Battle of Lissa (1866)

Battle of Lissa
Part of the Third Italian War of Independence
The Sea Battle of Lissa by Carl Frederik Sørensen, 1868.
Date 20 July 1866 Location Adriatic Sea, near island of Vis (Lissa), present-day Croatia Result Austrian victory
Belligerents
Italy	Austrian Empire
Commanders and leaders
Carlo di Persano	Wilhelm von Tegetthoff
Strength
12 ironclads 10 cruisers 4 gunboats (approx 68,000 tons)	7 ironclads 1 steam two-decker 6 cruisers 12 gunboats (approx 50,000 tons)
Casualties and losses
2 ironclads sunk 620 dead 40 wounded	1 steam two-decker severely damaged 38 dead 138 wounded

The Battle of Lissa (sometimes called Battle of Vis) took place on 20 July 1866 in the Adriatic Sea near the Dalmatian island of Lissa ("Vis" in Croatian) and was a decisive victory for an outnumbered Austrian Empire force over a numerically superior Italian force. It was the first major sea battle between ironclads and one of the last to involve deliberate ramming.

The Italian navy fired roughly 1450 shots during the engagement, but failed to do any serious damage to any Austrian ship while losing two battleships. One of the main reasons for this poor performance was internal rivalry between the Italian fleet commanders: for example, Italian Vice Admiral Albini, with his ships, did not engage the enemy during the battle. The engagement was made up of several small battles: the main battle was between seven Austrian and four Italian ironclads and showed the ability of Austrian commander Tegetthoff to divide his more numerous opponents and then destroy the isolated ironclads.

The battle occurred as part of the Third Italian Independence War, in which Italy allied with Prussia in the course of the conflict against Austria. The major Italian objective was to capture Venice and at least part of the former Venetian territory from Austria.

The fleets were composed of a mix of unarmoured sailing ships with steam engines, and armoured ironclads also combining sails and steam engines. The Italian fleet of 12 ironclads and 17 unarmoured ships outnumbered the Austrian fleet of 7 and 11 respectively. The Austrians were also severely outmatched in rifled guns (276 to 121) and total weight of metal (53,236 tons to 23,538 tons). A single turret ship took part in the action — the Italian Affondatore.

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