The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12): Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes
History
The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12): Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes
World War, 1914-1918
Naval warfare in southern waters was continued against British
warships by the Austrian navy. On June 9, 1915, the Austrian admiralty
announced that a cruiser of the type of the _Liverpool_ had been
struck by a torpedo fired by an Austrian submarine while the former
was off San Giovanni di Medua, near the Albanian coast. Reports of
the incident issued by the Austrian and British naval authorities
differed, the former claiming that the cruiser had sunk, and the
latter that it had remained afloat and had been towed to an Adriatic
port.
Most unique was an engagement between the Italian submarine _Medusa_
and a similar craft flying the Austrian flag on June 17, 1915.
This was the first time that two submarines had ever fought with
each other. On that day the two submarines, the presence of each
unknown to the other, lay submerged, not a great distance apart.
The _Medusa_, after some hours, came up, allowing only her periscope
to show; seeing no enemy about, her commander brought the rest of
her out of the water. She had not emerged many moments before the
Austrian vessel also came up for a look around and the commander
of the latter espied the Italian submarine through his periscope.
He immediately ordered a torpedo fired; it found a mark in the
hull of the _Medusa_ and she was sent to the bottom. One of her
officers and four of her men were rescued by the Austrian submarine
and made prisoners.
Italy's navy was not to continue to act as a separate naval unit
in the southern naval theatre of war, for on June 18, 1915, the
Minister of Marine of France announced that the "Anglo-French forces
in the Mediterranean were cooperating with the Italian fleet, whose
participation made possible a more effective patrol of the Adriatic.
Warships of the Allies were engaged in finding and destroying oil
depots from which the enemy's submarines had been replenishing
their supplies." This effective patrol did not, however, prevent
an Austrian submarine from sinking an Italian torpedo boat on June
27, 1915.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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