[RTW] Kaisertreu: An Austria-Hungary LP

[Cavalier]

September-October 1910





The naval architects serving the Imperial and Royal Navy at the Seearsenal continued to make advances on the drafts of the Graz-class battlecruiser. A new system of weight calculations and double-checks introduced by Generalingeneuer Popper produced some more consistent results and promised to allow for a greater margin of leeway to naval architects in the future.

A new stereoscopic rangefinder model would also be introduced into the fleet in the coming months.



The change in ASW tactics produced results when two French submarines were sunk in the beginning of September attempting to infiltrate the Adriatic.







On 5 September the SMS Karl VI, patrolling off the Balaeres, intercepted and sank a French light cruiser attempting to raid Austrian shipping off the Spanish coast. It was a short, sharp action in which the superior firepower and speed of the Austrian armored cruiser, and her elite crew, completely overwhelmed her opponent.



The Army had the spotlight for the month, though, with the successful capture of Gabès following bitter fighting between the expeditionary XIII Korps and the French defenders of the Wadi Zigzaou south of Mareth. The use of mountain-adapted Bosnian formations to flank through the Matmata Hills and strike the French defenders from the rear was critical to breach the defensive line. With the French in retreat on 26 September, and the main body of XIII Korps engaged crushing a last stand by units of the Foreign Legion, the Bosnians were the first into the important port. The fezzes of the Bosnian infantry caused them to be mistaken for Ottoman infantry by second-line French defenders and by the city's residents; the former fled out of fear of capture while the latter greeted them as liberators. The entry of General Boroević and the rest of XIII into Gabès on 29 September clarified the matter and dampened local enthusiasm somewhat.

The considerably greater degree of respect accorded to the Bosnian infantry relative to French colonial still left a favorable impression, as did the willingness of Austrian authorities to more directly engage with the local power structure to maintain order- a result of their own rule in Bosnia.



Premier Delcasse, now under serious pressure from defeats of the past month and the ongoing British blockade, authorized his delegation in Brussels to offer more generous terms to the allied powers in exchange for a cessation of hostilities. This time Foreign Minister von Aerenthal adopted an intransigent attitude, demanding that Austria obtain a colonial concession in North Africa. The British in turn had their eye on domination over the Western Mediterranean and supported Aerenthal's demands, which were rejected in turn by Declasse. Notwithstanding the defeat of the attempt on Suez and the capture of Gabès the French still held Algeria and had reformed a defensive line on Wadi Akriti a few miles north in Tunisia. The French could still defeat Britain and Austria on the ground and were not willing to turn over their most important possessions without more resistance.



The capture of Gabès brought on one more unanticipated benefit for the Imperial and Royal Navy. A shipment of torpedoes to equip French destroyers operating out of the port city had fallen into the hands of XIII Korps. They were shipped back to the Seearsenal at Pola for examination, and several of their features were later adopted in subsequent Austrian torpedo design. Warnings from the research group that French torpedoes were more powerful and longer-ranged than Austrian equivalents were disseminated to the active fleet.



Recent defeats had not discouraged the French from operating out of Corfu, and a mine laid by boats operating from the base nearly sank the unfortunate old battleship SMS Wien patrolling off Cattaro on 2 October.













Austrian light forces continued to harass the French presence on the island, with a raid on 8 October turning into a prolonged skirmish with defending French destroyers. Three French merchantmen were sunk during the action, along with a patrolling minesweeper.

 

[Cavalier]

November 1910



November brought a new small tube boiler design from STT, displacing the last model offered by Ganz & Company. The unit would go into the oil-powered ships of the Leopard class, and a larger model based on similar principles would be used to reduce weight aboard the Novara-class light cruisers.





And new light cruisers were badly needed. After a brief lull following the loss of Amiral Charner and Dupetit-Thouars the French Navy returned to an aggressive tempo of operations. The appointment of a new commander, Admiral Louise Dartige du Fournet, re-energized the French fleet in the Mediterranean. The knowledge that France was now fighting a defensive war to retain her colonial possessions renewed the commitment of demoralized naval officers, and du Fournet's plan for bold cruiser raids appealed to the desire of the enlisted crews for effective action.

Admiral Haus, the Austrian Flottenkommandant, ordered more aggressive patrols in protect Austrian commerce. He was concerned by the superiority of the French Super Cruisers, though the remaining Gueydon class ships and the French protected cruisers were also very active. He hedged his orders by having the First Cruiser Division operate together when patrolling the mouth of the Adriatic, with orders to turn and run from any of the French Super Cruisers.







One such patrol by the First Cruiser Division in the early morning of 16 November encountered a French force attempting to enter into the Adriatic from Corfu. Captain Horthy on Szigetvar sent a contact report at 08:45, having observed a single light cruiser. Admiral Njegovan aboard SMS Karl VI ordered a cautious pursuit, in accordance with directives from Naval Headquarters.

A second light cruiser was soon sighted by Szigetvar, as well as an armored cruiser in the distance. The two light cruisers were obviously a scout group, but the presence of only one armored cruiser encouraged Njegovan to close quickly. If it was one of the French Super Cruisers his division might be able to gain a quick advantage from weight of numbers, and if it was the FS Gueydon then eliminating the raider would reduce the need for continued cruiser patrols.



The French cruiser was identified as the Gueydon shortly before 09:25. Karl VI opened fire from the lead, and the division maneuvered to bring its broadside guns to bear on the target.



At 09:27 the lookout on Karl VI reported two more ships approaching from the south. It was immediately assumed that they were the Pothuau and the Latouche-Treville, the two French Super Cruisers of such concern to the Imperial and Royal Navy. For the next half-hour the First Cruiser Division engaged in a shelling match with the Gueydon while drawing north to stay out of range of the French Super Cruisers.





At 10:00 the FS Chazny closed to under 14,000 yards. Admiral Njegovan ordered an immediate turn away to the north and increased speed to flank. Unfortunately the old boilers aboard Maria Theresia overheated, dropping her down to 20 knots top speed by 10:30. This allowed the two French Super Cruisers to close the range, where their massive secondary batteries of 203mm guns scored hit after hit on all three Austrian armored cruisers. The 14.9cm secondaries of the Maria Theresia class were effectively useless against the 7" belt armor the French ships, but their own 5" belts were regularly being penetrated by the 254mm main guns and 203mm secondaries of their opponents. The elite Austrian crews were scoring many more hits, but only their 24cm main batteries were effective.

All three Austrian ships took a pounding, with Karl VI and Ferdinand III both registering over two-dozen medium caliber shell shits over the course of the engagement. Njegovan had taken his flagship and Ferdinand III into a point blank slugging match to try to cover the escape of Maria Theresia, which had been slowed down by further hits to the engine room.







The resulting battle lasted for over an hour and a half as both sides slammed shells into one another in a running battle to the north. SMS Maria Theresia suffered a number of serious penetrating hits that led it to take on water at an alarming rate. It turned to the north at best speed about 12:00 as the Karl VI and Ferdinand III continued to draw the attention of the Porthuau and Depetit-Thouars. Both sides were exhausted and running out of ammunition when, at 12:20, the French finally turned away. They had taken a number of serious hits as well and were under orders to preserve their own forces; the long chase north was also drawing them uncomfortably close to Cattaro and the Austrian destroyer flotillas based there.





Maria Theresia was in very bad shape as she was escorted north by the rest of the First Cruiser Division. Her aft turret had been gutted by a 256mm shell hit, and flooding was progressing slowly but could not be brought under control. Efforts to bring the ship under tow completely failed, and at 15:01 the order to evacuate was given. A bulkhead ruptured suddenly at 15:06, causing a sudden severe list that threatened to capsize the ship quickly. The evacuation became a frantic rush to get off the ship, though many sailors were still caught below decks when she keeled over at 15:10 and sank rapidly into the Adriatic. Survivors were rescued by the First Cruiser Division; a mandatory requirement that sailors know how to swim insured that any man who had gotten into the water before the ship capsized survived. Roughly 500 men were still lost in the sinking.





The action of 16 November had unquestionably been a defeat for the KuK Kriegsmarine. The loss of SMS Maria Theresia and her skilled crew was a major blow to the navy, and Karl VI and Ferdinand III had both suffered heavily as well. They would be out of action for weeks of repairs; against this the old French armored cruiser Gueydon had been heavily damaged, but the two French Super Cruisers would be ready for action after light repair work.

This was the predictable consequence of taking older armored cruisers up against Super Cruisers; the Austrian plan of campaign had sought to avoid any such confrontations. But in war that was not always possible. And a replacement class for the Maria Theresia would be highly expensive and of questionable utility relative to the Graz-class, which was intended to operate in the line of battle as well as to destroy enemy cruisers. For the time being there was no choice anyway; Karl VI and Ferdinand III would have to serve on as was.



In light of the loss the government pondered whether or not to start negotiating down its demands for ending the war. Despite the stunning loss of the prior week the balance of the war was very much in favor of Austria-Hungary. The British blockade remained intact, the French had lost many more ships than Austria-Hungary, and the addition of Habsburg and Arpad to the fleet had given the Imperial and Royal Navy a major advantage in any decisive fleet battle. Admiral Montecuccoli urged the politicians to hold fast for now, and to increase spending to bring the war to a speedy resolve instead.

 

[Cavalier]

So yeah that was exactly what I expected to happen if I took my cruisers up against the latest French cruisers. Maria Theresia having her boilers overheat was a real blow, though not really unexpected given her engines had the "Speed" focus. At this point I'm afraid the whole class is just obsolete, but I still need Karl VI and Ferdinand III for culling light cruisers and other obsolete armored cruisers. Not sure if it's worth rebuilding them or if they should just both be scrapped once I finally get a pair of battlecruisers. Can't really do anything for their armor scheme even if I can push them up to 28 or 29 knots.

 

[Polandc4]

Its a shame you can't redefine a ships role, like redefining those refits as a light cruiser.

 

[Cornuthaum]

So yeah that was exactly what I expected to happen if I took my cruisers up against the latest French cruisers. Maria Theresia having her boilers overheat was a real blow, though not really unexpected given her engines had the "Speed" focus. At this point I'm afraid the whole class is just obsolete, but I still need Karl VI and Ferdinand III for culling light cruisers and other obsolete armored cruisers. Not sure if it's worth rebuilding them or if they should just both be scrapped once I finally get a pair of battlecruisers. Can't really do anything for their armor scheme even if I can push them up to 28 or 29 knots.

Click to shrink...

Honestly, keep them, but put them on Reserve. You can put the damn things on Colonial Service if you plan to take non-Mediterranean colonies.

If you don't plan to go outre-mer, then keep using them in the war: Use them, and use them up. They're so old and outdated as a design that they really aren't worth that many VP. AFterwards.... yeah, no. Scrap them. Beginning-of-game CAs just aren't worth it.

 

[Night]

Use them, and use them up. They're so old and outdated as a design that they really aren't worth that many VP. AFterwards.... yeah, no. Scrap them. Beginning-of-game CAs just aren't worth it.

Click to shrink...

Their crews are pretty experienced and would give inflated amounts of VP away upon loss; it's probably best to keep them out of the way.

 

[Erandil]

Very nice let's play so far - your narration is top notch. And while I understand why you don't want to rake losses it certainly makes for a more interesting story.

I have to say that GB efforts so far seem less than impressive considering what a huge deal that nations seems to be in the game. Is that simply because AI vs AI has less casualties or do other nations simply avoid going up against it?

 

[Cavalier]

How long can you run a deficit in a war for without it pinging down prestige? Because I can throw them in refit to hit 29 knots, which should let them run away from any AI design that can kill them (for now; the second generation of BCs will usually hit 30+ knots) but it's going to cost about 6,000,000 crowns (or pounds or dollars or whatever the cost is supposed to be in) and I need my CLs and BCs too.

Very nice let's play so far - your narration is top notch. And while I understand why you don't want to rake losses it certainly makes for a more interesting story.

I have to say that GB efforts so far seem less than impressive considering what a huge deal that nations seems to be in the game. Is that simply because AI vs AI has less casualties or do other nations simply avoid going up against it?

Click to shrink...

It's an artifact of how the game handles allies, which is badly. They only participate by events being triggered, and for some reason it's usually an allied capital ship being sunk alongside an enemy DD or MS. Though they're still useful because you can use their bases for support in war and their fleets count toward the blockade limit of the enemy homeland... but not against the blockade limit of your own homeland.

Which led to a frankly absurd situation where 9 French battleships were dominating the Mediterranean against 13 Austrian and British battleships.

Yeah, the diplomacy and ally mechanics are just window-dressing on the design management and tactical simulation.

 

[Cavalier]

December 1910-January 1911









The sinking of the SMS Maria Theresia led to the withdrawal of the remaining Austrian armored cruisers from regular patrols by the Marinekommandant. Karl VI and Ferdinand III required significant repair time and Naval Headquarters was concerned about the outcome of any further confrontations with the French Super Cruisers. Preserving the two ships to serve as the scouting force of the battle fleet in a decisive battle against the Marine Nationale was viewed as more important than protecting Mediterranean commerce. It was expected that the Royal Navy would pick up some of the slack, but in fact nothing of the sort happened.

The British informed the Austrians that their cruiser force would be temporarily withdrawn from the western Mediterranean due to a need to reinforce the blockade of the French Atlantic ports. The reality was somewhat messier, and pointed to strains already beginning to show in the Anglo-Austrian alliance. The approach of Austrian troops toward Tunis had made Vienna determined to retain the country as a colony after the war rather than return it to nominal Ottoman control as the British had preferred. In this Foreign Minister Aerenthal was being encouraged by the German government, including a direct communique from Kaiser Wilhelm II congratulating his "honored cousin" Emperor Franz Josef on the success of Austro-Hungarian arms. A strong Austria-Hungary able to assert independent interests was not much to British liking, and the impending defeat of France had lessened London's estimation of the value of the alliance.

As a consequence the French cruiser force seized a score of Austrian merchantmen between December and January, scouring the Western Mediterranean of Austro-Hungarian commerce. Suspicions that the French were routinely violating Spanish neutrality were floated, but there was little that the Austrian Navy could do about it. Their cruiser forces were simply inadequate to the task of performing the patrols necessary to check the French commerce-raiders.



The lighter forces of the Imperial and Royal Navy continued to apply pressure on the French occupation of Corfu. In a raid on 7 December a French destroyer and four naval transports were sunk, denying the French garrison some crucial supplies for expanding the base there.



The surge in French confidence and success encouraged Admiral Dartige du Fournet to embark on another large-scale raid, this time bringing the most modern of the French battleships in an attempt to strike directly at the naval base at Cattaro. Damage to the harbor at Corfu prevented him from bringing the full battle-fleet, but French intelligence and experience had already confirmed that the four battleships of the Wien class were obsolete and being relegated to second-line functions by the Imperial and Royal Navy. French intelligence was also dangerously out of date regarding the Habsburg class, with the Admiral being informed that the battleships had not yet finished final fitting out and that it would be three more months before SMS Habsburg had a reliable crew. In fact both SMS Habsburg and SMS Arpad had finished taking on crews and were considered operational units of the Imperial and Royal Navy.

Dartige du Fournet planned his grand raid for 8 January, intending to wait until the early morning before launching a surprise. Unfortunately for the French, the fully armed and operational battleships of the Habsburg class were out off the coast of Albania conducting gunnery drills under the watchful care of the old battleships SMS Budapest and SMS Wien. A squall had set in around 11:00, leaving the fleet proceeding at a leisurely pace to port until the weather finally cleared nearly three hours later.





At 13:50 hours Captain Horthy aboard the SMS Szigetvar signaled a contact report to SMS Arpad. Vizadmiral Leopold Ritter von Jedina was in command of the First Battle Division to oversee the induction of the new ships into the Navy. He elected to investigate Horthy's contact, which brought him into sight of Dartige du Fournet's battle squadron approaching Cattaro from the south. The two fleets opened fire on each other at 14:00 hours, and it rapidly became clear to the French that they were not facing the old Austrian battleships but rather two Formidable-type battleships and were severely outmatched.



In what would become a constant running problem in the engagement, the inexperienced signalmen aboard SMS Arpad repeated failed to convey instructions from the bridge correctly. At 14:50, with the French still steaming north and the range closing down, Admiral von Jedina ordered a torpedo attack by the Fifth Torpedoboot Squadron. Unfortunately the signal as seen from the bridge of TB-22 was complete gibberish, and no such attack was made before the French broke away and steamed away at high speed. It was the first of many such lost opportunities.



The earlier exchange of gunfire saw the FS Colbert riddled with 30.5cm shell hits from Arpad, and falling behind the rest of the French fleet. Admiral von Jedina elected to continue a pursuit with the aim of overtaking the damaged French battleship and perhaps bringing the rest of the French fleet back into a closer engagement while visibility conditions were still favorable.





Another signals failure at 15:23 obscured von Jedina's order for Horthy aboard Szigetvar to close in and torpedo the Colbert under cover from the Austrian battleships. When Szigetvar moved in closer to screen the battleships instead, von Jedina adjusted his orders for the Fifth Torpedoboot Squadron to launch an immediate massed attack on the French fleet while it was still disorganized. Instead the destroyers closed in against a nonexistent French torpedo attack, spoiling another moment where an aggressive action could have seen a decisive result.





The French fleet consolidated but effective scouting by Horthy, once the signals confusion was cleared up, kept von Jedina appraised of their location. The Austrian fleet resumed firing on the French battleships at 16:00, less than an hour before twilight in the short winter days. More signals confusion prevented a torpedo boat attack, and no decisive hits were scored by the new battleships. The clearly heavily damaged FS Colbert presented von Jedina an incentive to continue hunting after the sun had set, with unfortunate results.



FS Colbert had not been sighted when it fired a torpedo into the rear of the Austrian battle-line, hitting the old SMS Budapest at 17:20. The old ship rapidly took on water and von Jedina, unsure of where the torpedo had come from, ordered an immediate turn away from suspected French destroyers. SMS Budapest was detached and steamed way to Cattaro under escort, as her men fought a desperate action to keep afloat.



The decision to turn around to try to locate and destroy the wounded French battleship was controversial now and at the time. The torpedoing and very probable loss of SMS Budapest put pressure on von Jedina to produce some result to justify the costs of the battle. He was also under the impression that the new Torpedo Defense System built into the Habsburg class made them substantially less vulnerable to isolated torpedo attacks than the old battleships were. He had also slowly come to the suspicion that the French fleet had abandoned FS Colbert to escape from the superior Austrian battleships and that the torpedo had come from that crippled ship, or perhaps from a submarine operating out of Cattaro.

In any case he did locate the Colbert at roughly the coordinates he had pulled away from at 18:30. The ship was making barely 5 knots in the darkness and appeared to be in significant distress. Orders to surrender were answered by gunfire, and so von Jedina brought in Arpad and Habsburg to finish the ship off.



While swinging to starboard around the increasingly crippled French battleship the SMS Arpad was hit by a torpedo. The submerged tubes of the SMS Colbert were still functional and the crew intact enough to fire one off as a final gesture of defiance. The hit inducted heavy flooding in the Arpad and the real risk of losing the ship. Arpad fell out of formation and staggered north, its crew trying desperately to correct a significant list while the rest of the Austrian forces fell upon the Colbert in a fury. The French ship was riddled with gunfire and torpedoed a full six times before Linienschiffskapitän von Seidensacher aboard SMS Habsburg ordered the fleet to break off.



Ultimately both SMS Budapest and SMS Arpad limped back into Cattaro for emergency repairs before being towed north to Trieste. The abandonment of the survivors of the Colbert was justified by the threat of French submarines, as it was still unknown how the Budapest had been torpedoed, and by uncertainty as to the location of the French fleet. Admiral Dartige du Fournet had in fact lost contact with FS Colbert in the night and had assumed the ship lost when running for Corfu. Once the details came out the crew of the Colbert were celebrated as heroes in France, though their defiance failed to obscure an important fact. France had lost yet another of her most modern battleships, while Austria-Hungary now boasted two Formidable-type battleships where the Marine Nationale had none ready.



The result was considered a victory in Vienna, but not at Pola. The torpedoing of two Austrian capital ships was a terrible result, and the loss of SMS Arpad would have been catastrophic. Admiral Montecuccoli convened an inquest at which the sloppy signals handling aboard SMS Arpad was particularly faulted. Vizadmiral von Jedina, as an interim commander only recently appointed, was not blamed for the failings of the crew of his battleship; his decision to continue searching for the French fleet at night was criticized, though the admiral was on the way to retirement anyway and so no formal reprimand followed. In response to the report Flottenkommandant Anton Haus issued a categorical directive to the Austro-Hungarian Navy; henceforth, no capital ships were to be risked in night actions except in circumstances of supreme importance.

As only the Flottenkommandant could determine what "supreme importance" meant, it was a clear order that independent battleship commands would not be risked after dark. After the loss of the Maria Theresia and the near-loss of Budapest and Arpad, the Imperial and Royal Navy was taking a much-needed lesson in humility.

 

[Exterminatus]

I'm still surprised that France's pre-dreadnoughts are still worth enough to salvage a victory and prestige out of losing a dreadnought plus a pre-dread.

Also night battles are very nasty business, especially in admiral's mode. I wonder if there's a way to expand the destroyer screen because the current destroyer screen is not good for warding off torpedo attacks in night battles.

 

[Cavalier]

I'm still surprised that France's pre-dreadnoughts are still worth enough to salvage a victory and prestige out of losing a dreadnought plus a pre-dread.

Also night battles are very nasty business, especially in admiral's mode. I wonder if there's a way to expand the destroyer screen because the current destroyer screen is not good for warding off torpedo attacks in night battles.

Click to shrink...

They aren't. I didn't lose Budapest or Arpad. I just came very, very close. Again due to the fuckstupid AI not slowing down a flooding ship. Fortunately damage control brought the flooding under control before they gutted themselves.

I'm a little surprised, mind. I expected the TDS on the Arpad to be a little more effective. It flooded just as fast as Budapest though. Not sure, maybe the French just had some advance in warheads that made them more powerful than my torpedoes.

 

[joebob73]

Just wait until you get TDS level 4. Your BBs can sometimes eat a full spread from a quad launcher and keep sailing at nearly full speed without flooding to death. Other times a pair of torps will force you to cut engines entirely or sink.

 

[Cornuthaum]

I'm a little surprised, mind. I expected the TDS on the Arpad to be a little more effective. It flooded just as fast as Budapest though.

Click to shrink...

It all comes down on where the torpedo hit. Especially with hits to the bow of the ship, you get a lot more flooding from moving and the water pushing in (or, likewise, engine room hits, which are the devil).

 

[Cavalier]

February-March-April 1911



The raider menace had, by February, accelerated the consensus at Pola in favor of an expanded cruiser arm. The three Novara class light cruisers, utilizing a brand-new protection scheme and capable of extended operations outside the Mediterranean, were simply the beginning. Two Graz class Super Cruisers were to be ordered under the war budget for 1911, with ultimate plans for a group of two more Super Cruisers once the slipways and funds were available. Ultimately plans revolved around building up to a dozen light cruisers, capable of scouting and escort or raiding duties, as well as six of the Super Cruisers to match the six first-rate Battleships of the Radetzky and Habsburg classes.

The only question was whether or not the group of Super Cruisers should include the two surviving ships of the Maria Theresia class. Flottenkommandant Vice-admiral Haus forcefully argued that the class was obsolete and that the proposed overhaul of replacing the boilers with oil-firing equipment that would push the ships up to 29 knots top speed was an expensive distraction from building the light cruisers the fleet really needed. He was also firmly of the opinion, shared with his colleagues in the German Kaiserliche Marine, that the Super Cruisers were simply too expensive and too powerful not to be armored sufficiently to participate in a line of battle. The final Graz class design was better armored than the Radetzky class battleships, and accordingly the terminology around them changed; SMS Graz would be no mere Super Cruiser, but rather a schlachtkreuzer, a battle cruiser.

The commander of the First Cruiser Division, Vice-Admiral Maximilian Njegovan, by contrast argued in favor of the upgrades to the Maria Theresia class. The ships were already built and the upgrades could be finished in a third of the time as a brand new schlachtkreuzer. At 29 knots the cruisers would be extremely handy for running down any lighter vessels, while more than capable of escaping from any other cruiser in the world. Most importantly, the Graz class was looking to exceed a cost of 100,000,000 crowns; any follow-on battle cruisers would be even more expensive, so it was unrealistic to expect to be able to field six such vessels in any reasonable frame of time.

For the time being the argument was shelved by the war and the need to concentrate resources on the Graz class. Marinekommandant Admiral Rudolf Montecuccoli deferred a decision until later.



March brought more reports of merchantmen being sunk by French raiders in the Mediterranean, in the Indian Ocean, and even off the coasts of Africa. There was a ray of good news when, on 14 March, the embassy in Madrid confirmed that the French Super Cruiser Latouche-Trevaille had been interned in Ceuta following a shipboard fire and engine damage.



The internment was fortuitous for the French, as it happened ahead of the return of the Royal Navy in force to the western Mediterranean. A reinforced phalanx of battleships escorted a large army gathered from the Empire, which landed outside Constantine on 16 March. French influence in Morocco had been largely overthrown and the native Berbers soon displayed their willingness to cooperate with the British invaders. The defending French XIX Corps had been ground down by months of battle in Tunisia with the Austro-Hungarians and relied heavily on French settler militias to provide resistance while the command reconstituted itself to defend Algiers proper. Consequently the British under Sir John French advanced very rapidly after the initial snarls of the first two weeks of invasion.

The invasion was greeted with a certain degree of resentment in Vienna. General Boroevic openly complained that his force had been used to distract and bleed the French while the British waltzed in at the last minute and swallowed the more prosperous Algerian colony whole. Admiral Montecuccoli was more circumspect, but the lack of British support over the past six months had not been forgotten in Pola. The Ballplatz did its best to maintain a united front with the British for the sake of peace negotiations, but it was increasingly obvious that interests were beginning to diverge.



Admiral Dartige du Fournet was under pressure to produce a victory before the French government felt compelled to seek terms, so as to at least preserve the honor of the Marine Nationale. With the British distracted supporting the invasion of Algeria he launched one last sortie with the full battle-fleet into the Adriatic on 22 March. Intercepted signals from Corfu alerted Pola of the impending sortie and allowed Admiral Haus to bring out the First, Second, and Third Battle Divisions to meet the French. The day had promised to bring about the largest naval clash since Trafalgar almost a century earlier.



That promise was broken by the inability of either fleet to locate the other before sunset. The luckless TB-15, separated from the fleet at night, stumbled into the French armada and was rapidly sunk. But the encounter made it clear to Dartige du Fournet that the Austrian Navy was aware of the sortie and actively looking for him. He decided against attempting to force a decisive battle at dawn, and turned back to exit the Adriatic without risking further battle.



The battle would probably not have gone well for the French. The single Redoubtable class battleship was roughly comparable in speed and protection to the Habsburg class, but the arrangement of its eight 330mm guns left much to be desired; in sheer broadside weight it was inferior even to the older Radetzky class. And as the failures of the Friedland class had shown, the Modele 1906 naval rifle left much to be desired; it had inferior ballistic performance and penetration to the Skoda 30.5cm naval rifles arming the Habsburg and Radetzky classes. A low velocity made it inaccurate and underperforming relative even to the 300mm naval rifle equipping older French battleships.



The final design iteration of the long-delayed Graz-class battle cruiser was laid down at STT on 2 April. It retained the triple-turret, AQX arrangement of the Habsburg class battleship but upgraded to the new M1908 33cm guns being offered by Skoda. The decision to reserve the 35.5cm gun for a future battleship was controversial, but the additional firepower would have required a substantial increase in weight to retain even the pretense of a balanced design. As it was the Graz would be substantially more powerful than any French, Italian, or Russian battleship; and the 33cm gun provided more than adequate firepower to destroy any cruiser in existence.









Negotiations with France in Brussels culminated in an armistice and peace preliminaries announced on 23 April. The Delcasse government had been living on borrowed time for months, as the failure of Russia to enter the war made victory impossible. The spate of success at commerce-raiding over the winter had bought Delcasse time, but the invasion of Algeria had the Chamber of Deputies in open revolt. Having accepted that defeat was inevitable the Prime Minister ordered his delegates in Brussels to come to an agreement with the British and Austrians as soon as possible.

The British were relatively eager to end the war and with it the costly blockade of the French coast, but the conservative government of Arthur Balfour insisted upon the cession of Algeria. The creation of a secure British hegemony in the western Mediterranean had been entertained ever since the war with France, and Algeria was a relatively prosperous colony with a large European population. It had been French for over eight decades, but the British were quick to offer guarantees about the rights of the settlers.

In the end Delcasse found he had no options. The mood of the Chamber had been captured by George Clemenceau, who had bitterly denounced the war with Britain, the failed alliance with Tsarist Russia, the conduct of operations, and even the very idea of a colonial empire as a colossal waste of effort and money distracting France from revenge. Even the more conservative figures aligned with the government, including Clemenceau's arch-rival Raymond Poincare, agreed there was no hope of victory. They instead urged Delcasse to accept the terms and the surrender of Algeria as the high price necessary to placate the British and to reorient French policy toward Europe.

Once the British were ceded Algeria the rest of the negotiations went quickly at the cost of largely ignoring Austria-Hungary. Count Aerenthal, the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Minister and de-facto Chancellor, was reduced to using the telegram to communicate a demand for Tunisia to London. The way in which the British disregarded Austro-Hungarian interests and forged ahead with their own terms humiliated and infuriated the Austrian government and played a role in the ultimate breakdown of the Anglo-Austrian alliance.

Nevertheless, the terms of the treaty were rendered acceptable to Austria-Hungary and for a brief time peace reigned in Europe.







And with the close of April a few developments came too late to affect the war. Torpedo design was further refined and a new model was introduced into service at the end of the month.

SMS Babenberg, the third ship of the Habsburg class, entered service and cemented the eclipse of France and Italy in the Mediterranean. The Austro-Hungarian Navy possessed the most powerful battle-line outside of the first rank naval powers of Britain, America, and Germany. The First and Second Battle Divisions were the pride of an increasingly professional and efficient modern naval service. But the four battleships of the Wien class were another matter; too old, too poorly armed and too poorly armored, they presented the problems of the Maria Theresia class without any of the advantages of the old Super Cruisers. Once Babenberg was fully ready for service the decision was made to turn the old Wien-class battleships into guard ships at Pola, Trieste, and Cattaro; they were no longer fit for service in a battle-line, and could serve no other useful purpose.

They had served well, but their time was past.

The future belonged to the Formidable-type battleship and to the battle cruiser.

 

[cokerpilot]

Did you intentionally go for peace or was that the government going behind your back?

 

[teslashark]

Did you intentionally go for peace or was that the government going behind your back?

Click to shrink...

He probably clicked the middle option?

 

[Cavalier]

He probably clicked the middle option?

Click to shrink...

This. I kind of wanted to buy some peace time to build up the cruiser forces, which badly needed attention. Things did not quite work out that way.

May-June-July 1911



The signing of the Treaty of Brussels marked the beginning of Anglo-French rapprochement, but also the rapid decline of the Anglo-Austrian alliance. The Conservative government of Arthur Balfour remained committed to the tie, but the war and humiliation of France had damaged the British government. Liberal and Labour voters were largely sympathetic to Paris after the initial fears for the Empire had passed on, while the Austro-Hungarian entry into the war earned it little gratitude among the British public. The defeat of France was also drawing more attention to the growing naval power of Germany and the United States, which Vienna was ill-placed to assist Britain with. The influential Foreign Office senior clerk Eyre Crowe circulated a memorandum at the close of the war calling for détente with France as a chastened junior partner needed to secure the continent against German hegemony.

Relations between France and Austria remained strained as well. The new French government of Georges Clemenceau had accepted the loss of Algeria with aplomb to pursue a new policy of alignment toward Europe. The end goal of that policy, an alliance with Britain against Germany, was no secret in the capitals of the Great Powers. But the hostility of the stridently anti-clerical, republican government of France toward the Dual Monarchy was unmistakable. Defeat at the hands of the British could be accepted, but the French public considered Austria to be a weaker power that had opportunistically exploited the situation and viewed their loss to Vienna as a far greater humiliation. The Marine Nationale supported that view to protect its own prestige, alleging that English ships had been present during their defeats and even implying that English crews had manned Austrian vessels.

The Ballplatz was more than aware of such developments and worked to shore up the alliance with England as best it could. The flaws of the peace, as well as political developments in Britain, would render such efforts futile.



Operational experience with a submarine arm provided data in favor of an improved diving gear being considered by STT's submarine construction bureau.



Continued contacts between Skoda and Vickers led to the importation of some British quality control practices for naval armor plate construction.



Sketches and design models for the torpedo protection bulkheads of the Habsburg class were transferred from the Seearsenal to the Royal Navy in the aftermath of the war. The exchange was driven by British interest in the survival of SMS Arpad following a French torpedo hit amidships to her engine room. In exchange for the technical data the Royal Navy paid a licensing fee directly to the Imperial and Royal Navy, which provided some badly-needed slack in the budget following postwar cuts.



News that the Italians were considering a new 330mm naval rifle for their next class of battleships provoked some consternation in Pola. The continued escalation of gun caliber threatened to render the Radetzky and Habsburg class battleships completely obsolete in a matter of years. As a consequence the Marinekommandant confirmed an understanding that the next class of Austro-Hungarian battleship would employ the 35.5cm Skoda rifle, with no reduction in the number of guns.

August-September-October 1911







The murder of Foreign Minister Aerenthal on 14 August during a visit to Athens to discuss the continued French occupation of Corfu unleashed a new crisis on the Balkans and in the relationship between Vienna and Paris. The assassination in Syntagma Square was particularly blatant; a Montengrin anarchist tossed a bomb at the cavalry escort of the Foreign Minister and King George, and when the attention of the crowd and the guards had been focused on the bomber, two accomplices raced forward with pistols to attack the shaken dignitaries. Count Aerenthal was the clear target and received multiple gunshot wounds in a matter of seconds; though King George was also killed by a stray bullet which severed an artery.

The loss of the Foreign Minister and the shock of the assassination gave the more aggressive elements in the Austro-Hungarian government an opening to act. The bomber had been cut down by Greek cavalry but the two pistol-wielding accomplices, identified after the fact as members of the Black Hand panslavist movement, fled the scene and escaped back to Montenegro. As before Vienna demanded that the Montenegrin government surrender the attackers, and accompanied the demand with a limited mobilization and the occupation of the Sanjak of Novi Pazar, cutting Montenegro off from Serbia. The Montengrins gave in, but stalled long enough for the assassins to slip over to Corfu by boat.

Under the terms of the Peace of Brussels the French had been obliged to vacate Corfu after three months, but had dragged out the process through a series of technical complications. London had seen no particular need to hasten the process but the continued French presence in the Adriatic was intolerable to the Navy. Admiral Montecuccoli joined with the Chief of the General Staff, General von Auffenburg, and Archduke Friedrich to demand a belligerent response to the crisis.

The situation was further complicated by the election of a Liberal government in Britain, following the fall of the Balfour government. The new Prime Minister H.H. Asquith favored better relations with Paris and had been prepared to allow France to occupy Corfu indefinitely. His ministers were largely sympathetic to France, hostile to Germany, and indifferent toward Austria-Hungary; only the First Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, was well-disposed toward alliance with Vienna as a check on Germany and Russia and a bulwark for the Ottomans but even he ultimately considered France as more important. And the aggressive Austrian moves, even in the context of an outrageous assassination, alarmed London.

Ultimately the assassins were surrendered to Greek custody and were swiftly executed. The French refused to budge on the matter of Corfu, citing continued delays in dismantling defenses. The British reached a side-agreement not to enforce the terms of the Treaty of Brussels as related to Corfu, in exchange for the French making certain guarantees regarding Algeria. The new Foreign Minister Sir Edward Grey proposed that Austria-Hungary accept the French presence on Corfu for another year, allowing a very staggered draw-down of the French position and ultimately to buy time for a political realignment bringing France into the alliance to create a solid anti-German and anti-Russian front in Europe. The suggestion was indignantly rejected by the new Foreign Minister, Baron Istvan Burian, as being aimed at turning Austria-Hungary into a battlefield.

November-December 1911

In the end Burian refused to withdraw his demands on Corfu, and made clear to London that Austria-Hungary had no interest in an anti-German alliance. Consequently the Asquith Cabinet voted to void the Anglo-Austrian Security Treaty in early November, right after the temporary resolution of the crisis with France. European politics entered a new era of uncertainty and instability as the developing Anglo-French entente threatened Germany, while Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Italy were left out in the cold.





At Trieste STT continued to improve construction practices, guided by the experience of wartime construction and work on the Novara class cruisers. A new side slip was also opened, quietly, to provide another berth for destroyer construction. The Greek crisis had unsettled Europe and it was now far from clear that the peace would last any significant period of time before the next outbreak of conflict.



The Seearsenal meanwhile experimented with a new torpedo-launcher, joining together two older style pneumatic launch assemblies into a single rack.



Finally, Ganz & Company found an export market in Italy for the new, smaller tube boilers it introduced based on advances first put into a design by their rivals at STT.

 

[teslashark]

This. I kind of wanted to buy some peace time to build up the cruiser forces, which badly needed attention. Things did not quite work out that way.

Click to shrink...

Your writing ability is really impressive; it's nothing short of genius to cover the turn of events as a British compromise!

 

[Exterminatus]

I have the feeling that Greece is not going to keep sovereignty of Corfu for a very long while.

 

[Cavalier]

January 1912



The new year was greeted with some apprehension at Pola, despite the tender for a second Graz class battle cruiser being authorized late in December. The effective end of the alliance with England had left Austria-Hungary diplomatically isolated and tensions were still running high with Paris over the French occupation of Corfu. Only the comparable isolation of Russia and the friendly disposition of Germany afforded the realm a measure of security.



Indeed relations with St. Petersburg had improved considerably after the end of the war, by dint of sheer necessity. The Russians were bewildered and angry following the elevation of Clemenceau, who had always opposed an alliance on the grounds of the tyrannical nature of the Tsarist regime. The French occupation of Corfu and growing influence over Montenegro and Serbia, coupled with a pro-British policy that necessarily accepted the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, added to the estrangement. The conservative party in Russian politics soon wrested back influence over the malleable Emperor Nicholas from the aggressive Pan-Slavist party due to the latter being discredited by the collapse of their pro-French policy. Prime Minister Stolypin and Finance Minister Sergei Witte favored a policy of a long-term peace and economic development; their advice was echoed by the charismatic monk Gregori Rasputin, who had gained a reputation as a starets (miracle-worker) with the Tsarina.

Relations had improved to the point that STT was allowed to consult with the Admiralty Shipyards on the development of a new class of light cruiser. The Austrian technical assistance led to the adoption of a modern armoring scheme for future Russian cruisers.

February 1912





Skoda offered a new 10" gun to STT for use on a bid on a tender from Chile for a new armored cruiser. The M12 26.5cm naval rifle had a very high velocity, which provided superior accuracy and penetration power. Skoda had even developed a new HE shell to better handle the rapid acceleration of the new gun, made with a higher-performance steel alloy soon introduced into general production. Admiral Njegovan, the commander of the First Cruiser Division and a leading advocate in favor of a smaller, faster Super Cruiser pushed for the use of the M12 in a design to hit 30 knots as an ultimate commerce raider and escort ship. The gun was considered insufficiently powerful for a battle cruiser design by the KuK Kriegsmarine design bureau, so the future of military tenders would depend on whether or not Njegovan won out in his argument with Admiral Haus of the battle fleet.



Expansion of the Seearsenal continued, as wartime authorized work finally finished. The new docks could handle a projected 33000 ton capital ship, expected as a follow on to the Graz class battlecruisers.



The month also saw a major political conflict between Marinekommandant Admiral Rudolf Montecuccoli and his nominal superior, Minister of War General der Infanterie Alexander Krobatin. As an ally of the aggressive First Army commander Conrad von Hötzendorf, the new War Minister sought to economize on naval expenditures so as to shuffle funds into acquiring new field howitzers. Krobatin presented Montecuccoli with a memorandum on 17 February, proposing to halt construction of the expensive new cruisers in favor of a major buildup of the U-boat force. The memorandum was couched in the language of commerce raiding and assumed that the superiority of the battle fleet would deter France and Italy from venturing into the Adriatic again, but the purpose was clear enough.

Montecuccoli categorically rejected the suggestion and used his contacts with the heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his Naval League to protest against the proposed change to the building program. The Foreign Minister, Baron Istvan Burian, opposed the change as well but for equally parochial reasons; Krobatin was concentrating the artillery in the Common Army rather than distributing it equally across the KuK Armee, the K.K. Landwehr, and the K.U. Honved. As von Hötzendorf and his acolytes had never really kept quiet their ambition to subjugate the Hungarian half of the monarchy by force, the Hungarian Burian sought to deny them the necessary tools. Such opposition however encouraged Krobatin and von Hötzendorf to take their case to a sympathetic Emperor Franz Josef, who largely disliked all the forces arrayed against them.

March-April 1912



In the end Krobatin won with the intervention of the Emperor. The navy would not be forced to alter its build schedule, a concession extracted only after an audience between the Emperor and his nephew degenerated into a stormy argument. But the funds Krobatin has suggested would be saved were transferred over and used in the purchase of the desired howitzers.



The resolution of the "Submarine Crisis" was fortunate, as the Corfu Crisis was starting to come to a head. The French blew past one of their last deadlines to withdraw from the island at the end of March. At that point Clemenceau's government announced what everyone had already figured out; the French had no intention of withdrawing. With the acquiescence of London a local government was established under the protection of the French Republic and the French obligations regarding Corfu under the Treaty of Brussels were unilaterally abrogated. The British recognized the action, but Vienna was sent into a fury by the French actions.

Why exactly Paris chose Corfu as a flashpoint remains a debated subject. Georges Clemenceau was violently anti-clerical, and held a republican's contempt for the ancient Habsburg monarchy. French patriotism had long recognized Austria as a major enemy, even after both countries had declined from the height of their power in the wake of the French Revolution. France had been reconciled to defeat at the hands of Britain; it was an expected outcome after the commerce raiders failed to escape the British blockade, and even the colonial block had been resigned to merely holding their own in a war against England. The entry of Austria was resented and the annexation of Tunis considered a shameful loss. Perhaps Clemenceau, tapping into the emotions of the French populace, decided to unite them and give them a taste of revenge in the years before his cherished project of war with Germany could come to fruition?

Whatever the case the French made their stand on Corfu fully aware it would lead to war.



The government in Vienna was largely united in their understanding of the situation. Baron Burian saw the French presence on Corfu as an unwelcome encouragement to the South Slavic principalities to the south in their dreams of dismembering Hungary. Admiral Montecuccoli saw the French occupation of Corfu as the cork of a bottle, an attempt to keep the Royal and Imperial Navy stuck in the Adriatic while the French ran wild over the Mediterranean. Archduke Franz Ferdinand concurred with Montecuccoli, and further saw it as a deliberate insult aimed by a hated longtime foe of his house. And Emperor Franz Josef saw it was one more unmitigated bit of French treachery.

It was not difficult for the Ballplatz to summon up the political consensus to demand compliance with the Treaty of Brussels in a demarche to Paris. The Austrians counted on the support of the Greek government to keep Britain from interfering, and the benevolent neutrality of Germany and Russia to force France to back down.



The Empire was, at least, well-placed to support a war. The previous victories over Italy and France had made possible substantial borrowing to improve the rail network of the Empire, which in turn had spurred the development of larger-scale, more efficient agriculture in Galicia. The export of Galician wheat and beef, as well as the expansion of the oil industry, in turn provided Polish capitalists money to invest in Transylvanian mines and factories in Hungary. The standard of living across the Empire had improved substantially, with much of the actual GDP increase accruing due to rapid economic growth in the most backward parts of the monarchy. Emigration from Galicia slowed down substantially and some reverse-immigration occurred as Galicians who had gone to America returned with capital and skills to support new ventures in the boom of the Austro-Hungarian economy.

May 1912



At the beginning of May a curious episode interrupted the negotiations between France and Austria-Hungary. The French politician Aristide Briand met with his Austrian counterpart Otto Bauer in Geneva on 3 May to launch a combined program of their respective Socialist parties; France would return Corfu to Greece, and both countries would step back from war by reducing military spending on a social credit scheme to improve the lives of workers. The Briand-Bauer platform was adopted by the Austrian Social Democratic Party and found an enthusiastic following among the new industrial workers of the Empire. Many dislocated Ukrainians, Romanians, and Slovaks toiling in the new Hungarian and Galician factories had little cause to welcome a new war and were drawn in by the promise of expanded sickness benefits, more generous old-age pensions, new regulations on working hours, and an Imperial-wide minimum wage.

The governments of France and Austria-Hungary both denounced the program as near-treasonous collaboration with foreign forces. Clemenceau was scathing in his attacks on Briand in the Chamber of Deputies, while Otto Bauer was briefly arrested for sedition at the instigation of the Hungarian premier Istvan Tisza. The threat posed by the socialist program may very well, at least in part, account for the escalation of the crisis over the course of the following two weeks.

A series of naval incidents off Corfu and the Eastern Mediterranean occurred in which French and Austrian vessels engaged in reckless maneuvering and warning shots. On the morning of 16 May the Imperial and Royal Navy moved to blockade Corfu as the ambassador in Paris delivered an ultimatum to Prime Minister Clemenceau to remove French troops from the island within a month or face war with Austria. When he received the Austro-Hungarian demands Clemenceau called an emergency session of the Chamber of Deputies where he attacked the Imperial government with ferocious violence and set forth a motion to reject the ultimatum then and there, with no offers of amendment or mediation. The motion passed, and a response was conveyed to Foreign Minister Burian on 20 May along with a demand for the return of Tunis.

With no option for diplomacy remaining, Burian visited the Emperor in the afternoon and secured a declaration of war against France.

 

[Laundreu]

Fuckin' baguettes, man.

While in-game your odds shouldn't be too much worse than they were with Britain alongside, in-universe I would think the Austro-Hungarian Empire would be immensely concerned.

 

[teslashark]

Fuckin' baguettes, man.

While in-game your odds shouldn't be too much worse than they were with Britain alongside, in-universe I would think the Austro-Hungarian Empire would be immensely concerned.

Click to shrink...

Maybe a big enough victory in this war will convince Britain to lower tensions to pre first Corfu war levels...

 

[Night]

The tactical situation is relatively unchanged; in battle line actions the KuK will dominate, in cruiser actions not so much until the battlecruisers come.

 

[aledeth]

I've never seen war break out so quickly between nations that just fought a war in this game. Is this a consequence of pushing for a harder peace last time?

 

[Cornuthaum]

I've never seen war break out so quickly between nations that just fought a war in this game. Is this a consequence of pushing for a harder peace last time?

Click to shrink...

It depends largely on which nations get targeted by the random ++tension events like the Balkans one. If you get lucky and get multiple tension events in short order that all target the same nation, you will be at war again in no time (and if you won the last war, their Navy won't be in a state to win the new one...)


Anyways, @Cavalier: Have you still not gotten 14" +0 guns? The 10" +1 guns are a fantastic research - I personally love to stick them on CAs that I basically use as raiders (fast, enough armor to qualify as a CA, then set them to Raider - occasionally you run into a battlecruiser, but that'S what the high speed is for).