page_title: Ersatz Monarch-class battleship
section_title: Passage of the 1915–1919 naval program
hierarchical_section_title: Ersatz Monarch-class battleship / Funding / Passage of the 1915–1919 naval program
caption_attribution_description: English: Title: WIEN (Austrian coast defense battleship, 1895-1917) Caption: Photographed by B. Circovich of Trieste, in a print obtained by the U.S. Navy's Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, District of Columbia. This ship was launched on 7 July 1895 and commissioned on 13 May 1897.
context_page_description: The Ersatz Monarch class was a class of four dreadnought battleships which were intended to be built between 1914 and 1919 for the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Design work on a class of battleships to succeed the Tegetthoff class and replace the aging Monarch class began in 1911. After going through several different design proposals, Anton Haus, Commander-in-Chief of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, secured passage of a naval expansion program through the Austro-Hungarian government to fund the construction of the battleships in April 1914.
  Work on the first battleship was scheduled to begin a few months later, with the final ship was expected to be launched in mid-1919. However, the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on 28 June halted work just days before the keel of the first ship in the class was scheduled to be laid down. With the start of World War I a month later, construction on the ships was postponed until September, when the war with Serbia was expected to be over. The Hungarian government attempted to cancel the ships in October, but it was agreed in February 1915 that any work on the battleships would be indefinitely suspended until the end of the war.
context_section_description: When the reconvened session opened in the Hungarian capital in early 1914, Haus made his formal proposal for funding the 1915–1919 naval program. His project was to cost between 426.8 and 427.8 million Kronen, and was to be spaced out over a period of five years. The Hungarians, led by Tisza, supported the proposal after Haus had promised that six destroyers, two river monitors, and two of the four dreadnoughts in the expansion program would be constructed in Fiume, much like the battleship Szent István. As with past budgets approving large increases in naval funds, Austria's Social Democratic Party opposed the budget. Karl Leuthner, a Social Democrat from Lower Austria and editor of the party's newspaper Arbeiter-Zeitung, criticized the budget as fiscally irresponsible and stated that the ships of the Ersatz Monarch class would be launched "into the ocean of the Austrian state debt." The Social Democrats were joined in opposition by the Young Czech Party, which had been supportive of constructing the previous Tegetthoff-class battleships. Karel Kramář, leader of the party, stated that while he had "a certain partiality for the navy", his party was opposed to many of the pro-German arguments being presented to justify the ships. Many German nationalists from Austria had voiced their support for the battleships' construction on the grounds that their existence made Austria-Hungary's alliance with Germany more powerful. Heinrich von Lützow, a member of the Austrian House of Lords and former Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Italy, went so far as to argue that "every supporter of the Triple Alliance...must vote for the strengthening of our navy." Unlike previous battleships, the Ersatz Monarch class were ordered at a time when relations between Austria-Hungary and Italy appeared to be improving. Austria-Hungary and Italy had both signed a renewed naval agreement in the summer of 1913 to coordinate their efforts in the event of a hypothetical war between the Triple Alliance and the Triple Entente. Thus when the time came for the Austro-Hungarian government to debate the funding and approval for a new class of battleships, the role Italy played in these discussions was not one of being a potential enemy, but rather it was expected that Italy would remain an ally of Austria-Hungary in any naval operations in the Mediterranean Sea against France and Russia, and that a new class of battleships was necessary to help maintain Austria-Hungary's relationship with its Italian allies. Russia now took the place of Austria-Hungary's main naval opponent in the event of a war, and the Ersatz Monarch class were thus intended to counter any potential Russian fleets operating south of the Dardanelles.
  The Budapest session overwhelmingly supported Haus' naval expansion program, the objections of the Social Democrats and Young Czechs notwithstanding. Indeed, it took the Hungarian delegation less than half an hour of debate before passing the program. With the passage of the budget, discussions then shifted to the allocation of the funds contained within it, the Hungarians being focused on ensuring that many industrial components for the battleships would be purchased within Hungary. Despite opposing the project, the Young Czech Party worked to ensure that as large a sum as possible out of the appropriated funds would be spent in Bohemia and Moravia. Concluding that his party was "happy when Škoda has business", Kramář attempted to obtain even more funds for Bohemia and Moravia's smaller firms outside of the Witkowitz Ironworks and the Škoda Works. His party's efforts failed as the bulk of both the Austrian and Hungarian delegations refused to spend more naval money in a region of the Empire which would already be slated to construct much of the armor and weaponry of the battleships. The Social Democrats also worked to influence how the funds would be allocated after it became clear the appropriations would pass. Leuthner petitioned Haus that the Austro-Hungarian Navy should use a portion of its new funds to improve the working conditions of the t
caption: The Monarch-class coastal defense ship Wien in 1898
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