Page - 262 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

262 Adjusting to a Longer War exploit the joint operation. They also boasted that no German warship would stay put in its home port if an enemy to be conquered were within range.625 Haus, however, had not the remotest intention of following the Germans, and ordered that the fleet re- turn immediately. He also responded negatively to further German suggestions to send formations to the Black Sea. This would have been thoroughly in Berchtold’s interest, however, since he had intended to impress Romania and Bulgaria in this way. Even so, Haus could not agree to such a step.626 For the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy and the Navy leadership, the Strait of Otranto was by and large the southern boundary of their own radius of activity. Beyond the Adriatic, only the submarines were assigned an offensive role. With this approach, the Imperial and Royal Navy was already subject to harsh criticism right at the beginning of the war, and was accused of leaving the Germans to fend for themselves. On a more subtle level, they had to accept the rebuke that they were cowardly and lacked sailor’s spirit. The declaration of war by France and Great Britain against the Habsburg Monarchy changed everything anyway. Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère, Commander of the Allied Mediterranean forces, which consisted primarily of French formations, received an order to press forward with as many ships as possible. He was also to present himself occasionally within view of the Italian coast, in order to make a mildly threatening gesture and to prevent Italy at all costs from abandoning its neutrality. However, the French must have known that they were advancing into the lions’ den. The Adriatic did after all belong to Austria. To the south of the Strait of Otranto, only the light cruiser Zenta and the destroyer Ulan, which had bombarded the Montenegrin port of Bar, were operating in mid-August. Lapeyrère’s force promptly surprised the two Austrian ships. The Ulan was able to es- cape into the Adriatic. The Zenta was sunk, as mentioned above. The French steamed off without showing any concern for the survivors, most of whom were able to reach the Montenegrin coast, where they were taken captive. The sinking of the Zenta gave cause for new reproaches. The ship had been lost because the 5th (Fleet) Division in the Gulf of Kotor had failed to rush to the Zenta’s aid.627 Even so, she would have been powerless against the 14 warships and all other French formations. Lapeyrère subsequently made repeated attempts to lure the Aus- tro-Hungarian naval forces out of their ports, but to no avail. Haus kept them back. He wanted to keep his fleet intact in case it were needed against Italy after all. In Kotor, only parts of the heavy surface naval forces were concentrated for the time being, while the other formations, and the submarine fleet in particular, had their base in Pula. The move into the Bay of Kotor offered an excellent natural harbour, but was also risky since this bay, which lay to the far south of Dalmatia, was dominated by the approximately 2,000 m-high Mount Lovćen, which belonged to Montenegro. This gave the Montenegrins an ideal opportunity not only to look into the Austro-Hungar- ian naval base, but to shoot into it as well, and possibly to take it as their own. However,