The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-08-17
ADMIRAL TEeETHoFF.
Austria's Naval Hero and His Part in
the Battle of LISA.

Austria's Naval Hero and His Part in
the Battle of LISA.
Dewey's reasons for going to Trieste
may easily have been sentimental ones,
and every formal gun he fired in an
swer to the peaceful cannonade at the
Dalmatian seaport a salute to the mem
DRY of the one pre-eminent naval hero
of country almost altogether inland
Admiral Tegethoff-the man whom the
foremost writing authority upon mod
ern naval warfare eXalts as standing
forth in the long period from Trafalgar
as the one war commander who can be
matched with Farragut."
This man who fought and won
against odds the first naval battle on
any sea in which ironclads were en-
gagged in squadron on both sides, died
in his pride long ago, and the name
even of the battle of LISA is forgotten
except by those who make a study of
naval history
But an imperial order provides that
so long as the Austrian empire endures
an Austrian battleship shall bear his
name, and Admiral Dewey, the next
man since Farragut who damned the
torpedoes and went ahead" when he
rounded the Brindisi heel of Italy and
sailed up the Adriatic to Trieste, sailed
through the waters where Tegethoff
won his fame, and exchanged signals
with the batteries of the great Aus
trian port just one day too late to have
his salutes count in the celebration of
the thjrty-third anniversary Of the
LISA fight.
May be, as like as not, that was a
small piece of Dewey diplomacy, rather
than an accident to the shaft of the
Olympia-in view of his subsequent
visits to Italian ports.
For in that all but forgotten fight of
the war of 1866, the true benchmark of
modern naval history, the Italians were
unexpectedly beaten, contrary to all the
predictions of the naval experts, and
with all the odds of ships, armor, guns
and modernness of material in their
favor 1t was more than a defeat 1t
was national humiliation And the
young blood of new national life was
just then flowing strong in united Italy
1t was quick to catch the infection
from the fight of the Monitor and the
Merrimac, and, after going into debt
to the amount of over sec, 000, 600 for
naval expenditures, had navy in 1856
which measured quite even with those
of France, England and the United
| States, then the foremost naval powers
IS,
Re d'Italia and the Re di Portegallo,
had been built at Webb's shipyard,
New York, at a cost of over ST. 600, 900
each. They carried Finch armor and a
formidable armament for their time;
the flrSt-named two 150-pounders with
| thirty 6-inch guns and four smooth
bores; the second two SG0-pounders and
twenty-six 6-inch guns. They had the
AHondatore, turret ram, built in Eng
land, armed with two 300-pounders as
her main battery and a 26-foot ram,
supposed to embody all that had been
learned in our civil war. They had other
ironclad vessels besides, and altogether
went into the fight off LISA with an
advantage Of 276 rified guns, against 121
so largely superior in size that they
We're able to fire a weight of metal four
times that discharged by the Austrians.
The Austrian fleet was in a state of
unpreparedness, but Tegethoff was a
Nelson. The Krupp guns of his flag
ship were detained In Germany by rea-
son Of the hostilities between Austria
and Prussia, and he filled their places
with smooth bores. Another of his
largest vessels lacked her bow armor,
and he put on a heavy thickness of
planking. With odds of almost two to
one against him from every theoreti-
cal point of view, he sailed out of
Trieste and sought the enemy, as
Dewey when he sailed into Manila bay,
and, once more, as it was in Mobile
bay and at Manila and off Santiago,
| and as it had been at Trafalgar, the
battle and the victory were, to the men
| behind the guns and the brains be-
hind the men.
The battle of Lissa was almost HON.
eric in some of its characteristics, The
| Italian vessels were painted gray and
Ram everything gray!" was Teget-
hoff's last signal to his fleet. He form
ed his fleet in wedge shape, with his
| flagship at the point, and when he
rammed the Re d'Italia only 1856 were
saved of it's crew of 400. 1t is related
in the official report of the commanding
Italian Admiral, Persano, that its cap
/ tain, Fac di Bruno, when he saw that
his ship was lost, with the words
| THE captain must die with his ship, y
| blew out his brains with his revolver.
1t is of record even in the Austrian
reports that in the brief time when the
Re d'Italia was visibly lurching before
| its final plunge, an Italian marine nailed
her colors fast, so that they should not
be a trophy of the enemy. When the
Italian ship Palestro was set on fire
by the Austrian shells and the fire was
approaching it's magazine, it's captain
Capellini,. refused to leave his quarter
deck, saying:
Whoever likes can go, but as for me
stay
And his officers and crew followed his
brave example, cheering their country
and their king.
There We're 23O officers and mer
aboard the Palestro, and only nineteen
of whom only one was an officer, were
picked up after the explosion.
| This ic mt CaSahianpa rnafpu ;e
history, and it may suggest one reason
why Dewey made the port of Trieste
Just in time to do honor to the greatest
Austrian naval hero without offendine
the sensibilities of a country which
would be his natural next stopping
place.-Chicago Tribune.