ITALIAN PARTICIPATION--OPERATIONS IN MANY WATERS
The month of May, 1915, saw new characters enter the theatres of naval warfare. Italy had now entered the war and brought to the naval strength of the Allies a minor naval unit.
At the time Italy entered the war she possessed six dreadnoughts, the _Caio Duilio_ and the _Andrea Doria_, completed in 1915, the _Conte di Cavour, Giulio Cesare_, and _Leonardo da Vinci_, completed in 1914, and the _Dante Alighieri_, completed in 1912. Each of these dreadnoughts had a speed of 23 knots. The _Dante Alighieri_ displaced 19,400 tons and had a main battery of twelve 12-inch guns, and a complement of 987 men. Each of the other five had thirteen 12-inch guns and a complement of 1,000 men. The displacement of vessels of the 1914 type was 22,340 tons; that of the 1915 type 23,025 tons. There were many lesser craft flying the Italian flag, but these larger ships were the most important additions to the naval forces of the Allies in southern waters.
The chief operations of the Italian navy were directed against Austria. On May 28, 1915, the Italian admiralty announced the damage inflicted on Austrian maritime strength up to that date. On May 24, 1915, the Austrian torpedo boat _S-20_ approached the canal at Porto Corsini, but drew a very heavy fire from concealed and unsuspected batteries which forced her to leave immediately. The Austrian torpedo boat destroyer _Scharfschütze_, the scout ship _Novara_ and the destroyer _Ozepel_, all of the Austrian navy, came to the assistance of the _S-20_ and also received salvos from the Italian land batteries. But on the same day the Italian destroyer _Turbine_, while scouting gave chase to an Austrian destroyer and the Austrian cruiser _Helgoland_. The strength of these Austrian ships was too much for the _Turbine_ and she put on speed with the intention of escaping from their fire, but she was severely damaged by Austrian shells, and not having enough ammunition aboard to give a good account of herself, she was scuttled by her own crew.
It is now necessary to take up again the story of the German raiding ships at large on the high seas. As has been told above, after the _Prinz Eitel Friedrich_ ended her career by putting in at Newport News the only German ships of the kind remaining at large were the _Karlsruhe_ and _Kronprinz Wilhelm_. But on the 1st of April, 1915, the _Macedonia_, a converted liner which since November, 1914, had been interned at Las Palmas, Canary Islands, succeeded in slipping out of the harbor laden with provisions and supplies for use of warships and made her way to South American waters in spite of the fact that she had run through lines patrolled by British cruisers.