SM U-1 or U-I was the lead boat of the U-1-class of submarines or U-boats built for and operated by the Austro-Hungarian Navy ( or ). U-1 was designed by American naval architect Simon Lake of the Lake Torpedo Boat Company, and constructed at the Navy Yard in Pola. She was one of two Lake-designed submarines purchased as part of a competitive evaluation of foreign submarine designs after domestic proposals were rejected by the Navy.
Ordered on 24 November 1906, U-1 was laid down in July 1907 before being launched in February 1909. She was long and displaced while surfaced and while submerged. An experimental design, U-1 included unique features such as a diving chamber and wheels for traveling along the seabed. Originally powered by gasoline engines for surface running, sea trials throughout 1909 and 1910 showed these engines to be incapable of reaching the submarine's contracted speed and to pose a risk of poisoning the crew. U-1 was commissioned in April 1911 and served as a training boat through 1914, though she was mobilized briefly during the Balkan Wars. U-1s design has been described by naval historians as a failure that was rendered obsolete by the time she was commissioned into the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Despite these criticisms, tests of her design provided information which the Navy used to construct subsequent submarines.
At the beginning of World War I, U-1 was in drydock awaiting new batteries and replacement diesel engines. U-1 returned to service as a training boat until October 1915. From November she conducted reconnaissance cruises out of Trieste and Pola until being declared obsolete in early 1918. She continued to serve in a training role at the submarine base on Brioni, but was at Pola at the end of the war. Facing defeat in October 1918, the Austro-Hungarian government transferred its navy to the newly formed State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs to avoid having to hand its ships over to the Allied Powers. Following the Armistice of Villa Giusti in November 1918, U-1 was seized by Italian forces and subsequently granted to the Kingdom of Italy under the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1920. Italy chose to scrap the submarine, and she was broken up at Pola later that same year without ever having sunk or damaged any vessels during her career.
Background
Prior to 1904, the Austro-Hungarian Navy had shown little to no interest in submarines, preferring to instead observe other navies experiment with the relatively new type of ship. In early 1904, after allowing the navies of other countries to pioneer submarine developments, Constructor General (German: Generalschiffbauingenieur) of the Austro-Hungarian Navy Siegfried Popper, ordered the Naval Technical Committee (German: Marinetechnisches Kommittee, MTK) to produce a submarine design. Technical problems during the initial design phase, however, delayed further any proposals from MTK for nearly a year.
After observing the MTK design submitted in early 1905, the Naval Section of the War Ministry (German: Marinesektion) remained skeptical. Additional proposals submitted by the public as part of a design competition were all rejected as well by the Austro-Hungarian Navy as being impracticable. As a result, the Navy decided to purchase designs from three different foreign firms for a class of submarines. Each design was to be accompanied by two submarines to test each ship against one another. This was done to properly evaluate the different proposals which would come forward. Simon Lake, owner of the Lake Torpedo Boat Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut, was chosen as one of the participants in this design competition by the Navy. After being recommended by Popper, Lake traveled to Austria-Hungary in 1906 to negotiate the details of his contract with the Navy, which formally ordered plans for the building of two boats—including U-1—on 24 November.
Design
Although intended to serve as an experimental design when initially ordered, U-1 and her sister ship U-2 would be the first submarines of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. However, both ships would prove to be a disappointment. U-1 and her sister ship were described by the naval historians David Dickson, Vincent O'Hara, and Richard Worth as "obsolete and unreliable when completed and suffered from problems even after modifications". René Greger, another naval historian, wrote that U-1 and her sister ship "proved a total failure".