Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-08-18
ADMIRAL TEGETHOFF.
Austria's Naval Hero and His Part
in the Battle of Lfssa.
From the Chicago Tribune.

AuStr1a'S Naval Hero ana his f0ft
in the Battle of Lfssn.
From the Chicago Tribune.
Dewey's reasons for going to Trieste may
easily have been sentimental ones. and
every formal gun he fired in answer to
the peaceful cannonade at the Dalmatian
seaport a salute to the memory of the
pre-eminent naval hero of a country al
most altogether inland-Admral Tegethoff
the man whom the foremost writing
thority upon modern naval warfare exalts
as standing forth In the long period from
Trafalgar 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 We're engaged 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
study of naval history
But an imperial order provides that so
long as the Austrian empire endures an
Austrian battle ship shall bear his name,
and Admiral Dewey, the next man since
Farragut who damned the toroedoes 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
Austrian port just one day too late to have
his sautes count in the celebration of the
thirty-third anniversary of the Lissa fight.
Maybe, 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 1885. the true benchmark of modern
naval history, the Italians We're unex-
pectedly beaten, contrary to all the pre-
dictions of the naval experts. and with all
the odds of ships, arTnor, guns and mod
ernness 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
iii 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 $60o00.G0 for naval expenditures, had
a navy in 1865 which measured quite even
with those of France, England and the
United States, then the foremost naval
powers in the world Her best two ships,
the Re d'Italia and the Re di Portogallo,
had been built at Webb's shipyard. New
York, at a cost of over 81 100000 each. They
carried seven-inch armor and a formid-
able armament for their time; the first
named two 1.O-pounderS, with thirty 6-lnch
guns and four smooth bores; the second
two 3o0-pounders and twenty-six finch
guns. They had the Affondatore. a turret
ram, built in England, armed with two
300-Dounders her main battery and
26-foot ram, supposed to embody all that
had been learned in our civil war. They
had other ironclad vessels besides, and al
together went into the fight off LISA with
an advantage of 276 rifled guns, against
121, SO largely superior in size that they
were able to fire weight of metal four
times that discharged by the Austrians.
The Austrian fleet was in state of I'M
preparedness, but Tegethoff was a Nelson.
The Krupp guns of his flagship We're de-
tanned in Germany by reason of the hos
tilities between Austria and Prussia, and
he filled their places with smooth boreS.
of his largest vessels lacked her
bow armor. and he put on a heavy thick
ness of pianking. With odds of almost two
to against him from every theoretical
point of view he sailed out of Trieste and
sought the enemy, Dewey when he sail
ed into Manila bay, and, once more, as 1t
was in Mobile bay and at Manila and on
Santiago, and as 1t had been at trafalgar,
the battle and the victory were to the men
behind the guns and the brains behind the
men.
The battle of LISA was almost Homeric
in some of it's characteristics. The Italian
vessels We're painted gray, and Ram
everything grayi" was Tegethoff's last sig
nal to his fleet. He formed his fleet in
wedge shape, with his flagship at the point
and when he rammed the Re d'1talia only
1865 were saved of its crew of 400. 1t Is
related in the official report of the COM
manding Italian admiral. Persano. that
its captain. Faa di Bruno, when he saw
that his ship was lost, with the words,
1.-THE captain must die with his Ship blew
out his brains with his revolver
1t is of record even In the Austrian re-
ports 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
trophy of the enemy. When the Italian
ship Palestro was set on fire by the Aus
TRAN shells and the fire was approaching
its magazine its captain, Capellini. re-
fused to leave it's quarter deck, saying:
whoever likes can go, but, as for me,
stay"
brave example, cheering their country and
their king.
There were go officers and men aboard
the Palestro, and only nineteen. Of whom
only one was an officer, were picked up
after the explosion
This is not Casabianca poetry. 1t is his
tory, and 1t may suggest one reason why
Dewey made the port of Trieste just in
time to do honor to the greatest Austrian
naval hero without offending the sensi-
biiities of country which would be his
natural next stopping place.
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