Moonlight maneuvers of Italy's Royal Navy (Regia Marina) in an early 1900s color lithograph.
The naval ensign shown at left was flown from 1897 to 1943.
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Welcome to the new Italian Navy Section of Big, Bad Battleships.com. The Regia Marina offers historian and steampunk aficionado alike some of the strangest, yet most innovative concepts in ironclad development. The irrepressible Italian flair for design manifested itself particularly in the work of Navy Minister Benedetto Brin and later his protégé, Col. Vittorio Cuniberti. Both men favored speed and very large guns over protection. Most Italian warships reflected the demands of Mediterranean service, being tolerant of lower freeboard and greater topweight than if they had been destined for blue-ocean travel and long voyages far from land.
Especially in the early years, Italy was dependent on foreign suppliers (particularly Britain) for ships, engines, and guns, although she had world-class wooden shipbuilding facilities at Venice. By the late 1870s she was building her own iron ships and was one of the first powers to adopt steel, with modern shipyards at La Spezia in Tuscany and Castellammare on the Bay of Naples, capable of producing the largest vessels; although the ambitious projects of Minister Brin taxed their capabilities, leading to build times as long as eleven years and the premature obsolescence of capital ships. This problem bedeviled the navy all the way through the dreadnought era as Italy struggled to free herself of technical backwardness and assert herself as a first-class modern nation. Private yards at Genoa and Leghorn contributed warships up to large armored cruisers, Ansaldo expanding to build the dreadnought Giulio Cesare in 1910-14. The busy Pattison works at Naples provided the fleet with swift torpedo boats and destroyers. But the monster guns to arm Italian battleships still came from the Armstrongs ordnance works at Elswick, Northumberland, on the Tyne.
By 1900 Italy had achieved independence from foreign suppliers in large measure; but still had to order some of the armor plate for her dreadnoughts from Midvale and Bethlehem Steel in the U.S. when the demand was more than her own mills could meet. Armstrongs and Vickers both set up subsidiaries in Italy which turned out many of the big guns for the Regia Marina in the pre-WWI period, although some of Italy's 10- and 12-inch guns still continued to be manufactured in Britain.
At first, the new nation of Italy made heavy weather of it on the high seas. No sooner had Victor Emmanuel II (Vittorio Emmanuele Secondo in Italian) declared the Kingdom of Italy in 1861 when the tug-of-war between militarist nationalists and social reformers began. The militarist factions and irredentists (those obsessed with recovering historically Italian territory) fomented yet another war with the Habsburg Empire aimed at reconquering Habsburg-held territory. Italy had been at war with Austria off and on since 1848, but Rome and Venetia remained in Austrian hands. In addition to these heartland regions in Italy proper, the irredentists had their eyes on lands around the Adriatic rim, especially the strategic Istria region around Trieste. More than half the population of this territory was ethnically Italian, and remained so until it reverted to Yugoslav sovereignty after 1946. In 1866 the Italians opportunistically formed an alliance with Otto von Bismarck's Prussia and went to war in lock-step with Berlin, knowing the Austrian forces would be tied up repelling the Prussian Army. The 1866 conflict, known as the Third War of Italian Independence -- or more irreverently as the 50 Days' War --, encompassed the devastating defeat of Italian naval forces at the Battle of Lissa (Vis). This action was fought July 20, 1866 off an island in the eastern Adriatic, SSW of Split, and foiled an attempted Italian invasion, first of Lissa and then of the Croat mainland. Italy's land armies fared somewhat better, but over all the Austrians more than held their own against Italy. Fortunately for Italy, Prussia promptly crushed Austria's armies at the Battle of Sadowa and began a march on Vienna, leading Austrian Emperor Franz Josef to sue for peace. Italy recovered Venetia in the peace settlement, but the irredentists were left plenty of territorial issues to exploit in years to come. Prussia toppled Austria as the predominant German state, while the Austrians had the face-saving victory at Lissa, coming on the last day of the war. Everyone was happy for the moment -- everyone except the Italian commander-in-chief, Adm. Persano, who was caught lying about the action and his rôle in its outcome. Disgraced, Persano received the Italian equivalent of tar and feathers and the proverbial ride on a rail.
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Ironclad Ram Affondatore, built in England for Italy 1863-66.The decade of the 1860s, when Italy first stood up as a nation, coincided with the ironclad revolution at sea. The new state hurried to place orders for several of the most modern warships for its new navy, which already had an abundance of wooden steam- and sail-powered warships, transports and auxiliaries. Just having a well-appointed fleet did not guarantee an effective naval force, however, as was soon borne out. Italy's new navy was a merger of the Genoese and Venetian fleets; old rivalries led to a confused chain of command. Perhaps the most advanced vessel purchased abroad was Affondatore, an ironclad ram with two turrets and military masts, built at Millwall in England. The ship -- whose name means "Sinker" in Italian -- reached Italy just as the Third War of Independence was brewing in 1866; Affondatore's paint was hardly dry when she found herself the flagship of Adm. Persano at the Battle of Lissa. Unfortunately the good admiral did not know how to use his newfangled wonder ship; she sat out most of the battle, made two clumsy attempts to plant her 26-foot proboscis in an Austrian ship and failed, but received battle damage that (left unrepaired in the panicky aftermath of battle) eventually sank her. Still, her acquisition was a milestone for Italy. More ironclads were on the cards for the Regia Marina.
Another innovative design was the Caio Duilio class. Designed by Italy's crack marine architect Benedetto Brin, they were built at La Spezia and equipped with guns and engines manufactured by Armstrong's in England. These two iron-and-steel battleships were laid down in 1873 and completed in 1880. The Regia Marina copped bragging rights for the biggest guns afloat with the 17.7" muzzle-loading rifles mounted in two massive turrets en échelon amidships. But there were many problems with this outsize artillery. The loading arrangements for the 100-ton guns were cumbersome, guaranteeing a deliberate (not to say glacial) rate of fire: one salvo every 15 minutes was standard. With their 21½" thick steel belt armor and 17" turret protection, the ships' progress was stately even with the best compound engines of the day. More Nevertheless, these were groundbreaking ships, imitated by the British in their Inflexible and the Agamemnon and Colossus classes of the Eighties. These were well-made iron ships: Duilio's sister Dandolo, launched in 1878, survived for more than 40 years, while the name ship remained in commission until 1909. Her hulk survived well until the 1920s, converted into a stationary oil tanker. Following the extravagance of the Italia and Lepanto (below), Brin and the Admiralty reverted to a design derived closely from the Duilio, with turrets mounted on the centerline, little superstructure, and flying bridges or "hurricane decks" over the turret tops. These three later ships (1888) were the Ruggero di Lauria class.
As you can see from the pictures, the Italians were inspired dreamers and prolific consumers of warships. They were not afraid of innovation; in fact, championed it in their designs. Many of the ships shown were world firsts. They also paid the penalty of stretching the boundaries of existing technology. It is fortunate none of these ships ever saw action (save the dreadnoughts, and then only in WWII, after modernization and improvement of their armor). At right, the Italia, six-stacked barbette battleship of 1883, was the biggest and fastest warship of her day, carrying the most powerful guns afloat in her massive midships redoubt -- an oval barbette housing a pair of guns each fore and aft. But this naval behemoth had no armor belt. Defending this specification, Brin argued that modern artillery had made armor futile! New armor hardening technologies already under development soon proved him wrong. Like her contemporaries, Italia benefited from the peace prevailing in her lifetime; her qualities were never tested in battle. Yet it was not until 1921 that she hauled down her commission pennant for the last time.
Italian warships of the 1880s and 1890s favored monster guns in barbette mountings. Here is the Re Umberto class battleship Re di Sardegna, commissioned in 1890. The first Italian battleship equipped with triple expansion engines, she was the fastest ironclad of her day at 20+ knots; carried four 13.5" guns in tall barbettes; and had three chimneys and one mast in an odd arrangement. The Sardegna was the first to have shields fitted over the main guns, in what has become colloquially known as a gun turret (but is technically an barbette mounting with a protective gunhouse on top.) Sister ships Sicilia and Re Umberto had identical shields fitted soon after. More Fun fact: The Re Umberto class was named after the king with the baroquest mustachios ever, Umberto I of Italy, successor to Victor Emmanuel II. His family, the royal house of Savoy, ruled Sardinia and Piedmont in the bargain, and Sicily was now part of the Italian union, so in effect all three ships were named for Umberto. The mustachioed monarch may have enjoyed the flattery, but did not live to gloat over it for long. His reactionary reign (1878-1900) was cut short by an anarchist's bullet, making him the only king of Italy ever to be assassinated.
The Napoli of the Regina Elena class, commissioned 1909. This bow shot shows the ships' recessed freeboard: innovative cutouts in the hull to facilitate straight-ahead fire from the 8" guns along the side. Other navies used cutouts to minimize blast in cross-deck firing, but few with the sculptural flair evident here. This class was the brainchild of another great Italian naval architect and thinker, Col. Vittorio Cuniberti, who proposed the Dreadnought idea to the Royal Navy in a 1903 article in Jane's Fighting Ships. Like many other Italian efforts, these ships suffered from prolonged build times of 6-8 years -- a failing made more evident by the quickening pace of technological change, thrown into relief by the adoption of the all-big-gun concept. Conceived as revolutionary fast battleships carrying only two 12" guns in single turrets (plus twelve 8" in twins), the Regina Elenas no longer appeared so fast when commissioned: When they were designed 21-2 knots guaranteed a 3-knot margin of speed over the battlefleet speed. By the time they were completed six years later, after the advent of turbine-powered dreadnoughts, 21 kts or better had become the new standard for even the heaviest battleships. A better comparison would be with the battlecruisers, which appeared at exactly the same time as the Regina Elenas. Each moved an armament of eight 12" or larger guns at speeds approaching 28 knots.
In WWI, the Italian and Austrian fleets sat out the conflict in port for the most part, due partly to a coal shortage. Minelayers, submarines, TBs and destroyers saw more action than either battle fleet. The Italian dreadnought Leonardo da Vinci sank at Taranto following a magazine explosion; an Italian MAS motor torpedo boat sank the Austro-Hungarian dreadnought Szent Istvan in a well-documented incident; and Italian "human torpedoes" sabotaged and sank her sister ship Viribus Unitis in a sneak attack that took place after the Armistice had already been signed. War's end saw the crumbling of the multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire, a disintegration Italy was quick to encourage.
Seduced into war by dreams of easy conquest from the old enemy, Austria-Hungary, Italy instead found itself mired to the hubcaps in a costly and inconclusive conflict. Exhausted and embittered, Italians were in a mood for vengeance that left them open to the promises of Socialist politicians and, later, fascist demagogues. Irredentist forces exploited the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Italian renegades seized Trieste and Fiume immediately after WWI. The Fiume seizure, by a proto-fascist army of black-shirt volunteers, was led by Gabriele D'Annunzio, a Futurist poet, fearless war hero, and demagogue. Battleships played their part in the seizure of Trieste, bombarding the Municipal Palace with 12" shells to soften the city up for takeover. Despite the impassioned pleas of the Yugoslav delegation, the Versailles peace conference ratified Italy's occupation. Thus, the Trieste corridor was administered by Italy until WWII -- an Italy hijacked by Mussolini's black-shirted thugs from 1922 on. D'Annunzio became an honored éminence grise for Italian fascism, but Mussolini methodically excluded him from any real power in the state. After years spent in seclusion, D'Annunzio died in 1938.
At the time WWII broke out, Mussolini had been in power 18 years in Italy, while Hitler had only siezed power six years before. In Italy most of the novelty of fascism had eroded away; the daily chafing of life under a repressive gangster régime had taken its toll. By mid-1940, Hitler appeared to be on the verge of an easy and complete conquest of Europe. Mussolini did not want to be left out of the spoils, and hastily joined the Axis cause as junior partner, hoping to share the easy pickings of a victory already won. But as in WWI, the Italians had bitten off more than they could comfortably chew. Logistically, Italian military operations were a shambles; Italian armor and aircraft were up to strafing Ethiopian tribesmen, but unequal to determined resistance by seasoned troops and airmen. Observing these battlefield realities, Italian soldiers -- well-schooled at parade-ground maneuvers and shouting fascist slogans in unison -- proved oddly reluctant to die for Duce and Führer. When Mussolini made a muddle of the Greek occupation, Hitler had to divert crack troops to rescue the operation, no doubt with many a heartfelt curse. With spreading restiveness and threat of sabotage at home, and then the Allied invasion in 1942, the war brought a heavy German presence in Italy and -- in the Yugoslav territories -- hit-and-run presence of the partisans who fought against them. Ably led by Marshal Tito and others, the partisans seized control over the Istrian region after the Germans withdrew, and strongly suggested that the ethnic Italian inhabitants (many of whom had lived in Croatia and Slovenia for generations) would be happier back in Italy. Many took the hint, and Slavs moved in to take their place. But as the civil strife of the 1990s suggests, a lasting settlement of conflicting claims in the Balkans may yet be long in the making.
Caio Duilio of 1915, as rebuilt in 1937-40; modifications included a new clipper bow, increased length, and all-new machinery for dramatically higher speed. The ships' 12" guns were re-bored to 12.6"; midships triple turret was removed, and superstructure entirely reworked for a more modern profile. Displacement was enlarged from 23,000 to 29,400 tons and speed increased from 21 to 27 kts. In effect, the reconstruction made new battleships of the four WWI veterans. MoreAnd the battleships? The last two classes pictured here (four surviving ships) all fought in WWII -- at least they fought a bit more than they had in WWI. Re-engined, converted to oil fuel, and extensively rebuilt during the 1930s (above), they sported 12" guns re-bored to 12.6", but even so were considered lightweight in comparison to their British opponents. Cavour and Caio Duilio were among the ships sunk and disabled in the devastating British air raid on Taranto in November 1940. Cavour cashed in her chips for good, while the other two crippled battleships were raised, repaired, and returned to duty before Italy switched sides, enlisting with the Allies against Germany. The Andrea Doria and Caio Duilio of 1915 and Giulio Cesare of 1913 all survived until 1956: the Doria being decommissioned and sold for scrap in that year, the Duilio the following year. The Cesare was awarded to the Soviet Navy as war reparations. She exploded mysteriously at Novorossisk, USSR in 1956 and capsized in the Black Sea, a total wreck. Some say Italian vigilante frogmen performed the deed as an act of revenge; no one has conclusively proved they didn't. Vladimir Putin's Kremlin is mum on the matter. Big, Bad Battleships' research team is busily combing the evidence (actually they're spending most of their time drinking espresso and niggling over nuances of Russian-Italian translation; but hey, we pay them by the hour). Expect a BBB white paper on the incident sometime in the early 2020s.
This naval ensign was adopted in 1897 and used through 1943.
For the latest intelligence on century-old naval developments, click through our recently updated dossiers on all the pre-dreadnought fleets of Europe and Asia. Since you've been browsing Italy, why not scope out the competition? The Habsburg Empire was Italy's hereditary enemy, which had been ejected from the territories she occupied within northern Italy during the insurrection of Garibaldi and the carabinieri -- and the firm but patient diplomacy of Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour. The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary fielded the world's seventh largest fleet at that time, a navy that -- after Lissa -- is barely mentioned in most histories of the time. Our K.u.K. Kriegsmarine Section remedies this oversight with a generous helping of photos, stories, and statistics. Then again, you might want to peruse the up-and-coming naval power of the time, the Imperial German Navy, and meet Kaiser Wilhelm II and his Navy Minister, the ambitious Grossadmiral Tirpitz. Or perhaps you seek a fleet that can't be beat for sheer steampunk weirdness. If so, visit our French Navy Section. The country that gave us the Rénault, the Citroën, and the Maginot Line was already deep into its own distinctive engineering style in the 1890s with such masterpieces as the Jauréguiberry, Hoche, and Masséna.
Viva l'Italia!
