Spring has not yet arrived, and the bitter sea breeze of the northern Mediterranean is still mixed with a deep chill.

A large number of Austro-Hungarian warships were gathered near the channel of the military port of Pula waiting to leave the port, and every minute or two, the lighthouse of the port would give a signal, and then another warship slowly entered the channel leading to the outer port.

Whether it is a battleship that has already left the port, is leaving the port, or is waiting to leave the port, the deck can be seen everywhere busy sailors, they are doing various preparations in an orderly manner in the cold wind, clearing the accumulation, collecting the cables, in this state of imminent battle, those who stick to the searchlight and anti-torpedo boat auxiliary gun combat position dare not relax in the slightest.

With such a large number of departures, Admiral Anton House could not make his fleet sail out of the narrow channel in the dark, and the German submarines were basically equipped with sonar, so he simply turned on the lights of the fleet to detect the traces of the German submarines with the greatest degree of Kuma, and at the same time defended against possible torpedo attacks.

After each battleship sailed out of the channel, it quickly lowered the mine protection nets on both sides of the battleship, and although this would have a considerable impact on the speed of the battleship, each battleship in Admiral Anton's hands was invaluable. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was quite short of funds for the construction of new ships, and even in wartime, less than three large warships were launched every year!

What's more, in the process of waiting for the follow-up ships to leave the port, these battleships that left the port first only sailed slowly on the sea, and once they encountered a torpedo attack, their evasion ability was not complimentary, so they simply "used mine nets to increase the defense of the battleship."

In the captain's command room of the "Prince Eugen", Admiral Anton House, wearing a military hat, a trench coat, and a scarf, kept himself tightly covered, but he stayed in this command room protected by thick armor after boarding.

It is not so much that Admiral Anton is afraid of the cold, but that his body is seriously damaged by years of overwork. In fact, the Kingdom of Hungary, which had no naval tradition, was neither concerned nor willing to provide financial assistance for the construction of its navy, and the huge Austro-Hungarian navy was always maintained by Austria, which developed rapidly but the support of the emperor and parliament for the navy was still very limited. In many cases, the development of the Austro-Hungarian navy depended entirely on the support of several important figures, such as the Archduke Ferdinand and the Count of Mongjukukoli, without whom the Austro-Hungarian navy would not have been on such a large scale.

For example, the Austro-Hungarian Parliament was reluctant to allocate funds for the two famous Combined Forces-class battleships in front of us, so that the Navy had to start the initial construction work directly by self-financing without receiving the appropriation, and when the Diet finally approved the shipbuilding budget in 1911. The first two combined-force class battleships have been under construction for a long time.

Every time he recalls this poignant history and looks at the huge fleet in front of him, Admiral Anton can't help but feel a lot of emotion in his heart. The human body is like a machine, and long-term overload will only accelerate the wear and tear of individual components. The doctor warned the admiral, who was over fifty years old, that if he continued to work like this, he would probably not live more than one year.

However, Admiral Anton could not do without his beloved navy, and the Austro-Hungarian navy in the face of a strong enemy could not do without his core generals, and the fates of the two have been combined.

Turning around together, or perishing together!

February 6 at 11:23 p.m. The flagship of the Austro-Hungarian home fleet, the Prince Eugen, accompanied by the sister ship St. István, slowly entered the channel. At present, only two of the four most elite combined-forces battleships of the Austro-Hungarian Empire are in the port of Pla, "Trotov" in Gibraltar and "United Forces" in Taranto. Earlier, Admiral Anton House had already sent orders to the other two main fleets of the Navy. The 2nd Fleet continued to be stationed at Algerasis, Gibraltar, and the main force of the 2nd Fleet arrived from Taranto to join his 1st Fleet.

By this time, the 3rd Fleet, where the "Combined Forces" was located, had already set sail from the military port of Taranto, but unfortunately, they had just left the port when they were targeted by German submarines.

As the British said before, the German submarine forces are simply a bunch of omnipresent demons!

For the three German submarines lurking outside the port of Pula and their commanders, the order from Tunisia, while somewhat ambiguous, at least gave them the power to fire torpedoes at the enemy on their own initiative.

The question of politics naturally rested with the politicians, and the captain of the U213, Major Frink, quickly made a bold decision to combine surveillance and attack, and this time to add at least one or two 10,000-ton warships to his own success book. This kind of glory is not something that can be gained by sinking those freighters who are defenseless!

When Admiral Anton House was relieved from his memories, his ship "Prince Eugen" had already sailed out of the channel, and at this time, outside the harbor, more than 50 small and medium-sized ships had already set up a warning formation, gunboats and patrol boats were cruising at high speed in the outermost part of the world, destroyers and cruisers were on guard in the inner circle at a slightly slower speed, and the battleships "Gusvik", "Leonard" and "Krems", which had left the harbor before the "Prince Eugen", were speeding outward while accelerating.

Behind the "Prinz Eugen", the "St. István", the "Count Cavour", and the "Archduke Franz Ferdinand" had already entered the channel, and finally there were two battleships "Zorini" and "Radetz" waiting to leave the port.

His eyes were silently watching the busy sea. Anton House's mind was racing fast.

"Send a signal to the 3rd Battleship Detachment and let them take the 4th and 1st yard areas to the south!"

In this native fleet, the 1st Battleship Detachment consisted of the most powerful ships "Prince Eugen", "St. István" and "Count Cavour", which were also the ships of the largest displacement in the Austro-Hungarian Navy; The 2nd Battleship Detachment consisted of the "Archduke Franz Ferdinand", the "Zorini" and the "Radetz", all of which were Austro-Hungarian Dradetz-class battleships with a displacement of 16,000 tons; the 3rd Battleship Detachment was the first to leave the port - "Gusvik", "Leonard" and "Krems", all three of which were captured from the Italian Navy, with a displacement of 12,000 to 14,000 tons, and their firepower and defense were only moderate.

Admiral Anton's intention was very obvious, to let the three worst battleships go south first, even if they could not divert all the German submarines outside the harbor, and give the other side the illusion that they were going to sail into the Mediterranean. In fact, his fleet was to head north to the Gulf of Venice to accompany the Austrian Army, which had entered the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia, to fight the invading German forces.

The commander of the 3rd Battleship Detachment, Rear Admiral Aruzou, had no complaints about Admiral Anton House's orders. Three battleships, painted gray-green, then headed in the direction of the Mediterranean with more than a dozen escort destroyers.

In addition to the 1-3 battleship detachments, the Austro-Hungarian home fleet included 3 cruiser squadrons, 6 destroyer squadrons, 7 torpedo boat squadrons, 4 minesweeper squadrons, 4 gunboat squadrons, 1 seaplane carrier squadron, 4 submarine squadrons, and 10 transport squadrons.

It is worth mentioning that Admiral Anton originally owned 3 seaplane carriers and 31 submarines, but between March and August 1915, the German Navy successively transferred 3 seaplane carriers and 14 submarines owned by Germany, after which the Austro-Hungarian Navy designed and built 2 seaplane carriers by itself. And the engineers were two Austrian officers who had served as observers on German seaplane carriers. Together with the launch of one Austrian self-built submarine in Venice after that, Admiral Anton's naval aviation and submarine forces have the pitiful old capital they have now.

At present, the two seaplane carriers of the Austro-Hungarian Navy are named after two late counts, one is called the "Count Mongshi Kukoli", with a displacement of 1,700 tons, which can carry 3 seaplanes of the "Sea Breeze" type, and the other is the "Count Andrahi", with a displacement of 2,300 tons and can carry 4 seaplanes of the "Sea Breeze" type. Before the two ships were refitted, they were coal carriers and a cruiser that was about to be moved, and the Seabreeze seaplane was the Austrian version of the German Exocet 2 seaplane, which had a skeleton, skin, and pontoons made in Austria. But there is a pure "German heart" - it is the 120-horsepower inline Spider Sunshine aero engine produced by the German GG Aviation Group. This slightly clumsy "Sea Breeze" seaplane is able to fly off the surface and reach speeds of up to 95 kilometers per hour.

By 1916, the Austro-Hungarian Empire's engine technology was in its infancy, and the gap between them and Germany and the United States in this respect was not just a small step. But. The Austro-Hungarian Empire, on the other hand, was not bad at building ships, especially after the occupation of Venice in Italy in the mid-19th century, when they were able to independently build the best warships in the Mediterranean. Moreover, the weapons used in these warships are also quite excellent, and most of them are produced by the famous European and even world-famous arms companies - Skoda Arsenal. It's just a pity that now this famous arsenal in Bohemia is no longer owned by Austria-Hungary!

"Put down the lightning net and drive north!" Admiral Anton decisively gave orders to his ship, and this stubborn old man was not frightened by German surface ships, but for German submarines who could take out a large ship with a few torpedoes. He had to be careful.

The concept of mine protection nets appeared in the 70s of the last century, when the British Navy began to worry about the fleet of motorboats equipped with white-headed torpedoes, and in the face of these torpedoes and torpedo boats, an expensive large warship became very vulnerable. So, the British began to study various means of defense against torpedo attacks. One of them was to add a mine-protected bulwark to the gunwales of the battleship, but the effect of this setup was not obvious, in this case, a mine-protected net hoisted around the battleship appeared.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Britain, Germany, Russia, Italy, Austria and other countries all adopted lightning protection nets on their warships to varying degrees. The exceptions are only the French and Americans. At this time, the lightning protection net is usually placed below the secondary gun, the pole is stretched out near the water surface, and the ground lightning protection net below is composed of a steel ring with a certain size and weight. In addition, the bow and tail of the ship are generally not equipped with lightning protection nets, so that they can sail at low speed in the state of putting down the nets, and if the nets are damaged, they will not be easily entangled in the propellers.

Just after 12 o'clock, most of the ships of the Austro-Hungarian home fleet had already left the port, and at this time, a burst of artillery was heard from the west of the port, and it was not far from the port.

For a time, the nerves in the fleet, from the generals to the sailors, were even tighter.

The gunfire continued for about five minutes, after which a signal came from the ship-by-ship detachment in the yard area that they had spotted the submarine's periscope on the surface, and after a burst of shelling, the submarine seemed to quickly descend deeper to the bottom of the sea.

"Let the 2nd Destroyer Detachment go to that area!" Admiral Anton once again gave the order that his 2nd destroyer detachment was a specialized anti-submarine unit, and three of the destroyers were equipped with sonar and depth charges imported from Germany, which could be used against the Germans' own submarines, but Admiral Anton did not feel ridiculous at this time.

Less than a quarter of an hour later, explosions rang out again in the area, this time muffled and thicker. After about 20 rounds of that noise, the 2nd Destroyer Detachment returned with a high spirit, even though they had blown up only a few sea fish.

All this seemed to be expected by Admiral Anton, who waited patiently, and as time went on, there were fewer and fewer ships that did not leave the port.

However, more than patience, the sea hunters from Germany are the first.

Major Frink's eyes were glued to the periscope and he shouted: "Torpedo No. 1 ready!" Torpedo No. 2 ready! Torpedo No. 3 ready! ”

What locked onto the periscope was a large blurry black shadow.

Half a minute later, the torpedo room reported that the first three torpedoes were ready for fire.

"Confirm the ship!"

The commander of the weapon quickly reported the data: "The ship has been determined!" Nearest ships! The distance is 1200 yards and the launch angle is 85 degrees! ”

"Torpedo salvos No. 1, 2, 3!"

A few seconds later, three 533-mm G5 steam torpedoes with white water marks sped away towards the target at a speed of 45 knots under the cover of night.

Major Frink snapped and closed the periscope, "Dive quickly!" ”

At this time, on the "Count Cavour", the largest battleship of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, 1,702 sailors were still at a loss about the approaching German torpedo, and the nearly 30,000-ton battleship was following the "Prinz Eugen" and "St. Istvan" at a speed of 6 knots and slowly moving away from the port.

At 11:07 p.m. on February 6, 1916, three earth-shattering bangs kicked off the magnificent Battle of Venice Bay.