Kotor in the First World War

Kotor (Cattaro in Italian) lies at the inner end of the Bay of Kotor, which before the war closed off the Austro-Hungarian coast of Dalmatia to the south. Just beyond the border began Montenegro, and above the bay rose its holy mountain, Lovćen. During the war the bay was the southernmost base of the Austro-Hungarian fleet, and from 1915 also of German submarines in the Mediterranean. Kotor remained in Austro-Hungarian hands until the end of the war, but in February 1918 its bay became the scene of a sailors’ mutiny.

A base under the guns of Lovćen (1914–1915)

The small town was the seat of a district in the Kingdom of Dalmatia, and its bay one of the fleet’s three main bases. The 5th Division was stationed here, made up of old coastal defence battleships and cruisers. On 5 August 1914 Montenegro entered the war, and a few days later its batteries on Lovćen began shelling the fortifications of Kotor. From the mountain the whole base could be seen. In September French battleships shelled the forts at the entrance to the bay, hoping to lure the Austro-Hungarian fleet out to battle, and in the autumn the French hauled eight naval guns up Lovćen. The ships in the bay, above all the battleship Radetzky, forced them to withdraw after a few weeks.

In mid-May 1915 Otto Hersing’s U-21 arrived in Kotor from Germany, proving that a submarine could reach the Adriatic without a base on the way. From August to November further German boats followed and formed a Mediterranean flotilla in Kotor. At the end of 1915 the fleet commander, Admiral Anton Haus, moved his fastest cruisers and destroyers here, and they raided the Albanian ports, including in the Battle of Durrës. The Allies concluded that they could not supply the Serbian army in the open Albanian ports, exposed to raids by ships from Kotor, and shipped it to Corfu.

Submarines (1916–1917)

In January 1916 the Austrians removed the threat from land. In the Battle of Lovćen on 8–11 January the XIX Corps, supported by the fortress guns and ships from the bay, fought its way up the mountain. On 13 January the Austrians entered Cetinje, and soon afterwards the army of Montenegro laid down its arms. Kotor was no longer threatened from land.

From then on the bay was the Central Powers’ most important base in the Mediterranean. The German flotilla operated mainly from here rather than from Pola. U-35 operated from Kotor under Lothar von Arnauld de la Perière, the most successful submarine commander in history, who sank 194 ships. Austro-Hungarian seaplanes were also stationed in the bay, at Kumbor.

U-38 set out from Kotor and in December 1916 shelled Funchal on Madeira, and UB-47, operating from the same base, sank the battleship Gaulois near Kythira at the end of the month.

The Allies tried to close the exit from the Adriatic with a barrage in the Strait of Otranto. In May 1917 Miklós Horthy led three fast cruisers against it, and they sank 14 drifters guarding the barrage nets. In the clash in the Strait of Otranto the armoured cruiser Sankt Georg came out of Kotor to help the disabled Novara, and the Italians broke off the pursuit, unwilling to sail under the guns and into the mines off the bay.

Mutiny and the end of the monarchy (1918)

The big ships, however, lay idle in the bay for months, and their crews complained of starvation rations, drill and humiliating treatment. On 1 February 1918 the sailors of the cruiser Sankt Georg raised the red flag, and within a few hours the crews of all the larger ships in the bay had joined them. First of all they demanded negotiations for a general peace. According to the Austrian historian Peter Fitl, about 30 ships and 3,000–4,000 sailors took part in the mutiny; according to other accounts, up to about 6,000 men and 40 ships.

On the morning of 3 February battleships from Pola entered the bay and the mutiny collapsed. A summary court sentenced four leaders to death, among them the Czech František Rasch, and on 11 February they were shot against the cemetery wall at Škaljari. At the turn of February and March Horthy took command of the fleet, charged with restoring its discipline.

In the autumn of 1918 the Austro-Hungarian army in Albania fell back on Kotor, and the German submarines sailed home. On 30 October Emperor Charles I decided to hand the fleet over to the National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, and handovers also took place in the Bay of Kotor.

At the beginning of November a Serbian officer and Italian envoys came to Kotor to demand the surrender of military equipment, and the inhabitants greeted them with cheers for Serbia. Serbian troops entered the bay soon afterwards, and less than a month later Kotor found itself in the new Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.