If Kuniberti was faced with a dilemma in his choice, then for the current Count of Montecukoli, how to give Austria-Hungary a dreadnought is a crucial dilemma.

Speaking of which, the Austro-Hungarian Navy was simply raised by a queen mother within the empire. The military expenditure required was managed by the War Department, which in turn was largely influenced and controlled by the Army. Therefore, the life of the Austro-Hungarian Navy has not been satisfactory, and the War Department casually sent three melons and two dates to deal with it.

Again, this has a lot to do with the fact that Austria-Hungary has traditionally not paid attention to the navy, which in the Austrian era was not even at all for a long time. It was not until the 19th century that Austria-Hungary formed its own navy in Venice.

Although the Austro-Hungarian Navy was formed late, its combat effectiveness was still guaranteed. (Italians agree with this very much)

It's just that due to the location of Austria-Hungary, the navy has never been the focus of Austria-Hungary's attention, so the Austro-Hungarian navy has always been a neglected existence.

Of course, it is not always overlooked, and if the royal family takes care of it, then the life of the navy is much better. For example, during the reigns of Archduke Friedrich (Commander-in-Chief of the Navy in 1844-1847) and Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian (Commander-in-Chief of the Navy in 1854-1864), the Austro-Hungarian Navy was well developed.

Unfortunately, Archduke Friedrich died at the age of 26 and Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian left Austria to become emperor in Mexico (he died three years later), leaving the Austro-Hungarian navy without a strong supporter.

It is also in view of the scenery of the previous two Grand Dukes (relatively speaking), so if the Austro-Hungarian Navy wants to get more funding and government support, then a member of the royal family can become a naval officer, which is simply the best choice.

Of course, Count Montekukoli, who was the head of the Naval Department of the Austro-Hungarian War Department, already had a suitable candidate.

Speaking of which, Austria-Hungary is definitely a strange existence in the army management department, nominally the Imperial War Department is in charge of all the Austro-Hungarian armies, such as the Imperial Wehrmacht, the Royal and Royal Local Defense Forces, etc. (The composition of the Austro-Hungarian Army is very complicated, so I won't talk about it for the sake of space, and those who are interested can check it for themselves.) ）

Among the major powers, Austria-Hungary is the only one that places the navy under the influence of the army, so the hard life of the Austro-Hungarian navy is quite difficult.

However, although the Austro-Hungarian navy had a difficult life, its ambition was still there. At a time when various countries are launching dreadnoughts, the Austro-Hungarian Navy also has the idea that it should have.

"Your Majesty the Crown Prince, this is the dreadnought plan prepared by our navy."

Admiral Montecukoli, who was a member of the navy, took the plan that the Austro-Hungarian navy had painstakingly researched, and found Archduke Ferdinand, who was the crown prince. In addition to the scheme, a carefully carved model of the scheme is also presented. This is a little trick from Monteikukoli, and taking out the model of the battleship will help the crown prince feel the new battleship more intuitively.

As for the gift of Admiral Montecukoli, Archduke Ferdinand nodded with satisfaction.

This Archduke Ferdinand is famous, and I believe that no one in future generations will not know about him. And in this era, this is also very famous, in addition to his status as the Austro-Hungarian crown prince, his love story with the Czech girl Sofia is also talked about. For this reason, he also paid the price of letting his children give up the inheritance rights before the royal family reluctantly agreed to the marriage.

The Archduke Ferdinand, on the other hand, was fond of hunting and was relatively moderate in his ethnic policy, which made the Austro-Hungarian minority have high expectations for him. And these are not worth paying attention to for the Austro-Hungarian Navy. What really deserves attention is that this crown prince is a supporter of the theory of sea power and attaches great importance to the role of the navy.

It is precisely because of this that the whole navy has high hopes for the crown prince, and if it were not for the status of his heir and the attitude of the army, it would have been a brilliant idea to make Archduke Ferdinand the head of the navy.

Although Ferdinand did not have the opportunity to become the head of the navy, it did not affect his relationship with the navy.

So after receiving the plan handed by the navy, Archduke Ferdinand looked at it with relish.

"How does your plan look like the Dante of the Italians?"

Tani

Archduke Ferdinand looked at the model in front of him, then compared the drawings and asked.

In the face of the crown prince's inquiry, Admiral Montaikukoli did not hide it at all. "His Royal Highness, our dreadnought does refer to the Dante-class of the Italians, but we have made a lot of changes, for example, on the basis of only increasing the displacement of 1,000 tons, we have the firepower of a half-Dante-class, and the cost of building a ship will not be much higher than that of the Italians."

Admiral Montecukoli's words made Archduke Ferdinand's eyes light up, and he immediately asked. "Tell me how your navy managed to surpass the Italians."

In response to the Crown Prince's inquiry, Admiral Montecukoli then explained how the Austro-Hungarian Navy had made a series of modifications based on the Dante class, what to reduce the length, lower the freeboard, and increase the main guns, etc.

In fact, the changes of the Austro-Hungarian Navy are more at the expense of reducing the seaworthiness of the Dante class, because when Italy designed this class, it not only considered the calm Mediterranean, but also the use of the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean, which have complex sea conditions. Therefore, in order to ensure the seaworthiness of this class of warships, designs with increased displacement such as high freeboard and V-shaped bow are used.

The use of the Austro-Hungarian navy is different from that of Italy, and its main use of the sea area is the Mediterranean, so it is not necessary to consider high sea conditions, so those measures to increase the displacement and increase the seaworthiness are no longer needed, so this naturally reduces the displacement and cost.

In addition, the configuration of 8 main guns in Italy was too small for the Austro-Hungarian Navy, so the Austro-Hungarian Navy considered equipping it with triple main guns, and without reducing the batteries, the Austro-Hungarian dreadnoughts equipped with 12 main guns were thus achieved. It is half as powerful as the Italian Dante.

The Austro-Hungarian Navy considered it so carefully, of course, it was a good idea, but how it performed can only be known to God.

Faced with the plan handed by the navy, Archduke Ferdinand also had some understanding. But in a good way, Austria-Hungary has its own national conditions.

"It looks good, but we have to wait a little longer to get funding from the council."

As for the words of the crown prince, Admiral Montekukoli would like to say that he does not mind a little is false. But he also knew that it would not be so easy to get the council to come up with a sum of money to build the ship. It is not a simple matter just to get the Austrian and Hungarian parliaments, let alone the army that is eyeing the tiger.

"His Royal Highness, our navy is not in a hurry, we can wait, and our navy can raise some of the funds by itself."

On behalf of the Navy, Admiral Montekukoli proved to the Crown Prince that he would not only ask for funds, but would also raise them himself. The Austro-Hungarian Navy's fund-raising is nothing more than external fund-raising and introspection, which is to raise donations from all walks of life, and introspection is of course the navy's internal tightening of its belt, selling some unimportant warships, or saving money from other places.

The navy was so sensible that Ferdinand naturally valued it more.

"It's also good that it makes it easier to make appropriations."

As for the words of the crown prince, Count Montaikukoli, of course, knew that it was not a joke. The Navy also takes into account the difficulty of appropriation, so it needs to raise its own funds to reduce the difficulty of getting the council to allocate funds.

"Your Royal Highness, in fact, we still have an idea, which is to use the fundraising to build it first, and then the parliament will fund the funds to continue the construction."

Well, the Austro-Hungarian Navy fought hard enough for the dreadnoughts, and even took out the first cut and then the prelude.

"Wait until I get back from Berlin next month."

As for the idea that the navy was going to take risks, Ferdinand told him to wait. He still has no clue about how to move the parliamentary appropriation, and he needs to talk about it.

After all, Austria-Hungary is a dualist country, and it is necessary to consider not only the attitude of the Austrian parliament, but also the Hungarian parliament, which makes Ferdinand need to plan well.