SMS Prinz Eugen (1912)

Prinz Eugen underway
History
Austria-Hungary
Name	Prinz Eugen
Namesake	Prince Eugene of Savoy
Builder	Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino, Trieste
Cost	60,600,000 Krone
Laid down	16 January 1912
Launched	30 November 1912
Commissioned	8 July 1914
In service	1914–1918
Out of service	1918
Homeport	Pola
Fate	Transferred to State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs on 31 October 1918
State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs
Name	Prinz Eugen
Acquired	31 October 1918
Fate	Handed over to the Allied powers on 10 November 1918
France
Name	Prinz Eugen
Acquired	25 August 1920
Fate	Ceded to France under the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1920, sunk as a target ship on 28 June 1922
General characteristics
Class and type	Tegetthoff-class battleship
Displacement	20,000 t (19,684 long tons; 22,046 short tons) designed 21,689 t (21,346 long tons; 23,908 short tons) full load
Length	152 m (498 ft 8 in)
Beam	27.90 m (91 ft 6 in)
Draft	8.70 m (28 ft 7 in)
Installed power	26,400 or 27,000 shp (19,700 or 20,100 kW) 12 boilers
Propulsion	4 shafts; 4 steam turbine sets
Speed	20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)[a]
Range	4,200 nmi (7,800 km; 4,800 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement	1,087[1]
Armament	12 × 30.5 cm (12 in) guns 12 × 15 cm (5.9 in) guns 18 × 7 cm (2.8 in) guns 3 × 66 mm AA guns 2 × 66 mm (2.6 in) L/18 landing guns 4 × 533 mm (21 in) torpedo tubes
Armor	Belt: 150 to 280 millimetres (6 to 11 in) Turrets: 60 to 280 millimetres (2 to 11 in) Deck: 30 to 48 millimetres (1 to 2 in) Casemates: 180 millimetres (7 in)

SMS Prinz Eugen (His Majesty's Ship Prinz Eugen)^[b] was the third of four Tegetthoff-class dreadnought battleships built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Prinz Eugen was named for Prince Eugene of Savoy, a Habsburg general and statesman during the 17th and 18th centuries most notable for defeating the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Zenta in 1697. The ship was armed with a main battery of twelve 30.5 cm (12.0 in) guns in four triple turrets. Constructed shortly before World War I, she was built at the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard in Trieste, where she was laid down in January 1912 and launched in November that same year.

Commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy just 10 days after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Prinz Eugen was a member of the 1st Battleship Division of the Austro-Hungarian Navy at the beginning of the war alongside the other ships of her class, and was stationed out of the Austro-Hungarian naval base at Pola. She first saw action during the Bombardment of Ancona following Italy's declaration of war on Austria-Hungary in May 1915, but saw little combat for the rest of the war due to the Otranto Barrage, which prevented the Austro-Hungarian Navy from leaving the Adriatic Sea. In June 1918, in a bid to earn safer passage for German and Austro-Hungarian U-boats through the Strait of Otranto, the Austro-Hungarian Navy attempted to break the Barrage with a major attack on the strait, but it was abandoned after Prinz Eugen's sister ship, Szent István, was sunk by torpedoes launched from the Italian torpedo boat MAS-15 on 10 June.

After the sinking of Szent István, Prinz Eugen and the remaining two ships of her class, Viribus Unitis and Tegetthoff, returned to port in Pola where they remained for the rest of the war. Facing defeat in the war in October 1918, the Austro-Hungarian government decided to transfer the bulk of its navy to the newly formed State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs in order to avoid having to hand the ship over to the Allies.^[2] This transfer however was not recognized by the Armistice of Villa Giusti, signed between Austria-Hungary and the Allies in November 1918. Under the terms of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Prinz Eugen was handed over to France. The French Navy subsequently removed the main armament of Prinz Eugen for inspection before using the battleship as a target ship. After being first used to test aerial bombardment attacks, Prinz Eugen was sunk by the battleships Paris, Jean Bart, and France off Toulon on 28 June 1922, exactly eight years after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.

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