SMS Kaiser Max (1875)

Kaiser Max sometime after 1892

Kaiser Max was 75.87 meters (248 ft 11 in) long overall and 73.23 m (240 ft 3 in) long at the waterline; she had a beam of 15.25 m (50 ft) and an average draft of 6.15 m (20 ft 2 in). She displaced 3,548 long tons (3,605 t). As was common for ironclads of the period, she had a pronounced ram bow. She had a crew of 400 officers and enlisted men.[1]

Her propulsion system consisted of one single-expansion marine steam engine that drove a single screw propeller. The number and type of her coal-fired boilers have not survived, but they were vented through a single funnel placed slightly forward of amidships. Her engine produced a top speed of 13.28 knots (24.59 km/h; 15.28 mph) from 2,755 indicated horsepower (2,054 kW). The ship was fitted with a three-masted sailing rig to supplement the steam engines.[1]

Kaiser Max was a casemate ship, and she was armed with a main battery of eight 21-centimeter (8.3 in) 20-caliber (cal.) guns manufactured by Krupp mounted in a central casemate, four on each broadside. She also carried four 9 cm (3.5 in) 24-cal. guns, two 7 cm (2.8 in) 15-cal. landing guns, six 47 mm (1.9 in) 35-cal. quick-firing guns, three 47 mm (1.9 in) Hotchkiss revolver cannon, and two 25 mm (0.98 in) guns. Kaiser Max also had four 35 cm (13.8 in) torpedo tubes, one in the bow, one in the stern, and one on each broadside.[1]

The ship's armor protection consisted of an armored belt that was 203 mm (8 in) thick and was capped with 115 mm (4.5 in) thick transverse bulkheads on either end of the citadel. The casemate battery was protected with 125 mm (4.9 in) thick plates.[1]

Kaiser Max (left), Prinz Eugen (center), and Don Juan d'Austria (right) in Pola

Kaiser Max was laid down at the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard on 14 February 1874. The ship was ostensibly the same vessel that had been laid down in 1861, as the Austro-Hungarian parliament had approved a so-called reconstruction program of that Kaiser Max. The head of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, Vice Admiral Friedrich von Pöck, had resorted to subterfuge to circumvent parliamentary hostility to new ironclad construction; he requested funds to modernize the earlier vessel, but in fact, he had that vessel broken up, with only the machinery, parts of the armor plate, and other miscellaneous equipment being incorporated into the new ship. She was launched on 28 December 1875 and completed by 26 October 1876, when she was commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian fleet.[1][2] The ship began her sea trials on 8 May 1877.[3]

The government placed a low priority on naval activities, particularly in the 1870s; as a result, the shortage of funds precluded an active fleet policy. The ironclad fleet, including Kaiser Max, was kept out of service in Pola, laid up in reserve; the only vessels to see significant service in the 1870s were several screw frigates sent abroad.[4] In 1880, Kaiser Max had her sailing rig reduced.[1] In 1888, Kaiser Max and an Austro-Hungarian squadron that included the ironclads Custoza, Tegetthoff, Don Juan d'Austria, and Prinz Eugen and the torpedo cruisers Panther and Leopard travelled to Barcelona, Spain, to take part in the opening ceremonies for the Barcelona Universal Exposition. This was the largest squadron of the Austro-Hungarian Navy that had operated outside the Adriatic.[5] In June and July 1889, Kaiser Max participated in fleet training exercises, which also included the ironclads Custoza, Erzherzog Albrecht, Tegetthoff, Prinz Eugen, and Don Juan d'Austria.[6]

During the 1893 fleet maneuvers, Kaiser Max was mobilized to train alongside the ironclads Kronprinz Erzherzog Rudolf, Kronprinzessin Erzherzogin Stephanie, Prinz Eugen, and Don Juan d'Austria, among other vessels.[7] A new construction program in the late 1890s and early 1900s required the Austro-Hungarian Navy to discard old, obsolete vessels to reduce annual budgets. These ships were largely reused in secondary roles.[8] Kaiser Max was stricken from the naval register on 30 December 1904 and withdrawn from service. She was converted into a barracks ship and in 1909, assigned to Cattaro Bay to serve the Arsenal Teodo, where she remained through World War I.[1][9]

In 1920, having lost the war, the now-defunct Austro-Hungarian Empire ceded the ship to the newly formed Royal Yugoslav Navy. The ship's fate after entering Yugoslav service is unclear. She was renamed Tivat, according to Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships later became Neretva, serving through 1941; her ultimate fate after the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941 is unknown.[10] According to the naval historian Milan Vego, however, the Yugoslav Navy sold the ship for scrap in 1924.[11]

• "Foreign Items". The United States Army and Navy Journal and Gazette of the Regular and Volunteer Forces. New York: Army and Navy Journal, Inc. 24: 913. 1889. OCLC 1589766.
• Garbett, H., ed. (1903). "Naval and Military Notes". Journal of the Royal United Service Institution. London: J. J. Keliher. XXXVII: 409–427. OCLC 8007941.
• Greger, René (1976). Austro-Hungarian Warships of World War I. London: Ian Allan. ISBN 978-0-7110-0623-2.
• Pawlik, Georg (2003). Des Kaisers Schwimmende Festungen: die Kasemattschiffe Österreich-Ungarns [The Kaiser's Floating Fortresses: The Casemate Ships of Austria-Hungary]. Vienna: Neuer Wissenschaftlicher Verlag. ISBN 978-3-7083-0045-0.
• Sieche, Erwin & Bilzer, Ferdinand (1979). "Austria-Hungary". In Gardiner, Robert; Chesneau, Roger & Kolesnik, Eugene M. (eds.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. London: Conway Maritime Press. pp. 266–283. ISBN 978-0-85177-133-5.
• Sieche, Erwin (1985). "Austria-Hungary". In Gardiner, Robert & Gray, Randal (eds.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. pp. 326–347. ISBN 978-0-87021-907-8.
• Sondhaus, Lawrence (1994). The Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1867–1918. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press. ISBN 978-1-55753-034-9.
• Vego, Milan (1982). "The Yugoslav Navy 1918–1941". Warship International. Toledo: International Naval Research Organization. XIX (4): 342–361. ISSN 0043-0374.

• Freivogel, Zvonimir (1998). "Question 25/95: ex-Austro-Hungarian Warships in the Italian Navy". Warship International. International Naval Research Organization. XXXV (3): 320–321. ISSN 0043-0374.