SMS Monarch SMS " Monarch " ( " His Majesty ' s Ship Monarch " ) was the lead ship of the s built for the Austro - Hungarian Navy in the 1890s . After their commissioning , " Monarch " and the two other " Monarch " - class ships made several training cruises in the Mediterranean Sea in the early 1900s . " Monarch " and her sisters formed the 1st Capital Ship Division of the Austro - Hungarian Navy until they were replaced by the newly commissioned predreadnought battleship s at the turn of the century . In 1906 the three " Monarch " s were placed in reserve and only recommissioned during the annual summer training exercises . After the start of World War I , " Budapest " was recommissioned and assigned to 5th Division together with her sisters . The division was sent to Cattaro in August 1914 to attack Montenegrin and French artillery that was bombarding the port , and " Monarch " remained there for the rest of the war . The ship was decommissioned in early 1918 and became an accommodation ship . She was awarded to Great Britain by the Paris Peace Conference in 1920 . The British sold her for scrap and she was broken up in Italy beginning in 1921 . Description and construction . At only maximum displacement , the " Monarch " class was less than half the size of the battleship s of other major navies at the time , and were officially designated as coast defense ships . Austria - Hungary ' s only coastline was on the Adriatic Sea , and the Austro - Hungarian government believed that the role of its navy was solely to defend the nation ' s coast . " Monarch " had an overall length of , a beam of and a draft of . Her two 4 - cylinder vertical triple - expansion steam engines produced a total of using steam from five cylindrical boilers . These gave the ship a maximum speed of . " Monarch " s maximum load of of coal gave her a range of at a speed of . She was manned by 26 officers and 397 enlisted men , a total of 423 personnel . The armament of the " Monarch " class consisted of four Krupp K / 94 guns mounted in two twin - gun turret s , one each fore and aft of the superstructure . The ships carried 80 rounds for each gun . Their secondary armament was six Škoda guns located in casemate s in the superstructure . Defense against torpedo boat s was provided by ten quick - firing ( QF ) Škoda guns and four 47 - millimeter QF Hotchkiss gun s . The ships also mounted two torpedo tube s , one on each broadside . Each torpedo tube was provided with two torpedo es . The ship ' s nickel - steel waterline armor belt was thick and the gun turret s were protected by of armor . The casemate s had thick sides while the conning tower had of armor . " Monarch " s deck armor was thick . The " Monarch " - class ships were ordered in May 1892 , with " Monarch " to be built at the Pola Naval Arsenal ( " Seearsenal " ) . The ship was laid down on 31 July 1893 , and she was launched on 9 May 1895 by Archduchess Maria Theresa , wife of Archduke Karl Ludwig . She was commissioned on 11 May 1898 . Service History . " Monarch " and her sisters formed the Navy ' s 1st Capital Ship Division ( " I . Schwere Division " ) in 1899 , and the division made a training cruise to the Eastern Mediterranean where they made port visits in Greece , Lebanon , Turkey and Malta later that year . In early 1902 , they made another training cruise to the Western Mediterranean with port visits in Algeria , Spain , France , Italy , Corfu , and Albania . The ship was fitted with a Siemens - Braun radio early the following year . The ships of the division were inspected by Archduke Franz Ferdinand , the heir to the throne , in March 1903 at Gravosa . In 1904 , the " Monarch " - class ships formed the 2nd Capital Ship Division , and they took part in the 1904 cruise of the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas as well as training exercises in which the three s engaged the " Budapest " and her sisters in simulated combat . Those maneuvers marked the first time two homogeneous squadrons consisting of modern battleships operated in the Austro - Hungarian Navy . In the summer of 1905 , " Wien " ran aground during a night exercise off Meleda Island ; it took two tries by and to pull her off . The " Monarch " s were relegated to the newly formed Reserve Squadron on 1 January 1906 , and were only recommissioned for the annual summer exercises . They participated in a fleet review by Archduke Franz Ferdinand , conducted in the Koločepski Channel near Šipan , in September . The ships were briefly recommissioned at the beginning of 1913 , as the 4th Division after the start of the Second Balkan War , but were decommissioned again on 10 March . In early 1914 , " Monarch " made a cruise in the Levant with the dreadnought s , and the predreadnought . Two of the ship ' s crew came down with smallpox and cerebrospinal meningitis in Egypt and caused the ship to be quarantined for several weeks in Pola . World War I . With the beginning of World War I the three " Monarch " s were recommissioned as the 5th Division . They were sent down to the Bay of Kotor in August 1914 , to attack Montenegrin artillery batteries on Mount Lovćen bombarding the Austro - Hungarian naval base at Cattaro and the fortifications defending it . " Monarch " and her sisters arrived on 13 August , but their guns could not elevate enough to engage all of the enemy artillery , which was reinforced by eight French guns on 19 October . The battleship was summoned to deal with the guns two days later , and she managed to knock out several French guns and forced the others to withdraw by 27 October . " Monarch " remained at Cattaro for the rest of the war to deter any further attacks . The ship ' s crew joined in the Cattaro Mutiny in early February 1918 . Six weeks later she became an accommodation ship for the submarine crews based at nearby Gjenovic . " Monarch " was handed over to Great Britain as war reparations in January 1920 and broken up for scrap in Italy in 1921 . Notes . Explanatory notes Citations