page_title: Erzherzog Ferdinand Max-class ironclad
section_title: Service history
hierarchical_section_title: Erzherzog Ferdinand Max-class ironclad / Service history
caption_attribution_description: English: Austro-Hungarian ironclad SMS&#160;Habsburg after her 1877 modernization.Polski: Austriacki okręt pancerny SMS Habsburg po modernizacji z 1877 roku.
context_page_description: The Erzherzog Ferdinand Max class consisted of a pair of ironclad warships—Erzherzog Ferdinand Max and Habsburg—built for the Austrian Navy in the 1860s. They were the last broadside armored frigates to be built for the Austrian Empire, and the last vessels completed to see action against the Italians at the Battle of Lissa in 1866. Intended to have been armed with new breech-loading Krupp guns, the outbreak of the Seven Weeks' War prevented the delivery of the guns, forcing the Austrian Navy to arm the ships with a battery of sixteen older 48-pounder muzzle-loading guns.
  Hastily finished after the war started, both ships saw action at the Battle of Lissa in July. There, Erzherzog Ferdinand Max served as the flagship of Rear Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff; in the course of the melee, the ship rammed and sank the Italian ironclad Re d'Italia, which proved to be the decisive action in the battle. After the war, both ships were laid up and did not see much significant activity for the remainder of their careers owing to reduced naval funding in what had become the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
context_section_description: Both ships were still under construction at the outbreak of the Seven Weeks' War in June 1866; the shipyard workers quickly completed the vessels, albeit with old smooth-bore guns instead of the Krupp rifled breech-loaders that were intended. Erzherzog Ferdinand Max served as the flagship of the Austrian fleet under Rear Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff. The two ships saw action at the Battle of Lissa in July 1866, where Erzherzog Ferdinand Max rammed and sank the Italian ironclad Re d'Italia. This proved to be the turning point of the engagement, forcing the Italian commander, Admiral Carlo Pellion di Persano to withdraw. Habsburg, however, was not seriously engaged during the battle. Neither ship received significant damage in the battle, and they spent the rest of the war patrolling the Adriatic against a possible sortie from the Italian fleet. After the war, the ships were disarmed and laid up.
  The ships remained in the Austro-Hungarian fleet for the next twenty years, but severely reduced naval budgets owing to Hungarian disinterest in naval matters led to an uneventful career. In 1870, Habsburg was used in a show of force to try to prevent the Italian annexation of Rome while the city's protector, France, was distracted with the Franco-Prussian War, though the Italians took the city regardless. They were rearmed with newer guns in 1874 and again in 1882. Both ships were converted for secondary duties in 1886, Erzherzog Ferdinand Max becoming a tender to the gunnery training school from 1889 to 1908, while Habsburg was employed as a guard ship and a barracks ship in Pola until 1898, when she was stricken from the naval register and sold for scrap. Erzherzog Ferdinand Max remained in the inventory until 1916 when she too was broken up for scrap.
caption: Habsburg after her modernization in the 1880s
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