SMS Kaiser Franz Joseph I (sometimes called the Kaiser Franz Josef I) was a protected cruiser built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Named for the Austrian emperor and Hungarian king Franz Joseph I, Kaiser Franz Joseph I was the lead ship of her namesake class. Constructed by Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino in Trieste, she was laid down in January 1888 and launched in May 1889. Kaiser Franz Joseph I was commissioned into the Navy in June 1890. As the first protected cruiser constructed by the Austro-Hungarian Navy, she was intended to serve as Austria-Hungary's response to the Italian cruisers and . Her design was heavily influenced by the Jeune École (Young School), a naval strategy which had gained prominence in the 1880s as a means to combat a larger and more heavily armored navy of battleships through the use of torpedo flotillas.
Changes in technology and strategic thinking through the adoption of Alfred Thayer Mahan's "decisive battle" doctrine which stressed the construction of powerful battleships as the primary capital ship of navies around the world rendered the design of the Kaiser Franz Joseph I obsolete shortly after her commissioning. Nevertheless, she and her sister ship remained an important component of Austro-Hungarian naval policy, which continued to emphasize coastal defense and overseas missions to show the flag around the world. During the course of her career, Kaiser Franz Joseph I participated in several overseas voyages, including several tours of duty to defend Austro-Hungarian interests in China following the Boxer Rebellion.
At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Kaiser Franz Joseph I was assigned to the Fifth Battle Division and stationed at the Austro-Hungarian naval base at Cattaro. Due to her age and obsolete design, Kaiser Franz Joseph I saw little action during most of the conflict, though she did participate in shelling Franco-Montenegrin artillery batteries located on the slopes of Mount Lovćen in late 1914, which overshadowed the Bocche di Cattaro. In January 1916, when the Austria-Hungary began an invasion of Montenegro, Kaiser Franz Joseph I assisted in again silencing Montenegrin batteries on Mount Lovćen in support of the Austro-Hungarian Army, which seized the mountain and subsequently captured the Montenegrin capital of Cetinje, knocking the country out of the war.
In 1917, Kaiser Franz Joseph I was decommissioned, disarmed, and converted into a headquarters ship for the Austro-Hungarian base at Cattaro. She remained in this capacity through the rest of the war. When Austria-Hungary was facing defeat in October 1918, the Austrian government transferred its navy to the newly formed State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs in order to avoid having to hand the ship over to the Allies. Following the Armistice of Villa Giusti in November 1918, an Allied fleet sailed into Cattaro and seized the former Austro-Hungarian ships stationed in the Bocche, including Kaiser Franz Joseph I. She was ceded to France as a war reparation after the war, but sank during a gale off Kumbor in October 1919. Her wreck was twice salvaged in 1922 and 1967. Two of her cannons are in Cetinje, Montenegro.
Background On 13 November 1883, Emperor Franz Joseph I promoted Maximilian Daublebsky von Sterneck to the office of vice admiral, and named him Marinekommandant of the Austro-Hungarian Navy as well as Chief of the Naval Section of the War Ministry (German: Chef der Marinesektion). Sterneck's presence at the Battle of Lissa, and his past ties to Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, led to his promotion being widely supported within the Navy. After spending his first years as Marinekommandant reforming the administrative bureaucracy of the Navy, Sterneck began to pursue a new program of warship construction in the late 1880s and early 1890s.
Emergence of Jeune École
In the 1880s, the naval philosophy of Jeune École began to gain prominence among smaller navies throughout Europe, particularly within the French Navy, where it was first developed by naval theorists wishing to counter the strength of the British Royal Navy. Jeune École advocated the use of a powerful armed fleet primarily made up of cruisers, destroyers, and torpedo boats to combat a larger fleet made up of ironclads and battleships, as well as disrupt the enemy's global trade. Jeune École was quickly adopted as the main naval strategy for Austria-Hungary under the leadership of Sterneck. His strong support for Jeune École was rooted in a belief that the strategy appeared to fit existing Austro-Hungarian naval policy, which stressed coastal defense and limited power projection beyond the Adriatic Sea. Tests conducted by the Austro-Hungarian Navy during the early and mid 1880s led Sterneck to believe that torpedo boat attacks against a fleet of battleships, a central component of Jeune École, would have to be supported by larger ships such as cruisers. As Austria-Hungary lacked the ability to disrupt global trade due to its location in the Adriatic Sea, and the two potential enemies the Navy could find itself at war with–Italy and Russia–lacked suitable targets for commerce raiding or overseas colonies, the cruisers which would be designed under the principles of Jeune École would instead focus on coastal defense and leading torpedo boat flotillas as opposed to commerce raiding. These tests, as well as the adoption of Jeune École as the principal naval strategy of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, led to the development of Kaiser Franz Joseph I.
Proposals and budget Under the Navy's 1881 plan which was passed by his predecessor, Friedrich von Pöck, Sterneck proposed the construction of a class of cruisers to the Austrian and Hungarian Delegations for Common Affairs as "replacements" for the Austro-Hungarian ironclads and . Kaiser had not seen active service since 1875 and Pöck had intended to have her replaced prior to his resignation in 1883. Lissa had been reassigned to the II Reserve by 1888. The Delegations strongly supported the proposal for the cruisers, in large part due to their relatively low price compared to other capital ships of the era. Two cruisers built to the specifications of Kaiser Franz Joseph I would cost 5,360,000 florins, while the ironclad warship , laid down in 1884, had cost ƒ5,440,000 to construct. The Delegations thus allocated funding to construct two Kaiser Franz Joseph I-class ships—"Ram Cruiser A" and "Ram Cruiser B" (German: "Rammkreuzer A" and "Rammkreuzer B")—under the 1888 and 1889 budgets. "Ram Cruiser A" would eventually become Kaiser Franz Joseph I. This means that Kaiser Franz Joseph Is construction costs were later recorded as being 5,146,884 Krone.
Design
Authorized near the start of Austria-Hungary's second naval arms race against Italy, Sterneck had intended Kaiser Franz Joseph I and her sister ship to serve as Austria-Hungary's response to the Italian cruisers and . Intended as a counter to the growing strength of the Italian Regia Marina, Kaiser Franz Joseph I was designed to lead a torpedo flotilla into battle against a larger fleet of battleships. While Italy and Austria-Hungary had become allies under the 1882 Triple Alliance, Italy's Regia Marina remained the most-important naval power in the region which Austria-Hungary measured itself against, often unfavorably. Despite the Austrian victory at sea after the Battle of Lissa during the Third War of Italian Independence, Italy still possessed a larger navy than Austria-Hungary in the years following the war. The disparity between the Austro-Hungarian and Italian navies had existed ever since the Austro-Italian ironclad arms race of the 1860s. While Austria-Hungary had shrunk the disparity in naval strength throughout the 1870s, Italy boasted the third-largest fleet in the world by the late 1880s, behind the French Navy and the British Royal Navy.
Sterneck hailed the Kaiser Franz Joseph I and her sister ship as the "battleships of the future", and it was envisioned that she would lead a torpedo division made up of one light cruiser, one destroyer, and six torpedo boats. The displacement and speed of Kaiser Franz Joseph I also illustrated Austria-Hungary's application of Jeune École, while her prominent ram bow reflected the legacy of the Battle of Lissa, which saw a much smaller Austrian fleet defeat the Italian Regia Marina using ramming tactics. Sterneck envisioned a hypothetical engagement with the Italian Regia Marina devolving into a chaotic melee similar to the Battle of Lissa, with Kaiser Franz Joseph I and her sister ship leading torpedo divisions against their opponents. Her bow ram would maximize damage in an engagement of this sort and allow her to sink enemy vessels in a similar fashion to Tegetthoff at Lissa. Her two large guns were also chosen in order to give credence to Sterneck's plan for Kaiser Franz Joseph I to help replace heavily armored ironclads and battleships as the primary capital ship of the Austro-Hungarian Navy.
General characteristics
Designed by Chief Engineer Franz Freiherr Jüptner, Kaiser Franz Joseph I had an overall length of and a length between perpendiculars of . She had a beam of , and a mean draft of at deep load. She was designed to displace at normal load, but at full combat load she displaced . She was manned by a crew of 367 to 444 officers and men.
Propulsion Her propulsion systems consisted of two shafts which operated two screw propellers measuring in diameter. These propellers were powered by two sets of horizontal triple expansion engines, designed to provide . These engines were powered by four cylindrical double-ended boilers, which gave Kaiser Franz Joseph I a top speed of while conducting sea trials. In order to power her boilers, Kaiser Franz Joseph I carried of coal. This gave her a range of approximately at .
Armament Kaiser Franz Joseph I had an armament system which was based heavily off of the design of "Elswick cruisers" such as the Chilean cruiser . She was armed with a main battery of two K L/35 Krupp guns, mounted in turrets fore and aft. Her secondary armament consisted of six SK L/35 guns, mounted in casemates amidships with three on either side. She also possessed 16 SFK L/44 guns, and four torpedo tubes with two located at the bow and stern, and two located amidships. These heavy guns were intended to help the cruiser open fire on heavier battleships from a distance while supporting torpedo boat attacks on an enemy warship or fleet. In 1905, Kaiser Franz Joseph I underwent a refit for modernization. During this refit, her main battery was replaced by two SK L/40 Škoda guns.
The mountings her main guns were located on consisted of a rotating platform and a domed gun turret. These turrets were operated by a series of steam pumps below the deck of both ships. While each turret had its own steam pump, pipes ran the length of the ship to connect each steam pump and their accompanying turret together in order to provide a backup system should one of the steam pumps be disabled in combat. The maximum elevation of the two main guns, as well as their loading angle, was 13.5°. When at this angle, the range of the main guns' shells was . The maximum elevation of the ships' secondary armament was 16°, and their shells had the same range as the main battery.
Armor Kaiser Franz Joseph I was protected at the waterline with an armored belt measuring thick. The turrets had thick armor, while the thickness of the deck armor was . Her conning tower was protected by armor. The machinery for Kaiser Franz Joseph I was assembled by Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino, and she was constructed with a double-bottom hull and designed with over 100 watertight compartments. The steam-powered pumps used to control flooding aboard Kaiser Franz Joseph I could discharge of water per hour.