Mutiny at Kotor

On 1 February 1918, at about noon, while the officers were sitting at lunch, the sailors of the armoured cruiser Sankt Georg, flagship of the Austro-Hungarian cruiser flotilla, took up arms, fired a gun and raised a red flag. The first officer to run out on deck was shot in the head. At the same time the crew of the repair ship Gäa mutinied; many older workers from the arsenals, who had earlier come into contact with the Social Democratic movement, served on board her. Within a few hours red flags appeared on all the larger ships in the Bay of Kotor (Italian: Bocche di Cattaro), the main base of the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the southern Adriatic.

Since the capture of Lovćen in 1916 Kotor had been a base for submarines, German ones too, and for the light forces which attacked the barrage in the Strait of Otranto. The big ships, however, lay idle in the bay for months, and their crews complained of pointless drill, harsh punishments, humiliating treatment by young officers, rare leave and starvation rations, worse than in the officers’ mess. On top of that came war-weariness. A few days earlier the monarchy had been shaken by the January strike, and the workers of the arsenal at Pola had returned to work only on 28 January. The sailors at Kotor most probably did not know that the wave of strikes had already subsided, and hoped that their action would give it new impetus.

In the evening the central committee assembled on the Sankt Georg handed the flotilla commander, Rear-Admiral Alexander Hansa, a list of demands. In first place was the immediate opening of negotiations for a general peace, a peace without annexations according to the Russian proposal, the right of nations to self-determination and a “sincere answer” to President Wilson’s address. Then came demands for the democratisation of the government and better care for the families of conscripts, as well as everyday matters: an end to unnecessary work and drill, more frequent leave, the same meals for officers and men, the abolition of censorship of letters and no punishment for taking part in the demonstration. According to the Austrian historian Peter Fitl, about 30 ships and 3,000–4,000 of the roughly 5,000 sailors stationed in the bay took part in the mutiny. Some studies give higher figures, up to about 6,000 men and 40 ships. The crews of destroyers, torpedo boats, submarines and fast cruisers, which often went to sea and were better treated, as a rule did not join.

The command had no intention of negotiating. The commandant of the naval base, General Guseck, brought in infantry from the surrounding area and summoned heavy ships from Pola, and the German submarines in the bay were ready to torpedo the mutinous vessels if necessary. On 2 February the committee received an ultimatum. At its head now stood the titular boatswain František Rasch, a Czech from the searchlight detachment at Kumbor, who spoke openly of overthrowing the system. Attempts to send wireless telegrams to the Austrian socialist leader Victor Adler in Vienna and the Hungarian opposition leader Mihály Károlyi in Budapest were blocked. When the old ship Kronprinz Erzherzog Rudolf, guarding the entrance to the bay, moved inland to join the mutineers, a coastal battery fired on her and two sailors were killed. The fast cruisers Novara and Helgoland lowered their red flags and moved under the protection of loyal ships. On the morning of 3 February a division of three battleships from Pola entered the bay. On the remaining ships most of the crews wanted to surrender, and at about 10 a.m. the red flags disappeared. Rasch himself reported to the rear-admiral as a prisoner. Several leaders, including the only officer on the side of the mutiny, Cadet Anton Sesan, escaped by aircraft to Italy.

About 800 men were taken off the ships, several hundred of whom were arrested. Forty defendants stood before the summary court, which sat from 7 February. Four were sentenced to death: Rasch and three Croats, Antun Grabar, Jerko Šižgorić and Mate Brničević. Despite appeals for clemency they were shot on the morning of 11 February by the cemetery wall at Škaljari near Kotor. The trial of several hundred others, among whom were Croats, Slovenes, Italians, Czechs, Germans, Hungarians and also Poles, was still dragging on in the autumn of 1918. The mutiny cost the fleet commander, Admiral Maximilian Njegovan, his post. At the turn of February and March he was replaced by Miklós Horthy, promoted to rear-admiral, the hero of the battle in the Strait of Otranto, who was to restore discipline and fighting spirit to the fleet. A few months earlier a similar movement on German ships had ended in the execution of two sailors, but at Kotor the action was much larger and more openly political. The American naval historian Paul Halpern called its suppression the monarchy’s last victory over the forces that were soon to tear it apart.