Hearts of Iron
The Battle of Lissa, 1866 (Part One)
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
July 2026

The Austrian Navy went to war in the summer of 1866 without the long and proud tradition on which the Imperial-Royal Army depended for both inspiration and operational guidance. A questionable victory at Helgoland in 1864, some skirmishes with Muslim pirates in the 1840’s and limited operations in the 1848 and 1849 Italian wars represented the sum of the fleet’s history.

In one afternoon, that would change. The Battle of Lissa came to represent the fighting spirit Austrian admirals hoped their fleet would show in the future. This did not come to pass in the early years of the First World War, but the aggressive Capt. Nicholas Horthy showed himself a worthy heir to Wilhelm von Tegetthoff first as commander of the fleet’s cruiser squadron and then as battle fleet commander, at least in spirit if not in results.

Tegetthoff kept his plans simple: find the enemy and attack them. At this he succeeded admirably, helped by his hard-fighting officers and crews, Italian command incompetence, and a healthy dose of good luck. Austria and Italy had been arming for war since the spring of 1866, and on 19 June the Austrian War Ministry declared the main naval base at Pola in a state of siege.

On the next day, as their fleet steamed out of Taranto on its way to the Adriatic Sea, the Italians sent word that hostilities would commence on the 23rd. Archduke Albrecht, titular commander of Austrian forces in the theater, promptly forwarded the text of what he called “an insolent note directed to my person” to his subordinates and the emperor.
The note proved both insolent and unwise; the Italian squadron did not arrive at its war station until after the declaration of war had already taken effect.

The late arrival of Admiral Carlo Persano and the fleet in Ancona left his ships short of coal and crewmen. Tegetthoff gathered all available ships (the two newest ironclads as well as the ship of the line Kaiser and screw frigate Novara had still not completed their fitting out or repairs) and on the 27th appeared outside Ancona’s harbor, daring Persano to come out and fight.

The Italian armored gunboat Varese fought at Lissa.

Coal fires aboard two ironclads and machinery problems on another kept the Italian fleet under the guns of Ancona's coastal batteries. Tegetthoff reported 11 armored ships, four frigates and two small paddle steamers present, but only three of larger ironclads had steam up. The Austrians cruised slowly off the port before heading back to Pola. The Austrian paddle steamer Elisabeth fought a brief skirmish with the Italian Esploratore, and Tegetthoff reported a hit on the enemy ship's paddle wheel.

Persano showed great energy in preparing his fleet for action, but the Austrians retreated quickly after gaining their moral victory. The Italians also did not wish to risk battle without their most powerful warship, the armored ram Affondatore (literally, “The Sinker”), still in route from her English builders.

Angelo Iachino, the definitive authority on the Italian navy during the campaign and the last admiral to command an Italian fleet in a major surface battle, found Persano’s lack of action understandable. “It is not enough by itself,” Iachino wrote a century later, “to take away an admiral’s command because, due to the fleet's condition, he did not pursue the retreating enemy.”

The Italian screw frigate Principe Umberto saw no action at Lissa.

The king, prime minister and naval minister saw things differently, and heaped abuse on the admiral. “Would you tell the people,” wrote Navy Minister Agostino Depretis, “the people, who in their mad vanity believe their sailors to be the best in the world, that in spite of the £12 million that we have added to the debt the squadron we have collected is incapable of facing the enemy? We would be stoned. And who has ever heard the Austrian fleet mentioned except with contempt?”

Stung by the rebukes, Persano put to sea on 8 July. The fleet cruised in the central Adriatic for five days in search of the Austrians. Austrian observers spotted the fleet twice on the 10th. Tegetthoff claimed he did not learn of the sortie until the 15th, when he obtained a copy of the Italian newspaper Giornale della Marina. The paper “spewed the most bitter invective against us,” he wrote to his mistress Emma Ludderoth, wife of his close friend the Prussian consul in Trieste. “What could be more childish?”

“How cowardly these Austrians are!” read some of the Giornale's tirade, written by Italian parliamentarian Pier Carlo Boggio, who accompanied Persano as a volunteer lieutenant. “They will not give us a chance, they flee before us.”

Anton Romako’s painting of Tegetthoff at the Battle of Lissa.

At least two of Persano’s subordinates, Giovanni Vacca and Giovanni Batista Albini, used the lack of combat to intrigue for the fleet commander’s job. Depretis gave Persano a direct order: fight a battle with the Austrians immediately or be dismissed from the service in disgrace. The Austrians would probably fight, he suggested, if the Italian fleet attacked the island fortress of Lissa in the central Adriatic. Persano gathered all the troops he could (600 marines) and set sail within hours of receiving the order, leaving harbor on the 15th.

An Italian corvette flying a British ensign scouted the island on the 17th, and the next morning Persano’s fleet bombarded Lissa’s fortifications. The garrison of Austrian marines numbered 1,833 men and 88 cannon, led by Maj. Anton Hiltl, a military engineer by trade. The Italians neglected to cut the cable leading to the mainland or to interfere with Austrian observers on the mainland, and soon telegrams detailing the attack poured into naval headquarters in Pola.

The Italian fleet flung thousands of shells at the island; the flagship Re d’Italia alone fired 1,300 rounds. The fortifications suffered badly, and the supply ship Gargano sank at her moorings. On the next day Affondatore joined the fleet along with transports bearing more ammunition and another 600 marines. Persano sent the ironclad corvette Formidable into Porto San Giorgio, the island's main harbor, to shell the gun emplacements at point-blank range while the Italian wooden warships landed the marines.

The garrison had only 15 cannon still serviceable, but they poured a murderous fire into the Italian ironclad. Burning and nearly out of control, Formidable staggered away from the harbor, 112 of her 371 crewmen killed or wounded.

“Ram anything painted gray.” Ship of the line Kaiser has come away the worst from ramming the ironclad Re di Portogallo.

Waiting to make sure the Italians really were on the move, Tegetthoff wired Southern Army headquarters for permission to attack. On the afternoon of the 19th every Austrian warship steamed out of Pola for Lissa. An hour later, a telegram arrived from Southern Army rather laconically telling the admiral to act as he thought best - Albrecht apparently had never informed his successor as Southern Army commander, Feldmarschall Leutnant Josef Maroicic, that the fleet was actually under Army command.

The paddle steamer Stadion sighted the Italians about 0700 the next morning. Eight of the Italian ironclads cruised in a broken line north of the island, with a rainbow overhead and Affondatore standing to nearby. Formidable had headed back to Ancona, and two other Italian ironclads had become separated from the main force. Persano signaled Albini, commanding his wooden squadron, to attack the Austrian wooden ships while his ironclads dealt with the Austrian armored ships. Albini feigned ignorance of the signal, and the Italian unarmored ships played no part in the battle.

Aboard his flagship Ferdinand Max, Tegetthoff dashed off a quick note to his mistress Emma. He did not fear taking his fleet into battle against the larger, better-armed Italian ships, he wrote. “Behind wooden walls beat hearts of iron.”

Rain hid the two fleets from each other until about 1000, when Tegetthoff ordered his fleet to full speed - about 10 knots. Already he had instructed his captains to “ram anything painted gray.” Hoping to add a stirring final message before his ships entered battle, Tegetthoff called over a young ensign. “Run up this signal,” he directed. “Victory at Lissa must be ours.” The ensign ran up the first flag just as the first Italian shells began to fall around the flagship. Apparently overcome by the excitement, the young officer raced back to his station before completing the signal. The Austrian fleet steamed into battle behind the puzzling signal “Must.”

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife and three children.

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