Austria-Hungary's first true pre-dreadnought warships, the Kronprinzes were built over a period of five years: the Rudolf at Naval Arsenal Pola, the Stephanie at STT in Trieste. Like many Habsburg warships, they were named for prominent members of the royal family: the Rudolf for the only son of Kaiser Franz Josef, and heir to the Throne (Thronfolger); and the smaller Stephanie for his wife, Princess Stéphanie of Belgium. These ships represented a temporary and partial victory of the pro-naval faction at Court in being termed battleships (linienshchiffe), armed with 12" guns and with oceangoing capability. However, they became the cause of a backlash in the reactionary Vienna Reichstag and were renamed Turmschiffe (turret ships) even though the more powerful of the two, the Rudolf, carried the main armament in open-topped barbettes. At any rate, they took so long to build that they were quite outdated by the time they took to the waves in 1889. On paper, however, they remained the Habsburg Empire's most powerful units until the turn of the century, and the only ones mounting 12" artillery (albeit dated guns with limited range) prior to the Radetzky class of 1908. Aside from monitors to patrol the Danube and the armored cruiser Maria Theresia, they were the last armor built for the Dual Monarchy until the coastal monitors of the Monarchklasse joined the fleet in 1897-8. No newer oceangoing battleships would be built until the Habsburgklasse began to hoist their commission pennants in 1902. The reason for this slow buildup was the entrenched opposition to naval spending, and to battleships in particular, in the parliament; it was a gradual, stealth approach which worked, gradually inching the Empire into full participation in the dreadnought arms race by 1909.
Skullduggery in the Seat of Power
The state of the monarchy at the time the ships commissioned was enough to give pause to many observers. In fact, the lead ship's name unwittingly alluded to one of the most notorious scandals involving the Habsburg Dynasty: a shocking misstep by the dissolute Rudolf. His opium and alcohol-soaked existence came to a violent end in the very year the ship was commissioned. The tragic murder-suicide of the heir to the Throne and his 17-year-old mistress, Baroness Mary Vetsera, rocked the Habsburg domains to their foundations. The doomed lovers died at Mayerling, Rudolf's "hunting lodge" outside Vienna, on Jan. 30, 1889. Although the royal family did its best to hush up the details so its scion could receive a proper Catholic burial, rumors swirled about the circumstances -- rumors abetted by the several conflicting versions of the events put out by different spokespersons on various occasions, and by the mysterious murder weapon, and by the fact that all 6 shots had left the revolver, rare in a suicide. This was a very sensitive subject: after all, Rudolf had been the heir to the Throne; and there had been doubts about his sanity even before this. There was also the question whether this was in fact a suicide, or an assassination by a third party. With the turmoil of nationalism periodically rocking the Balkans, assassination of the heir apparent would be best hushed up. The Archduke next in line to inherit the monarchy declined the honor in favor of his eldest son, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, also remembered today mostly for the circumstances surrounding his death. The violent demise of their only son, Rudolf, led to the collapse of the royal couple's marriage; this soon became commonly known in gossipy Vienna.
Thus, confidence in the dynasty was shaky just before the new decade began. The Gay Nineties were nowhere gayer than in Vienna, and commentators have noted that the champagne-soaked twilight of the Habsburg régime borrowed some of its excess from suppressed despair about the future, as the ancient Kaiser Franz Josef (left) lived on and on. Deprived of the pleasures of the bedchamber, he could be found working dawn to dusk on State matters, holding tightly to the reins of power and the bonds of tradition -- the very embodiment of knee-jerk reaction. His sorrows were compounded when his wife, the lovely but self-absorbed Empress Elisabeth, was assassinated by an anarchist in 1898. The old man insisted on living like a monk amid the ostentatious luxury of his capital, and would continue to do so, growing more and more out of touch, until his death in 1916: his 68-year reign outlasted even the long rule of Queen Victoria. Franz Josef's Empire did not outlive him by much more than a year, thanks to the strains imposed by the prolonged war he had provoked, dreaming of an easy triumph.
But in 1889 the Kriegsmarine was glad to have its two formidable-looking and prestigious new ships. Together the two half-sisters made a goodwill voyage to the North and Baltic Seas when new in 1890. Two years later, they jointly represented the Habsburg Empire at the World's Columbian Celebrations in Genoa.
Plans and Specifications
Specifications for the Erzherzog Kronprinz Rudolf:
Built at Pola Arsenal. Laid down: January 25, 1884. Launched: July 6, 1887. Commissioned: Sept. 20, 1889.
Dimensions: 320'5" x 63'3" x 24'4" Full load draft: 27'0" Displacement: 6,939 tons standard; 7,512 tons deep laden. Armament: (3) 12"/35 Krupp guns, (6) 4.7"/35 Krupp guns, (9) 1.85" Hotchkiss guns, (2) 1.5"/33 MG; (4) 15.75" torpedo tubes. Armor: Compound type. 9½" belt; 12" barbette; 2.7" deck. Propulsion: (2) 2-cyl horizontal compound engines, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 15.48 knots. Crew: 40 officers, 450 enlisted men.
Metric specifications:
Dimensions: 97.66m x 19.26m x 7.4m Full load draft: 8.23m Displacement: 6,939 tons standard; 7,512 tons deep laden. Armament: (3) 305mm/35 Krupp guns, (6) 120mm/35 Krupp guns, (9) 47 mm Hotchkiss guns, (2) 37 mm/33 MG; (4) 40 cm torpedo tubes. Armor: Compound type. 242 mm belt; 305 mm barbette; 69 mm deck. Propulsion: (2) 2-cyl horizontal compound engines, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 26.45 km/hr. Crew: 40 officers, 450 enlisted men.
Specifications for the Erzherzogin Kronprinzessin Stephanie:
Built at STT, Trieste. Laid down: Nov. 12, 1884. Launched: April 14, 1887. Commissioned: July 7, 1890.
Dimensions: 280' x 62'8" x 21'9" Full load draft: 23'10" Displacement: 5,151 tons standard; 5,390 tons deep laden. Armament: (2) 12"/35 cal Krupp guns; (6) 5.9"/35; (11) 4.7", nine of 44 calibre and two of 33; and (2) 1.5"/33 MG; (4) 15.75" torpedo tubes. Armor: Compound type. 9" belt, 11" barbette/sponson, 5¾" conn. Propulsion: (2) 2-cyl horizontal compound engines, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 15.93 knots. Crew: 34 officers, 447 men.
Metric specifications:
Dimensions: 85.36m x 19.1m x 6.39m Full load draft: 7.29m Displacement: 5,151 tons standard; 5,390 tons deep laden. Armament: (2) 305 mm/35 Krupp guns; (6) 152 mm/35; (11) 12 cm, nine of 44 calibre and two of 33; (2) 37 mm/33 MG; (4) 40 cm torpedo tubes. Armor: Compound type. 230 mm belt, 280 mm barbette/sponson, 140 mm conn. Propulsion: (2) 2-cyl horizontal compound engines, shafted to twin screw. Speed: 27.2 km/hr. Crew: 34 officers, 447 men.
Ships' Histories
The two ships were compatible and of similar style and capabilities, but not really sister-ships: more like half-sisters. The Rudolf was nearly 2,000 tons larger than its half-sister, mounted all three main guns en barbette, and had one mast amidships, rather like the Italian warships of the time: and she was certainly built, at least in some degree, as a "reply" to the huge ironclads being produced by Italy in the 1870s and 1880s. The Stephanie, by contrast, carried her two 12" guns in armored barbettes sponsoned over the sides forward, had two military masts, and an overall superstructure on the upper decks à la USS Maine. This was functionally possible since she did not mount turrets or barbettes on the centerline; but it made the ship a larger target and less like a serious warship of the time.
In 1906, the two vessels were stricken from the K.u.K. Kriegsmarine's roster of operational fleet units. In WWI, Rudolf continued to be used for coastal defense in the Bay of Cattaro. Deeded over to the new Republic of the South Slavs by Emperor Karl in late 1918, she joined the war on the Allied side in Yugoslavia as Kumbor, and was scrapped in 1922. The Stephanie was hulked in 1913 and served from 1914 as an accommodation ship at Pola under the name Gamma. In 1920 she was assigned to Italy by the victorious Allied powers, and promptly scrapped.
A Kronprinz Class Gallery
The Kronprinz Rudolf as she appeared in Jane's Fighting Ships at the turn of the century.
Aft 305 mm (12"/35) barbette mount on the Kronprinz Rudolf.
SMS Erzherzog Kronprinz Rudolf in a meticulous drawing by Aldo Cherini. For a dandy enlarged view, click here.
The Stephanie carefully detailed by Cherini. The forward 12" gun barrels are visible atop their sponsons, just forward of the bridge wings. For a dandy enlarged view, click here.
Erzherzogin Kronprinzessin Stephanie visiting Norway during her inaugural cruise in 1890.
