Page 152 - Il Risorgimento e l'Europa - Attori e protagonisti dell’Unità d’Italia nel 150° anniversario - Atti 9-10 novembre 2010

152 Il RIsoRgImento e l’euRopa. attoRI e pRotagonIstI dell’unItà d’ItalIa.

non-commissioned officers and the soldiers – the last had to serve eight years,
but most served only three years due to budgetary restrictions – was dull.
To get a reformed modern organisation, 62 Line Infantry regiments of four
field battalions were transformed into 80 Line Infantry Regiments with three
battalions each on 1. February 1860.
The now 80 regiments of infantry of the line and 14 regiments of the bor-
der provinces from the western Balkan regions on the banks of Drau, Save,
Danube and Una after 1851 (four regiments had become line infantry regi-
ments and took over the vacant numbers 5,6,46 and 50, the vacant number 55
was taken over by renumbering infantry regiment Nr.63.
In cavalry arm, two dragoon regiments were disbanded and four dragoon
regiments were converted to curassiers. So the dragoons now comprised of
only two regiments which were reclassified as „German light cavalry“.
Also the artillery 8now 12 artillery regiments each with 10 batteries with
8 guns) and technical troops underwent reforms, but most of these were like
8
the other changes insufficient for fighting effectively the oncoming wars.
Although the establishment of an Austrian Navy Ministry was success-
fully brought to an end in 1862, this was deleted again already in 1865,
because the agendas of the merchant navy were incompatible with a military
ministry.
The Austrian Navy had made remarkable improvements under the leader-
ship of Rear Admiral Wilhelm von Tegetthoff since the early sixties, regard-
ing training and fighting spirit of the crews, and also in building new
armoured fighting ships or reconstruction of former sailing ships to steam
powered and screw driven partly armoured ships. But nevertheless the emerg-
ing but small Austrian sea power was vastly inferior to the numbers of mod-
ern ships of the newly created navy of the Italian kingdom and their arma-
ment. To illustrate this, we can analyze the two navies of Austria and Italy in
the summer of 1866, just before the Battle of Lissa.
They had the following ships ready for action in the Adriatic Sea:
The Italian fleet of 12 ironclads (53,236 tons) and 17 unarmored ships
outnumbered the Austrian fleet of 7 ironclads (23,358 tons) and 11 unar-
mored ships respectively. The Austrians were not only outmatched in the total
displacement of the ironclad ships but also severely inferior in the category
of modern rifled guns on the ships . The Austrian ironclads were armed with

8 Adam Wandruszka and Peter Urbanitsch (Hg.) , Die Habsburgermonarchie. Band V. Die
bewaffnte Macht, pgg. 181 -234.