Page - 679 - in THE FIRST WORLD WAR - and the End of the Habsburg Monarchy, 1914 – 1918

The Unrestricted Submarine War 679 Royal Commander of the Fleet, Admiral Haus, began to adjust to the idea that this war might be of a longer duration and at last agreed to the construction of additional submarines. However, there were also difficulties here. Hungary objected to the pro- gramme of construction, which was anyway limited to just four boats, since Hungarian companies were not involved in building the boats. A solution was then found whereby the new boats were constructed in Pula (Pola) and Linz and assembled either in Pula or Rijeka (Fiume), ports that were at any rate considered to belong to Hungary. Austrian and Hungarian companies also competed with each other when within the scope of the extension of this programme of new construction, the types that had been built so far were abandoned in favour of German boats. In this way, six more submarines were produced. However, it was also questionable whether these submarines, once they had been put into service, would succeed in crossing the Strait of Otranto and on into the Mediter- ranean. After all, one consequence of Italy’s entry into the war was that the Strait of Otranto had become much more difficult to pass, and as a result of British and French blockade measures, it had become an exceedingly dangerous route. The mingling of German and Austro-Hungarian submarines, which had already begun in 1915 when German boats began to fly Austrian flags while at the same time being subordinate to German command, resulted in the fact that Austria-Hungary was repeatedly called to account for incidents in which the Imperial and Royal Navy was almost never involved. After the sinking of the Medusa and the Italian armoured cruiser Amalfi in June and July 1915 respectively, the next incident of this type  – as described earlier  – was the sinking of the Italian steamer Ancona. The U 38 (under Valentiner) had officially been entered in the list of Imperial and Royal warships on 21 October 1915 and was flying the Austro-Hungarian flag. While Admiral Haus had immedi- ately assumed responsibility for the sinking of the Ancona, this use of ‘guest workers’ was not without its problems. However, if one was inclined to uphold the fiction that Austro-Hungarian submarines were also operating in the Mediterranean, then this type of alliance warfare would perforce have to continue.1544 The sinking of the Ancona had however also led to the loss of several American lives. The American government announced that international law had been violated, since the ship had not been treated as a prize, and not enough time had been given for passengers to leave the ship.1545 The American Secretary of State, Lansing, dispatched a vehement letter of protest to Vi- enna. Count Burián was shocked. He had clearly had no idea how generously the Ger- man-Austrian agreements regarding naval warfare were being interpreted. The incident had enormous repercussions. The USA demanded that the submarine commander re- sponsible be punished, and that compensation be paid for American citizens who had suffered injury or damage or had lost their lives. The affair dragged on, and numerous notes were exchanged before Foreign Minister Burián was able to provide even a more