Bakar mockery

The Bakar mockery (Italian Beffa di Buccari) was an escapade of the Italian Navy (Regia Marina) in the last year of World War I. Whilst it had little material effect on the war at sea, it was a particularly bold venture which had a welcome effect on Italian morale, which was at a low ebb following the defeat at Caporetto a few months previously.

In World War I, Italy was allied to France and Britain against the Central Powers, Austria-Hungary and Germany. Italy’s campaign on land against the Austrian army had been stalemated for two and a half years, with little movement, though at the cost of huge casualties. At sea an equality with the Austro-Hungarian Navy in capital ships had led to a deadlock, with neither side wishing to risk their loss; thus the war at sea in the Adriatic was a contest of small ships, of raids and patrols, of sudden actions by night, and of losses to mines and submarines. In this arena, the Italian Navy had developed a commando force of fast torpedo boats, the MAS, which attracted men with a buccaneering spirit.

In November 1917 the deadlock was upset by an Austrian offensive, supported by German forces made available by the collapse of the Russian front. In the battle of Caporetto the Italian army was defeated, and in a period of three weeks the front was pushed back 50 miles, to within striking distance of Venice.

The Bakar raid was conceived by the Italians as an attack on Austrian shipping in the harbour at Buccari (now Bakar, in Croatia) a port in an enclosed bay (the Bay of Bakar) near Fiume, at the head of the Kvarner Gulf. As it lay 80 km into a sheltered waterway, it was thought to be beyond attack, so the raid was intended as a psychological, as well as a physical, assault.

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