John Blackshoe Sends: Serendipity History – Lissa

Seeschlacht bei Lissa
Carl Frederik Sørensen (PD)

A Little Known Naval Battle and a Book Report

First a quiz:

Everyone has heard of Venice. Is it-

(a) a historic city in Italy? 

(b) the homeport for the Austrian Navy’s Mediterranean fleet?

If you chose (a) you would be right today, but wrong any time between 1815 and 1866 when it was controlled by Austria. Just a reminder that many national boundaries scribbled on the map of Europe have continuously moved over the last millennia.

Recently, Sarge enlightened us about the biggest battle we had never heard of - Solferino where Europeans slaughtered each other in large numbers over something or other in 1859. He topped that with “Another big battle you’ve (probably) never heard of” followed by fine fictional tales of the snowy massacre between Brits of the White or Red Rose persuasions, way back in 1461. This reminded me of a naval battle in 1866 which I had never heard of.

Most Americans knowledge of 19th century naval matters is limited to the “duel of the ironclads” between USS Monitor and the Confederate Merrimac/CSS Virginia March 9, 1862. The Confederates began installing an armored casemate and a massive bow ram on the salvaged hulk of a wooden frigate USS Merrimac, burned when the Yankees left the Norfolk Navy Yard. They mounted 10 heavy guns, making it a serious threat, albeit woefully underpowered and hard to maneuver from the tons of added armor. While the Rebs were busy in Norfolk Swedish born John Ericsson designed a revolutionary “cheesebox on a raft” with a revolving two gun turret, which was built in 101 days, completed just before the Merrimac . The Rebs won the first day’s battle when they sank two USN frigates and drove another aground. But the Monitor showed up right after that and drove the Merrimac away when they tried a second day, and land actions prevented further forays. So, armor and rams were proven to be good, along with turrets, but casemates worked too. 

My horizons were broadened when a guy in Australia asked on an ammunition collector forum about a small cast iron object about 1” x 1 ½”. Photos showed the base is engraved with what looks like “EIRSA, 20 Jun, 1866.” There is a raised boss on one side, threaded for a screw perhaps as a drawer pull or corkscrew or some souvenir purpose???

 

Source- email to author

It looked like some sort of “studded projectile” popular circa 1860-1890 as a method for artillery projectiles to get a good grip on rifling when fired from breech or muzzle loading guns. The studs were made to match the diameter and twist of rifling grooves in the gun. Like this Swiss 8.4cm projectile from 1869.

Source- Authors collection and photo

A few hours later, an Italian ex-pat now living in Australia, added:

“Type Font of the Inscription and Language is Germanic. “JUNI” IS German for June.

So an Austrian projectile from the 1866 War of Prussia and Italy against Bavaria and Austro-Hungary.

Battles of Custoza ( Land) and Lissa ( Sea).

Italian Poor Leadership led to saying " Ships and Men of Iron, Leaders with Wooden Heads."

 

The Prussian Victory at Koenigsgratz over the combined Austro-Hungarian-Bavarian forces gave Italy a Default Victory in the War, and regaining Italian areas under Austro-Hungarian domination.”

Shortly later a collector from Argentina confirmed the inscription, and my ignorance, so I checked “Lissa” on Wikipedia and decided this was a good excuse to get another book.

The Battle of Lissa 1866: How the Industrial Revolution Changed the Face of Naval Warfare, by Quintin Barry, published by Helion in the UK, 2022. 234 pages 7” x 9.75” hardbound. Available from on-line sellers on ABEbooks.com for about $40.00.

Source- Author’s photo.

I was amazed (and delighted) that the first 150 pages or so were NOT about the 1866 Battle of Lissa, but rather about the five great naval revolutions of the 19th century, which pretty much overlapped each other, and were sort of international arms races to keep abreast of their potential adversaries’ changing naval capabilities. These included first, steam power and the ability to move in any direction, independent of the wind. Second area was the large bore shell guns which were devastating to the “wooden walls” of existing ships. Third was the screw propeller, a quantum leap in speed and maneuverability over the cumbersome and space-hogging side wheel steamers. Fourth was rifled artillery, capable of greater accuracy and longer ranges, and when coupled with breech loading made ships more powerful than one with a similar number of muzzle loaders. Mount them in turrets with wide fields of fire and they were more of a threat than a larger broadside with limited lateral flexibility. Finally was the impact of armor, in an endless “spy vs spy” race between armor defense (metallurgy, placement and thickness) and the threat of rapidly improving naval guns, projectiles and explosives.

Barry does a great job presenting this in an understandable time line, providing necessary context of national issues for the various nations. He includes their economic position, their industrial capacity, their military leaders, and the Royal or other ruler’s desires/diktats. I had previously heard of a few of the ships discussed, but had no idea of the context or historical significance, nor the evolutionary steps before or after them. Surprisingly, much of the interest in armor predated our Civil War and the Monitor-Merrimac duel. 

As with most new weapons, military forces often try to shoehorn them into their old tactics, before adapting tactics to new capabilities. While fumbling with changing tactics, new logistics challenges would also appear. Societal change led to manning issues, and as always training and leadership’s strength or weakness played a part, especially with conscripts vs. careerists.

By 1866, the stage for Lissa was set, with the actors being the Kingdom of Italy, which was a fractious alliance filled with mistrust of others, personal ambitions, and competing naval officers who each thought they should be or actually were in charge of getting a fleet ready and getting into combat. Austria, with its Mediterranean fleet home ported in Venice was blessed with focused, visionary, and effective naval leadership, even if their ships were a step or so behind the newer Italian vessels. Training and repeatedly engaging in drills was a high priority, making them ready to fight today with what they had. (Not a bad lesson for any navy at any time.) Ashore, way on the other side of Austria, the Prussians (Germany was not yet unified) coveted some Austrian real estate and engaged in a war with Austria, while the Austrians were engaged in a war with Italy, so naturally the Italians, enemy of my enemy, became Prussia’s ally.

Lissa is a small island in the Adriatic, closer to the Croatian coast than the Italian, but a useful spot for controlling the upper Adriatic, so both antagonists wanted to control it. The British had controlled it during the Napoleonic wars, but in 1866 it was garrisoned by Austria. The Italians planned to land there and were about to do so when the Austrian fleet showed up to spoil the party. The Austrians knew the Italian plans from Italian newspaper reports. [Loose lips sink ships…] After this war, control of Lissa bounced around and eventually ended up with Croatia, and later Italy, then Yugoslavia where Tito’s partisans followed by the Yugoslavian military used the island as a military base, until they left in 1989. The Croatians call the island and town “Vis” and it is pretty touristy now.

Anyway, The Italians had the larger and more modern fleet, manned largely by conscripts, but with Keystone Cop level of ineptness. Austrian ships were largely manned with folks from the coastal Adriatic area, not landlubbers from Vienna, led by Adm. Tegetthoff who was admired by the crews, and he drilled them hard. Tegetthof charged into the Italian line and commenced a melee, and ended up ramming three Italian ships, sinking two, and several others were disabled or destroyed by gunfire. At one point the Italians had a great opportunity to sink the Austrian flagship, but their poorly trained crews omitted the command to load a shell, and only loaded powder before firing a broadside, which thus had zero effect. Previously, the Italian commander had shifted his flag to a different ship, without telling the somewhat insubordinate commanders of his two other divisions, so they did little to help. Incredibly, the Admiral claimed a great victory on returning to the Italian port, but missing several of his ships, that was quickly revealed to be a poor sea story.

The victorious Austrian fleet had won the naval battle, which likely prompted the celebratory souvenir above which sparked my inquiries into Lissa. However, the Prussian army defeated the Austrian army on the other side of their country, so their Italian ally ended up getting Venice back. 

For the rest of the world’s navies, this was the first fleet action involving multiple armored steamships, and a major lesson was that ramming really can sink ships, so rams were fashionable on warship designs for the next 50 years or so. The fact that a seriously outnumbered fleet could prevail with better training, leadership and tactics was also valuable.

I won’t try to describe the details or tactics of the Battle of Lissa, which is well done in the book. 

Naval historian Drachinifel does a good job in a 13:40 video.

So, Quintin Barry’s book is an excellent study of the impact of technology on naval warfare in the mid-19th century, which culminated in the Battle of Lissa. There is much to be learned from the broad range of topic he covers. 

This book is part of a series, “From Musket to Maxim 1815-1914,” with 40+ titles so far. This is a niche publishing operation, but at a very respectable level. It looks like the authors are all serious and capable scholars doing primary research, and are passionate and immersed in their topics. Remotely similar to the Osprey series on military topics, except with much less emphasis on pictures and much larger in size (estimated 150 pages plus) so they get into real details, and have a well defined date range. These are serious books for serious people, with extensive bibliographies and fully footnoted and indexed. The publisher’s site (in the UK) with hard copy versions is here. 

Amazon also has them available as Kindle books, for those who can tolerate pixel books instead of real books you hold in your hand like God intended, here.

Anyone interested in the changes in warships in the 19th century must check out the fantastic material at the Mariner’s Museum in Newport News, VA. Visit in person if possible, or at least poke around their exceptional web site. The USS Monitor material is great, and they have a full size replica outside. But there is MUCH more in the museum!

The Mariners Museum in Newport News, VA has the original turret from USS Monitor, along with many Merrimac items and is well worth a day long visit. At $1 per person don’t miss it! The conservation work on the Monitor is amazing, and they have made a full size replica outdoors.

Only a handful of early iron warships survive. Here are the two that I know of:

HMS Warrior at Portsmouth.
Source

HMS Warrior at Portsmouth is the world’s first iron hulled, armored warship with steam engine and screw propulsion. This was BEFORE the Monitor or Merrimac. When obsolete she was stripped and used as an oil storage hulk, but 

Here is a great 25 minute tour of the fully restored ship.

Monitor Huascar in Chile.
U.S. Naval Institute

The Monitor Huascar in Talcahuano, Chile. She was built in England in 1865 for Peru, and used in the War of the Pacific 1879-1883 where she was captured by Chile. She is beautifully restored and open for visiting, in case you happen to get to Chile. 

Here is a good 19 minute video visit to Huascar. WARNING - audio is in Spanish. Pause the video, then turn on subtitles by clicking on the “CC” block at the bottom, then click on the “settings gear wheel” symbol and select English. Resume the video, and mute the speaker. 

USS Olympia in Philadelphia
Source

The oldest U.S. Navy iron warship was built in San Francisco in 1893, and is (barely) preserved today as a museum ship in Philadelphia. That would be the USS Olympia, Dewey’s flagship at Manila Bay in 1898. She was pretty much the final form of early iron warships, with iron hull and armor, steam powered with screw propulsion. As was fashionable, her main battery of 8” guns were mounted in centerline turrets, while the secondary battery were 5 inch guns mounted for broadside firing. Her main guns were replaced during WW1, and those were replaced with dummy turrets to make her appear more like the original form.

She is in steadily deteriorating condition, needing a drydocking, but the group responsible can barely keep her open, although they have done some waterline plating repairs. Drachinifel has two videos on Olympia, but the audio quality seriously degrades them. So, if you want more on this great old historic ship, you will have to visit in person.

I hope you enjoyed this venture into the Navies of the 1860s-1890s.¹

¹ I did! (OAFS)