Italian Navy

“ This corps is made up of three battalions (one for each department) , and the service is divided between the fleet and the dock-yards. There is no marine artillery in the Italian Navy.
The effective cadre of the Italian Navy is 1084 officers and 14,200 men, 90 officers of Marine Infantry and 3000 men. In comparison with the number of petty officers and men, there are fewer officers in this navy than in any in the world. The Italians have no cruising squadrons; single vessels do the foreign service, while the home service is confined to a single large squadron of evolutions. ”

“ When the day came that saw them face to face with the enemy, every captain knew the admiral's intention as well as the admiral himself did; every officer knew what had to be done, and every man had some idea of it, and above all knew that he had to fight.
The Italian navy was on a widely different footing from the Austrian. From the birth of the kingdom, six years before, the fixed idea of the Italians had been to have a navy. They aimed at being a great naval power; and by a liberal expenditure, had got together a number of ships that could compare even with the fleets of England or France. ”

“ The beginning of the war found the Italian navy far better equipped than the army. For the task of holding Austria in the Adriatic, which Italy now took over from France, she possessed four dreadnoughts and two more almost ready. She possessed also ten battleships of the predreadnought class and a number of older vessels. Compared with those of Great Britain and Germany, her armored cruisers were slow, none of them being capable of a speed exceeding twenty-two knots; but she had twenty submarines, forty destroyers and a large number of torpedo boats. ”

“ The development of maritime trade thus brought about caused the Italian commercial cities to be the heaviest losers by piracy, and made it necessary for them to establish naval forces. Of the Italian States, Venice, Pisa, and Genoa took the lead in commerce, and all gradually developed powerful navies. The army of Venice was composed chiefly of mercenaries and commanded by one because it was feared that a native might use its power to overturn the Government; but the navy, from which nothing of the kind was feared, became the pride of the people. ”

“ The Italian navy has shown greatest originality of design, though many of the ships have never been approved by other naval authorities. The Italians early grasped the fact that powerful vessels must be large and did not hesitate to accept great dimensions. Following the Dandolo and Duilio of nearly 12,000 tons, which have already been mentioned, they built the enormous nondescripts Italia and Lepanto of over 15,000 tons. These great vessels have no side armor whatever, but in a large diagonally placed barbette, 19 inches thick, are mounted four 17-inch guns weighing 100 tons each. ”

“ No man in Italy was more trusted and honored, and few could be said to have had a more successful career.
In expectation of the approaching struggle with Austria for the possession of the Venetian provinces, the Italian government had, at immense sacrifices, devoted some years to the development of its navy; which, much superior to that of Austria, was to secure to the Italian flag the dominion of the Adriatic. ”

“ France and Russia, combined, had at the same period in those parts thirty-three ships, none of which were below 4000 tons, and most of which were of 10,000 tons or more.
In addition to this we must count numerous torpedo-boats, despatch vessels and gunboats in such fleets.
The Italian navy is now a very powerful one, and contains in its list some of the largest men-of-war afloat; and the German navy has made great strides in advance. ”

“ The bases at the Azores and at Gibraltar, where we maintained a considerable naval force, were provided with all the necessities for our cruisers, destroyers, submarines, chasers and other small craft which joined the Allied navies in the policing of the Mediterranean and the adjacent Atlantic waters where we coöperated in the hunting of the undersea enemy and the protecting of transport and merchant craft. Several of our battleships and cruisers worked with the Italian Navy in Mediterranean waters. ”

“ Germany’s navy is of modern creation. It began, a little less than half a century ago, with one sailing corvette and two gunboats; and, in 1898, comprised 13 battleships and 179 other vessels of all types, carrying 23,302 officers and men. The fleet of united Italy had its inception, also, within the age of steam. It was on March 17, 1860, that Italian national life began with the ascension of the throne by Victor Emmanuel. From the beginning, the kingdom has been lavish with its fleet, its expenditures within the first six years reaching $60,000,000. ”

“ Even upon the supposition that an independent Italy remained for a time a satrapy of France—partly on account of its military necessities, and partly through gratitude for benefits received—still, as its strength grew with years, that subordination of policy and sentiment would disappear. The Italians are more sailors by natural inclination than the French. An Italian commercial navy would arise at once, as soon as the country was fairly rid of the tyrannical governments which have paralysed and restrained the spirit of enterprise throughout the Peninsula. ”

“ Every difficulty was overcome by the valor and self-sacrifice of the Italian sailors. Aviators were seen flying for several consecutive days without resting—attacking the moving enemy columns with machine guns; defending themselves against numerous enemy airplanes, or dropping messages under fire at the points of reunion of the Italian troops in order to insure co-operation between the navy and the army ”

“ The great reputation of the Italian seamen of the Middle Ages led to their employment now and then, and one, Nicholas Ususmaris of Genoa, was for a time in the service of Edward III., though only to command the ships belonging to Aquitaine. The Mediterranean seamen were employed very largely by the King of France, who was driven to use them by the want of skilful men among his own subjects. In the Middle Ages the English king appears only to have had recourse to them when he wished to make use of that typical Mediterranean craft, the galley. ”

“ Rome is protected by a circle of forts from a coup de main from the sea, the coast, only 12 m. off, being flat and deserted.
Navy.—For purposes of naval organization the Italian coast is divided into three maritime departments, with headquarters at Spezia, Naples and Venice; and into two comandi militari, with headquarters at Taranto and at the island of Maddalena. The personnel of the navy consists of the following corps: (1) General staff; (2) naval engineers, chiefly employed in building and repairing war vessels; (3) sanitary corps ”

“ I doubt, however, whether the Italian, German, and Austrian navies could possibly hope to hold the Mediterranean against those of France and Russia, weak as is the Russian navy, in a general Continental war, so high is the estimate which I form of the power of France at sea. ”

“ Naturally with such an extent of coast line Italy has a great number of torpedo boats, and the organisation for their use in time of war is very complete. Italy may be justly proud of the navy she has created in twenty years, and her naval officers display a proficiency in handling this materiel which is the result of unremitting zeal and industry. ”

“ But Italy has European neighbors, and when she began to build these Italias and Lepantos she had for neighbor one power, France, which had unwisely persisted for years in building wooden armor-clads, neither strongly protected nor swift, nor very powerfully armed; and I am not at all sure that, to such a navy as France then had, a few extremely fast and very powerfully armed ships such as Italy built were not excellent answers. The Italia would have been available also against a very large proportion of the British iron-clad fleet, and of the fleets of Austria, Turkey, and Russia. ”

“ The naval policy of Germany is defensive; she is almost without pretensions upon the open sea. Turkey is slowly but surely succumbing to Russia, and in the near future the Russian Black Sea fleet will hold unquestioned mastery over Turkey. Italy has a naval rôle of her own to play in Europe, and on the whole is playing it well. Austria would do well to hesitate in her present naval condition before again exposing herself to the swift and destructive onslaughts which the tremendously armed and excessively fast Italian ships could make upon her. ”

“ The idea of the Italian ministers clearly was to give weaker ships no time for long engagements with them, but to pounce upon them by means of enormous speed, and to destroy them at a blow by means of their all-powerful ordnance. They might well expect to have with such ships so great a command over the conditions under which they would give battle as to be well able to repair in time, and at least temporarily, such dangerous wounds as they might receive. ”

“ Observe the Mediterranean! The whole Sea Power of France and Italy is collected in the Mediterranean to fight the puny Austrian Fleet, but they haven’t fought it. Not only that, but hundreds of vessels of the English Navy are perforce out in the Mediterranean to aid them; and yet the German ships, “Goeben” and “Breslau,” known to be fast, powerful and efficient, emerge from the Dardanelles with impunity and massacre two of our Monitors—never meant to be out there and totally unfitted for such service—and two obsolete British Destroyers have to put up a fight! ”

“ When the sea not only borders, or surrounds, but also separates a country into two or more parts, the control of it becomes not only desirable, but vitally necessary. Such a physical condition either gives birth and strength to sea power, or makes the country powerless. Such is the condition of the 37present kingdom of Italy, with its islands of Sardinia and Sicily; and hence in its youth and still existing financial weakness it is seen to put forth such vigorous and intelligent efforts to create a military navy. ”

“ While Europe cynically looked on and forbore to lend a hand, Commodore Preble steered the Constitution and the other ships of his squadron into the harbor of Tripoli, smashed its defenses, and compelled an honorable treaty of peace. Of all the wars in which the American Navy had won high distinction, there is none whose episodes are more brilliant than those of the bold adventure on the coast of Barbary. ”

“ The affection of the Italians for immense ships and guns to match was demonstrated even more remarkably by those which were built after the battle of Lissa than by those which took part in that memorable and disastrous engagement. Probably the two finest specimens were of the mastless turret type, the sister ships Duilio and Dandolo, which were designed to surpass any other fighting ship in existence, no matter what her nationality, and especially to show that Italian naval architects and constructors could surpass the Inflexible, on which Britain so justly prided herself. ”

“ At Genoa, two ships of the line and four frigates have lately been launched, and four ships and two frigates are on the stocks; and the Genoese Republic has added sixteen thousand seafaring men to our navy. Should Bonaparte terminate successfully the present war, Naples and Venice will increase the number of our seaports and resources on the borders of the Mediterranean and Adriatic Seas. All his courtiers say that he will conquer Italy in Germany, and determine at Vienna—the fate of London. ”

“ Yet what does Italy want of a great navy? or a great 220 army? They eat up the substance of the country; and it has no money to waste on needless armaments. Besides, Italy has no enemy to fear, for both France and Germany are friendly; to France she owes the deliverance of Lombardy, and to Germany that of Venice. And even Austria is reconciled. Last April the Emperor made a visit to Venice, and was received by Victor Emmanuel, and was rowed up the Grand Canal with a state which recalled the pomp of her ancient days of glory. ”

“ She possessed a more systematically organised navy than any other country having the ocean for a field of action had then, or till long afterwards. Even Genoa and Venice, whose operations, moreover, were restricted to Mediterranean waters, could not have been served by more finished specimens of the naval officer and the man-of-war's man of the time than a large proportion of the military personnel of the regular Spanish fleet. As Basques, Castilians, Catalans, or Aragonese, or all combined, the crews of Spanish fighting ships could look back upon a glorious past. ”

“ Inasmuch as the war is world-wide, and we have powerful Allies, we should have expected naval influence and pressure to be manifested in the oceans, in the Mediterranean, and, indeed, wherever the enemy is and the seas are. Finally, we should have expected the Navy to be to the British Empire what it has always been to the Empire’s heart—its safeguard from injury and disruption, and the bond that holds it together. ”

“ No matter what efforts Germany has made the ports of her enemies never have closed—have in reality been far busier than before the war. And the British navy's nets and traps, and her thousands of patrol boats made the submarine commanders' task ever more difficult. Within a few weeks after the latest German policy was in effect the Allies could again breathe easy. Casualties at sea continued, but there was no general destruction as had been promised.
The principal achievement of Italy's navy in the war has been the protection of her coast line. ”