page_title: SMS Prinz Eugen (1912)
section_title: Assembly and commissioning
hierarchical_section_title: SMS Prinz Eugen (1912) / Construction / Assembly and commissioning
context_page_description: SMS Prinz Eugen was the third of four Tegetthoff-class dreadnought battleships built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Prinz Eugen was named for Prince Eugene of Savoy, a Habsburg general and statesman during the 17th and 18th centuries most notable for defeating the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Zenta in 1697. The ship was armed with a main battery of twelve 30.5 cm guns in four triple turrets. Constructed shortly before World War I, she was built at the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard in Trieste, where she was laid down in January 1912 and launched in November that same year.
  Commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy just 10 days after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Prinz Eugen was a member of the 1st Battleship Division of the Austro-Hungarian Navy at the beginning of the war alongside the other ships of her class, and was stationed out of the Austro-Hungarian naval base at Pola. She first saw action during the Bombardment of Ancona following Italy's declaration of war on Austria-Hungary in May 1915, but saw little combat for the rest of the war due to the Otranto Barrage, which prevented the Austro-Hungarian Navy from leaving the Adriatic Sea.
context_section_description: Prinz Eugen, the third ship of her class, was laid down in Trieste by Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino on 16 January 1912. The budget agreement which funded Prinz Eugen stipulated that while the armor and guns of the battleship were to be constructed within Austria, the electrical wiring and equipment aboard the battleship was to be assembled in Hungary. Additionally, half of all ammunition and shells for the guns of the ship would be purchased in Austria, while the other half was to be bought in Hungary. Despite two strikes by machinists in August 1912 and March 1913 which delayed construction of Prinz Eugen's engines, the battleship was built at a very fast pace. Following just 11 months of construction, she was launched on 30 November 1912 in Trieste.
  Originally referred to as "Battleship VI", discussion began over what to name the battleship while it was under construction in Trieste. While several proposals circulated around the Naval Section of the War Ministry, all proposed names for the four ships of the Tegetthoff class included Prinz Eugen as a ship name. Newspapers within Austria reported during construction that one of the ships was to be named Kaiser Franz Joseph I were unfounded as the Austo-Hungarian Navy had no intentions of renaming the cruiser which already bore the Emperor's name. Emperor Franz Joseph I ultimately decided the names of all four dreadnoughts, selecting to name the first ship after his own personal motto, Viribus Unitis (Latin: "With United Forces"), while the second ship would be named Tegetthoff, after Wilhelm von Tegetthoff, a 19th-century Austrian naval admiral known for his victory over Italy at the Battle of Lissa in 1866. The third ship of the class was to be named Prinz Eugen, after Prince Eugene of Savoy, the 17th and 18th century Austrian general and statesman hailed as a hero in Austria for his victory at the Battle of Zenta in 1697. Prinz Eugen conducted sea trials throughout March and April 1914. The results of these trials were described as "satisfactory". While the Austro-Hungarian Navy issued a statement that the ship's trials concluded with successful gunnery tests, no other information was allowed to be published. She was commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy on 8 July 1914, just ten days after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
caption: Prince Eugene of Savoy, namesake of the battleship Prinz Eugen
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