely in terms of strength, it would no doubt have been possible to jointly offset the French, and probably also the British, marine forces in the Mediterranean. The British also regarded the Aus- tro-Hungarian marine forces as the most significant navy in the Mediterranean re- gion.622 Archduke Franz Ferdinand had been an ardent supporter of navalism and, like Archduke Maximilian before him, had also sought to consistently build up the fleet. Furthermore, marine armament was one of the few areas in which he more or less had a free hand. He had also covered the financial practices of Admiral Count Rudolf Montecuccoli, who was the head of department in the War Ministry as well as Com- mander-in-Chief of the Navy, who had exploited a government crisis in Hungary in 1910/11 and the resulting failure of the delegations to meet in order to borrow over 32 million kronen from two large financial institutions and to use the money to order the construction of new battleships, the ‘Tegetthoff’ class of dreadnoughts. Here, Monte- cuccoli acted in a similar way to the War Minister, Moritz von Auffenberg, who had or- dered 30.5 cm mortars while ignoring the relevant parliamentary representative bodies. What made the situation contentious was that even the War Minister was unaware of what his naval department head was doing.623 This caused bad feeling. However, Franz Ferdinand settled the conflict. Montecuccoli, who was anyway nearly 70 years old, went into retirement in 1913. His successor was Admiral Anton Haus. However, the fleet continued to grow, not least at the cost of the standing army. The last approvals for the fleet expansion alone amounted to over 328 million crowns.624 In 1914, the Imperial and Royal Navy was comparatively modern as a result, and in some ship categories was even superior. The four battleships of the ‘Tegetthoff’ class, of