At the time of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria on 28 June 1914, the battleships in the Austro-Hungarian Navy consisted of the "Radetzky" class, the "Tegetthoff" class (which still had one ship, , under construction), the and finally, the older . Along with the remainder of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, "Zrínyi" was mobilized in late July 1914 to support the flight of and . The two German ships broke out of Messina, which was surrounded by the British navy and reached Turkey. The flotilla had advanced as far south as Brindisi in southeastern Italy when news of the successful breakout reached Vienna. The Austro-Hungarian ships were then recalled before seeing action.