SMS Szigetvár was a protected cruiser of the , the third and final member of her class, which was built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the late 1890s. The class included two other vessels, and . The Zentas were intended to serve as fleet scouts and to guard the battleships against attacks by torpedo boats. They carried a main battery of eight guns manufactured by Škoda; Szigetvár and her sisters were the first major warships of the Austro-Hungarian fleet to be armed entirely with domestically produced guns. Unlike earlier Austro-Hungarian cruisers, the Zenta class discarded heavy belt armor in favor of a higher top speed.
Early in her career, Szigetvár embarked on a major overseas cruise to North America and northern Europe between October 1901 and October 1902. She thereafter served with the main fleet in home waters, where she typically took part in major training maneuvers every year. She also went on voyages to other country in the region, including frequent visits to the Ottoman Empire and Greece. In 1905, she was part of an international naval response to domestic unrest in the Ottoman Empire. The ship carried replacement crews to vessels stationed in East Asia, in 1907 and 1912. Szigetvár was in the Ottoman Empire when the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated, prompting her recall during the July Crisis that led to the start of World War I.
Szigetvár was assigned to I Cruiser Division of the main Austro-Hungarian fleet for most of the war. She took part in bombardments of locations in Montenegro in the early months of the war. Following Italy's entry into the war in May 1915, the Austro-Hungarian fleet, including Szigetvár, sortied to shell targets in Italy, during which Szigetvár screened the fleet and attacked an Italian airship. She took part in further attacks on Italy later that year, including supporting air strikes in December and January 1916. She was reduced to a guard ship in Cattaro Bay in June 1917 before being withdrawn from service in March 1918. She was thereafter used as a barracks ship and a target for the Torpedo Warfare School. After the war, she was ceded to Britain as a war prize and was broken up in 1920.
Design
In January 1895, the senior officers of the Austro-Hungarian Navy decided to build two types of modern cruisers: large armored cruisers of around and smaller vessels of around . The latter were intended to screen the battleships of the main fleet, scouting for enemy vessels and protecting them from torpedo boat attacks. The chief constructor, Josef Kuchinka, prepared the initial design based on specifications that had been issued by the naval command, though by the time his design was finally approved in mid-1897, it had grown in size to around . Final approval came after work on the first unit, , had already begun.
Szigetvár was long at the waterline and long overall; she had a beam of and a draft of . The ship displaced normally and at full load. The crew of the Zentas numbered 308 officers and enlisted men. Their propulsion system consisted of a pair of triple-expansion steam engines, each driving a screw propeller using steam provided by eight coal-fired Yarrow boilers. Their engines were rated to produce for a top speed of , although Szigetvár reached a speed of from at her designed horsepower during her sea trials. The ships carried enough coal to give them a range of at . To increase their range, the cruisers were fitted with a brigantine-sailing rig of on their two masts.
The Zentas' main battery consisted of eight 40-caliber quick-firing guns manufactured by Škoda. One gun was mounted on the upper deck forward, six in casemates in the hull, and the remaining gun was placed on the upper deck aft. They also carried eight 44-caliber Škoda guns and two 33-caliber 47 mm Hotchkiss guns for defense against torpedo boats. These guns were all mounted individually, with four in the superstructure and the rest in casemates in the hull. The ships also carried a pair of Salvator-Dormus M1893 machine guns. Their armament was rounded out with a pair of torpedo tubes that were carried in the hull above the waterline. The three Zenta-class cruisers were the first major Austro-Hungarian warships to carry an armament entirely manufactured by Škoda.
The ships' armor deck consisted of two layers of steel over the bow and stern. Amidships, where it protected the propulsion machinery spaces, it doubled in thickness to a pair of layers. The casemates for the primary guns had thick sides and the conning tower received two layers of 25 mm plate on the sides. Each of the 120 mm guns was protected by a gun shield, although they were not large enough to provide good cover for the gun crews.
Service history
Szigetvár was laid down at the Pola Arsenal on 25 May 1899 under the contract name (Replacement) , the last member of her class to begin construction. She was launched on 29 October 1900 under the direction of (Rear Admiral) Johann von Hinke without a ceremony, though she was christened after the 16th-century Siege of Szigetvár. Fitting-out work was completed by September 1901 and she was commissioned on the last day of the month at a cost of 4.5 million krone. The naval command immediately ordered Szigetvár to embark on an overseas training cruise to North American and northern Europe.
Overseas cruise The ship departed Pola on 4 October and steamed through the western Mediterranean Sea, stopping in Gibraltar on the way, she then crossed to Tangier, French Morocco, before continuing on to Funchal on the island of Madeira, Portugal. She arrived in Bridgetown, British Barbados, on 1 November and stayed there for a week before beginning a tour of the Caribbean Sea that last for the rest of the year. On 1 January 1902, Szigetvár departed Kingston, Jamaica for ports in the northern Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, stopping in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Santiago de Cuba, Veracruz, Mexico, New Orleans, Pensacola, and Key West in the United States and Havana and Matanzas, Cuba by mid-March.
Szigetvár continued her voyage north, stopping in Charleston, United States, from 7 to 16 March and then steaming to British Bermuda, staying there from 19 to 27 March. She returned to US waters for the next two months, visiting Norfolk, Annapolis, Baltimore, New York City, New Haven, New London, and Boston through early May. She briefly visited Canada, stopping in Halifax, Nova Scotia, before re-crossing the Atlantic. She reached Cherbourg on 22 May and stayed for a week before continuing on to Rotterdam and Amsterdam in the Netherlands. While in the latter port, the ship was present for the launching of the Dutch coastal defense ship . Szigetvár arrived in Wilhelmshaven, Germany on 15 June and then visited Hamburg, Germany, on 24 June. From there, she sailed for Spithead, United Kingdom, for the Coronation Review for King Edward VII.
The ship then returned to Kiel for the Kiel Week sailing regatta from 2 to 14 July, during which she was visited by the German Emperor Wilhelm II. Szigetvár then moved to the Baltic Sea, dropping anchor in Danzig, Germany, and then Kronstadt, Russia, where she was visited by Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. The ship next visited Stockholm, Sweden, in August and then Copenhagen, Denmark, later that month before sailing for Marstrand, Sweden, where King Oscar II of Sweden viewed the ship from his yacht Drot. Szigetvár then sailed to Bergen, Norway, then crossed the North Sea to Edinburgh, UK, then steamed south to Brest, France. From there, she proceeded to Lisbon, Portugal, Cádiz, Morocco, and Algiers, French Algeria. She arrived in Gravosa, Austria-Hungary, on 25 September and stayed there through the end of the month before shifting back to Pola on 1 October. Four days later, she was decommissioned for periodic repairs along with a minor modernization that included installation of a wireless telegraphy set.
Fleet service 1903–1906
Szigetvár returned to active service in 1903 as a flotilla leader for a group of torpedo boats with the main fleet in home waters. Early that year, Archduke Franz Ferdinand inspected the ship while she was in Gravosa. She operated with the summer training squadron in II Division, with the annual training cycle lasting from 15 June to 15 September. During this period, she visited Fiume from 19 to 24 July and Trieste from 14 to 22 August, the latter in company with the rest of the squadron. The fleet assembled in Pola from 16 to 19 September following the conclusion of the maneuvers, where they were visited by the three s of the Greek Navy. On 30 September, Szigetvár was present at the launching ceremony for the new pre-dreadnought battleship in Trieste. In November, the fleet tug Hippos ran aground on the island of Carbarus; on 16 November, Szigetvár and the torpedo boat pulled Hippos free.
The ship spent most of 1904 in reserve, during which time she had her wireless equipment rebuilt. On 5 November, she was recommissioned to take the place of the damaged armored cruiser in the main fleet. She remained in service with the main fleet through 15 June 1905. During this period, she joined a squadron for a training cruise off the Levant; the ships left Pola on 1 February and stopped at the island of Hydra, Greece. Over the course of the month, Szigetvár toured numerous Greek ports; in April, she moved to the Ottoman Empire, stopping in Salonika, Mudros, Mytilene, and Smyrna, before passing through the Dardanelles to the Ottoman capital at Constantinople in late March. The ship then returned to the Mediterranean, visiting other Greek ports through mid-April. She then began the voyage home, stopping in Argostoli, Greece, and Durazzo in Ottoman Albania, before continuing on to Luka and finally arriving in Pola on 22 April.
On 21 May, Szigetvár and the rest of the squadron steamed to Trieste for the launching of the pre-dreadnought . The summer training routine followed from 15 June to 15 September, during which Szigetvár operated with the battleships of I Heavy Division and the armored cruiser . She was deployed to the Levant in November, departing Pola on the 19th and stopping in Piraeus on the way on 22 November. There, she joined an international fleet that had been assembled to respond to unrest in the Ottoman Empire that threatened foreigners in the country. Szigetvár went to Mytilene, where she landed a detachment of sailors on 26 and 27 November. The men went ashore to protect the telegraph station in the city. The next day, the ship returned to Piraeus, and returned to patrol off Mytilene. The next day, she steamed to Lemnos to take the disabled French destroyer under tow back to Piraeus. From 5 to 12 December, she sent her landing party ashore on Lemnos. The ship returned to Piraeus, thereafter resuming operations off Piraeus through the 17th. The international squadron was dissolved on 18 December, Szigetvár then passed through the Corinth Canal, reuniting with Sankt Georg at Patras; the two cruisers arrived back in Pola two days later.
For the first half of 1906, Szigetvár was assigned to the main fleet's torpedo-boat flotilla. The summer maneuver cycle followed from 15 June to 20 September, and she continued in her role as a flotilla leader. During this period, from 20 to 23 July, the fleet held celebrations of the 40th anniversary of the Battle of Lissa, the Austro-Hungarian Navy's defeat of the larger Italian (Royal Italian Navy) during the Third Italian War of Independence. The next day, the ship ran aground on the Zenizna spit near Šibenik and damaged one of her screws. She was docked in Pola for repairs for four days, after which she returned to the training squadron. She participated in amphibious assault exercises in mid-September at Gravosa. These were observed by Ferdinand, for whom a fleet review was held after the exercises off Calamotta.
1907–1914