SMS Lissa

Lissa was laid down on 27 June 1867 at the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino (STT) shipyard in San Marco. She was launched on 25 February 1869 and began fitting-out work. The following month, Kaiser Franz Joseph I visited the shipyard where Lissa was being built. Completion of the ship was delayed due to limited budgets for the Navy and the significant expense of importing the vessel's armor plate from Britain, and Lissa was not completed until May 1871.^[1][5] Not only did objections to naval expenditures from the Hungarian half of the Dual Monarchy delay construction of Lissa, but they also constrained the general naval budget, which prevented the fleet from being active in peacetime.^[6] The death of the fleet commander, Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, in 1871 exacerbated the budgetary problems, as his replacement, Friedrich von Pöck, lacked the prestige to convince the government to increase funding. The ironclad fleet, including Lissa, was largely kept out of service in Pola, laid up in reserve; the only vessels to see significant service in the 1870s were several steam frigates sent abroad.^[7]

Nevertheless, Lissa was assigned to the active squadron in November 1871, relieving the ironclad Habsburg as the flagship of the unit, commanded by Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral) Alois von Pokorny. Lissa and the rest of the unit, which also included the screw corvettes Zrinyi and Dandolo and the gunboat Hum, spent the remainder of the year carrying out tactical training in the Adriatic Sea. Lissa remained the flagship of the active squadron in 1872, which was strengthened by the addition of the screw frigate Novara. On 15 January 1872, the entire squadron sailed from Pola to the Dalmatian islands for tactical training exercises. The squadron, less Zrinyi, was sent to the Levant in the eastern Mediterranean, then part of the Ottoman Empire, at the end of February. Lissa arrived in Smyrna in the Ottoman Empire on 1 March, where she was eventually joined by Novara. By 26 March, Zrinyi had rejoined the squadron, and Lissa led Zrinyi and Hum on patrols in the Greek and Ottoman islands in the eastern Mediterranean. The active squadron had left the area by mid-July to carry out tactical training off the island of Corfu, Greece, beginning on 16 July. The ships then sailed to visit Messina on Sicily from 21 to 29 July, followed by a visit at Palermo, Italy on 3 August. Lissa and the rest of the squadron remained there through 12 August for repairs to Lissa's engines. The ships got underway again that day, bound for Goletta in Tunisia. There, the crews held celebrations for Kaiser Franz Joseph's birthday.^[8]

Lissa and the rest of the squadron left Tunisia on 23 August and sailed back to Corfu, arriving there on 28 August. From there, Lissa and Novara sailed on to Smyrna, where they assisted the capsized Italian brigantine Providenza.^[9] During this period, Lissa had a serious accident on the night of 3–4 September 1872. While anchored off Corfu, a major fire broke out aboard the ship near the propellant magazine, though the crew was able to put it out before it could reach the highly explosive propellant charges.^[10] The crew fought the blaze for around two hours, but the ship was not seriously damaged in the incident. The ships of the squadron reunited on 10 September for a cruise in the eastern Mediterranean. On 19 September, the ships stopped in Larnaca on Cyprus; they had moved to Agria by 27 September, and then back to Smyrna two days later. In early October, Lissa received orders to bring the squadron back to Pola. By early December, they had arrived in the Fasana Channel, where the ships were placed in reserve.^[11]

Lissa served as the flagship of the active squadron of the Austro-Hungarian fleet in 1873; that year, it also included the screw corvettes Zrinyi and Fasana and the gunboat Velebich. In early September, Lissa was at Smyrna in the Ottoman Empire, while Zrinyi was in Greek waters and Fasana was en route to join Velebich off Spain. On 24 September, she sailed for Port Said in Ottoman Egypt, where she replenished her coal stocks and conducted shooting practice. She thereafter returned to Smyrna, where she remained until 3 November. She then cruised off the coast of Ottoman Syria before sailing for Souda Bay, Crete, to coal. There, she met a small Ottoman squadron, consisting of an ironclad turret ship, two screw corvettes, and a paddle steamer From there, she went to Piraeus, Greece, where on 18 November she was visited by the King and Queen of Greece. The ship then returned to Syria, before ultimately returning to Smyrna on 21 November. Lissa departed Smyrna two days later, bound for Malta, where she marked the 25th anniversary of the reign of Franz Joseph in company with the Russian ironclad Kniaz Pozharsky. Lissa thereafter sailed north to Corfu, Greece, and then home to Pola, arriving there on 11 December. After taking on practice artillery rounds, she sailed on to Trieste the following day. The ship carried out shooting practice there on 15 December and then returned to Pola five days later. There, she was removed from the active squadron and disarmed.^[12]

In 1875, the ship received new boilers, and the following year her rigging was modified.^[10] By 1880, the ship's hull was badly rotten, and so Lissa was taken into drydock at the Pola Arsenal, where the shipyard workers stripped off much of the vessel's armor plate to replace the deteriorated timber with new wood. The work was completed the following year, allowing the ship to return to service.^[13] While in drydock, the ship's armament was also revised; the original twelve 9-inch guns were retained, but the light battery was completely revised. The old MLRs were replaced with four 9 cm (3.5 in) 24-caliber guns and a pair of 7 cm (2.8 in) 15-cal. guns, and three 47 mm (1.9 in) Hotchkiss guns and a pair of 25 mm (0.98 in) auto-cannon were added.^[1]

After completing the overhaul, she returned to her place in the active squadron.^[4] Lissa took part in the fleet exercises held in June 1885, where she served as the flagship of the ironclad squadron. The maneuvers revolved around a mock attack by torpedo boats on the ironclad squadron off the island of Lissa.^[14] She remained on active service until 1888, when she was reassigned to the II Reserve. She received further modifications during this period, with torpedo launchers added in 1885 and new quick-firing versions of her main battery guns were installed. She was visited by Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria on 27 March 1885.^[15] The ship remained in the Austro-Hungarian inventory, seeing little activity before she was stricken from the naval register on 13 November 1892. Lissa was broken up for scrap between 1893 and 1895.^[1]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Lissa (ship, 1871).

• Benko, Jerolim Freiherrn von, ed. (1873). "Bewegungen S. M. Kriegsschiffe vom September 1871 bis September 1872" [Movements of S. M. Warships from September 1871 to September 1872]. Jahrbuch der Kais. Kön. Kriegsmarine [Yearbook of the Imperial and Royal Navy]. Vienna: Carl Gerold's Sohn: 15–43.
• Benko, Jerolim Freiherrn von, ed. (1874). "Bewegungen S. M. Kriegsschiffe vom 1. September 1872 bis 31. August 1873" [Movements of S. M. Warships from 1 September 1872 to 31 August 1873]. Jahrbuch der Kais. Kön. Kriegsmarine [Yearbook of the Imperial and Royal Navy]. Vienna: Carl Gerold's Sohn: 15–58.
• "Bewegungen S. M. Kriegsschiffe vom 1. September 1873 bis 31. August 1874" [Movements of S. M. Warships from 1 September 1873 to 31 August 1874]. Jahrbuch der Kais. Kön. Kriegsmarine [Yearbook of the Imperial and Royal Navy]. Pola: Verlag der Redaction: 15–26. 1874.
• Brassey, Thomas, ed. (1886). "Exercises of the Austrian Fleet. 1885". The Naval Annual. Portsmouth: J. Griffin & Co. OCLC 896741963.
• Pawlik, Georg (2003). Des Kaisers Schwimmende Festungen: die Kasemattschiffe Österreich-Ungarns [The Kaiser's Floating Fortresses: The Casemate Ships of Austria-Hungary]. Vienna: Neuer Wissenschaftlicher Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7083-0045-0.
• Scheltema de Heere, R. F. (1973). Fisher, Edward C. (ed.). "Austro-Hungarian Battleships". Warship International. X (1). Toledo: Naval Records Club, Inc.: 11–97. ISSN 0043-0374.
• Sieche, Erwin & Bilzer, Ferdinand (1979). "Austria-Hungary". In Gardiner, Robert; Chesneau, Roger & Kolesnik, Eugene M. (eds.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. London: Conway Maritime Press. pp. 266–283. ISBN 978-0-85177-133-5.
• Sondhaus, Lawrence (1994). The Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1867–1918. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press. ISBN 978-1-55753-034-9.
• Very, Edward W. (1880). Navies of the World. New York: John Wiley & Sons. OCLC 20400836.