The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-07-20
STEAM AND STEEL. IN NAVAL BATTLES

Austrians will celebrate today the semi-centenary of the naval battle of Lissa. in which the Austrian fleet gained victory over the Italians. It was in this battle that the tactics of steam and steel were first used in a naval combat in European waters. The lessons of the American civil war, in which ironclads and monitors had played so important a part on the sea were not lost on the European naval chiefs. All of the leading powers turned their attention to this new development which was to revo- lutionize warfare on the ocean.
 When Prussia declared war on Austria in 1866 and began the whirl- wind campaign which SO quickly sub ordinated the Hapsburgs to the Ho- henzollerns, Italy was induced to join forces with Prussia on the promise of the redemption of g. part of Italia Irredenta.' In the latter part of June the Austrians under Archduke Albert deefated the Italians at Custozza. Italy sought revenge on the sea, and on July 20, 1866, the fleet of Victor Elm manuel II. challenged the naval forces of Francis Joseph.
 The battle was fought off the isl- and of Lissa, in the Adriatic. The Italian fleet of ten ironclads was commanded by Admiral Persano, while the Austrian fleet of seven iron clads and several wooden craft was under Admiral Tegethoff Here for the first time the tactics of the Amer ican monitors were put to use on a large scale. The battle was bravely fought on both sides, but the Austri- an commander showed superior skill in handling his ships. Three of the Italian ships were sunk and the others were badly battered. Of the Italian force of 11,000 men engaged. 6S0 were killed, while the Austrians lost TIC of their 5000 seamen.
 From the battle of Lissa dates the new naval era of steam and steel. Sailing ships and wooden vessels be- came useless junk from that time forth. Moreover, the type of battle ships. constantly changed, and when the next great naval battle was fought the ships engaged bore no resemb- lance to those which had fought at Lissa. In 1894 the naval world gain ed another lesson from the battle of Yalu, when dozen Japanese battle- ships engaged an equal number of Chinese craft. The sons of Nippon were completely victorious, the Chin- ese losing five ships while the Jap- anese lost none.
 The sea battles of the Spanish American war were among the most one-sided in naval history. Dewey nine ships attacked and destroyed Montojo's eleven vessels at Manila without the loss of man. The battle of Santiago was equally disastrous to Spain, all of Cervera's ships being des- | troyed with the exception of one which surrendered.
 The greatest naval battle of the era of steam and steel. up to the re- cent engagement of the British and German fleets at the entrance of the | Skagerack, was that at Tsu Shima | in 1905, when Russia and Japan were at war. Rojestvensky's big fleet was attacked by Admiral Togo in the straits between Korea and Japan The Russian loss included six battle ships, four cruisers and eleven other vessels sunk, and two battleships and | three other craft captured. The Jap- anese lost three torpedo boats in the action. Four thousand Russian sea- men were killed in the battle or drowned when their ships sunk, and 7,2S2 men, including number of Of 1 ficers, were taken prisoners. The Jap. anese lost 116 officers and men kill ed and 538 wounded.
 The, naval battles of the last half century have been fought by fleets vastly superior in tonnage, but often inferior in numbers, to those of for. mer times. In the early days of na.
 val warfare hundreds, even thous- ands, of galleys were sometimes en. gagged. The line of battleship, the ancestor of the modern dreadnoughi
 was created by the French in the lat. ter part of the eighteenth century
 while their battle cruiser of today is the descendant of the speedy heavil, armed frigate introduced by the
 Americans in the war of 1912.