The battle that prevented Napoleon invading Britain.
Trafalgar
There are 3 replies in this Thread which has previously been viewed 1,876 times. The latest Post () was by Rice.
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Very interesting. It made me wonder why it is that battles and wars in history seem so fascinating, even romantic, while contemporary ones are simply tragic and sad.
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Another naval battle, almost unknown, was the Battle of Lissa, won by the Venezianischer Kriegsmarine in 1866 in the war between Italy and Austria. However , the whole war was lost by Austria, because of the Sadowa battle won by Prussia against Austria.
The crew of the Austrian navy were Venetians, and Tegethoff won their allegiance because he had command of the Venezia dialect. When the battle was won, all the crew shoted "Viva San Marco", the Saint patron of Venezia.
The nationalistic Italians tend to neglect the mention of this battle, of course.
The Wikipedia says:
The Battle of Lissa (sometimes called Battle of Vis) took place on 20 July 1866 in the Adriatic Sea near the Dalmatian island of Lissa ("Vis" in Croatian) and was a decisive victory for an outnumbered Austrian Empire force over a numerically superior Italian force. It was the first major sea battle between ironclads and one of the last to involve deliberate ramming.
The Italian navy fired roughly 1450 shots during the engagement, but failed to sink any Austrian ship while losing two ironclads. One of the main reasons for this poor performance was internal rivalry between the Italian fleet commanders: for example, Italian Vice Admiral Albini, with his ships, did not engage the enemy during the battle. The engagement was made up of several small battles: the main battle was between seven Austrian and four Italian ironclads and showed the ability of Austrian commander Tegetthoff to divide his more numerous opponents and then destroy the isolated ironclads.
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My knowledge of naval battle techniques is strictly limited to mediocre old movies like Spartacus, where the Roman slaves, chained to their oars, had to obey the terrifying order of "RAMMING SPEED," which almost inevitably meant drowning death. Your post led me to read the link about the ramming technique, and about both deliberate and accidental (e.g., PT109) ramming, no longer used because even more horrible, more effective methods have been found.
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Splinter
Moved the thread from forum Art, Culture and History to forum Art, culture and history.