German U boats with KuK officers

[centurion]

When Italy declared war on the Austro Hungarian empire in 1915 she did not declare war on Germany. This was not to happen until over a year later. In the meantime German U boats operating in the Med had a problem as there were joint Franco Italian convoys and anti submarine operations. It wasn't exactly practical to surface and politely enquire if a destroyer was French and a legitimate target or Italian and not. I understand that this was solved by having a KuK naval officer on each of the German U boats in the theatre so that the legal fiction that these boats were operating under the Austro Hungarian flag could be maintained. Is there any evidence of Italian ships being sunk by German U boats in this period?

[PeterH]

UB-14 sank the Italian armoured cruiser Amalfi on the 7th July 1915.It was given the Austrian designation U-26 even though it had an all German crew except for one Austrian aboard,its pilot.

Previously in June 1915 UB-1 designated as the Austrian U-10 had sank the Italian torpedo boat 5 PN.It actually was handed over to the Austrians and became U-10 on the 12th July 1915.

Its said that Austrian submarines used Roman numerals rather than Arabic numerals as used by the Germans.However I doubt this.Photos shown Arabic numerals in use.

It was simple to paint 26 on UB-14s conning tower to pass it off as a Kuk vessel.