The yacht "Rumija" - an immovable cultural asset of Montenegro, whose almost completely destroyed remains have been resting in the waters of the Port of Bar under Volujica for more than a century, is known to our public as the largest of a total of ten yachts and recreational vessels that he had during his reign Montenegrin prince and king Nikola I Petrović.
"Rumija" was recorded in the history of Montenegro as the largest ship under the Montenegrin flag, which participated in war operations in the Balkans and the First World War, but no one in our country has yet described in detail the details of the complex combat operation that took place on March 2, 1915. led to the destruction of the "Rumija" and its sinking in the middle of the Bar harbor.
This well-planned and even better executed operation of the Austro-Hungarian naval forces from almost 108 years ago in the water area of the largest Montenegrin port, has so far been only lightly treated by our historians and maritime authors such as Capt. Dinko Franetović who dedicated a chapter to the destruction of the "Rumija" in his capital work "History of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries of Montenegro until 1918" (Titograd, 1960). However, until now, no one has dealt in detail with all aspects of this, even by today's terms, daring and successful naval sabotage operation that was carried out by the Austro-Hungarians on that stormy March night in 1918, and which later had very serious indirect consequences for the final military defeat and capitulation of the Kingdom of Montenegro in the First World War. The ship, which is best known to our public under the name "Rumija" and with the halo of the official yacht of the Montenegrin sovereign, Prince and King Nikola, began its life on August 11, 1900 in Scotland, where on that day, in the "John Reid & Co" shipyard in Whiteinch near Glasgow, the newly built yacht "Zaza" was launched. The new building number 321 was built by order of the famous British industrialist sir of William Birdmore.
It was a very beautiful, classic steam yacht with two masts on which "Zaza" could, if necessary, raise sails and sail carried by the power of the wind. The steel ship of 185 gross tons, with extremely beautiful hull lines, was 41,8 meters long, 6,1 meters wide, with a draft of 2,5 meters. "Zazu" was powered by a 65-horsepower triple-expansion reciprocating steam engine, made at the "Muir & Houston Ltd" factory in Glasgow. After almost five years during which she was used by Sir William Birdmore and his guests and friends, the yacht was bought by the Ottoman Sultan at the end of 1904 from a British industrialist. Abdul Hamid and he gave it to the then still Montenegrin prince Nikola Petrović. The Turkish crew took over the yacht in Great Britain and on January 1, 1905, brought it to the then Pristan, i.e. Bar, where a high-ranking Turkish officer handed it over to the Montenegrin sovereign together with Sultan Abdul Hamid's firman about donating the yacht to Prince Nikola.
The Montenegrin crew, which numbered 14 people, took over the ship from Turkey on January 3, when the commander of "Zaza" became captain Niko Janković from Igalo. Prince Nikola rode his new yacht for the first time on March 23, 1905, when he ceremoniously marked the beginning of work on the construction of the breakwater in front of the harbor from "Zaza". On July 28 of the same year, the heir to the throne was traveling by yacht from Bar to Bojana Danilo who then decided to change the ship's name, so "Zaza" was renamed "Rumija". In December 1907, the terminally ill princes spent their last days on "Rumija", which was then in Boka. Stanislav i Stevan Petrović. Stanislav died on the yacht on January 4, 1908, while his brother Stevan died less than two months later in Cannes, France.
During the Balkan Wars, "Rumija" transported war material, Montenegrin and Serbian troops, which she disembarked in Medova. After the outbreak of the First World War, "Rumija", which was then the largest ship under the Montenegrin flag, was again put into military service, so the yacht often transported the army from Bar to Medova and vice versa, i.e. towed various smaller sailing ships and other vessels that were loaded food and war material.
At that time, the Austro-Hungarians from their main naval operational base on the southern Adriatic in Boka Kotorska carried out frequent attacks on the Montenegrin and Albanian coasts, trying to prevent the arrival of weapons, food and other war material with which the allies - the British and the French - supplied the Kingdom of Montenegro by sea. They soon realized how important "Rumija" was, as the only larger steamship under Montenegrin control that could tow other vessels, in the enemy's supply chain. Therefore, in February 1915, they began a systematic hunt for "Rumija", which was then commanded by a captain Ivo Djokic from Bar, in order not to capture or destroy this yacht.
Thus, on February 14, Austro-Hungarian torpedo boats TB 15 and TB 68 set sail from Boka with the task of intercepting "Rumija", which Austro-Hungarian seaplanes spotted towing a smaller vessel at the height of Cape Mendra near Ulcinj towards Bar. However, by the time the torpedo boats arrived at the reported position, "Rumija" and its tug had already taken refuge in the protection of the Montenegrin coast and sailed into Bar. Torpedo boat TB 68 under the command of the lieutenant of the battleship Erwin Wallner she decided, however, to sail into the port under Pristan and try to capture the "Rumija" and the smaller Italian sailing ship that she had just towed, but this intention of the Austro-Hungarians was thwarted by the Montenegrins who opened precise and strong fire on TB 68 from their cannon batteries on Cape Ratac.
Under fire from the enemy, which seriously threatened her, the Austro-Hungarian torpedo boat had to give up her plan and retreat towards Boka, together with TB 15 and the Austro-Hungarian destroyer "Csikós", which had arrived in the meantime and was opened fire by Montenegrin batteries from Volujica and Šušanj. The second unsuccessful attempt by the Austro-Hungarians to get the heads of "Rumija" took place, according to the testimony of her then commander, Captain Ivo Đokić, on February 21, when the yacht with 87 Montenegrin volunteers from the USA on board sailed from Medova towards Bar. At the same time, "Rumija" was also towing two smaller sailing ships. When she was at the height of the mouth of Bojana, she noticed "Rumija" in the distance, two Austro-Hungarian torpedo boats patrolling the water area below Ulcinj.
Because of this, Captain Đokić diverted his ship and brought it very close to the Albanian coast, where he hid from the opposing warships. Then Đokić continued his journey towards Ulcinj, where, according to his testimony, two Austro-Hungarian submarines soon appeared. In order not to be torpedoed, he released both sailboats from the towboat, which then, in the immediate vicinity of the coast, sailed towards Bar, while Đokić sailed into Ulcinj with "Rumija" and ran the yacht aground on Mala plaža with the bow, where he disembarked from the ship. volunteers.
Under the cover of darkness, Đokić then tossed "Rumija" away and instead of towards Bar, where he assumed submarines would be waiting for him, he turned south and returned happily to Medova. From that Albanian port, "Rumija" then set sail before dawn on March 1, on her last journey - towards Bar, where she happily arrived later that day. The yacht dropped both anchors in the water area of the port of Bar and tied its stern to the main wooden pier in the port.
She was spotted there in the afternoon by Austro-Hungarian seaplanes, so the command of the Austro-Hungarian Fifth Naval Division decided to carry out a surprise attack - a naval raid on Bar - and to capture or destroy "Rumija", as well as to destroy the port infrastructure and food and ammunition supplies. which was brought there by the French and the English. That operation was later described in detail by an Austro-Hungarian officer, the lieutenant of a battleship in reserve Hans Hugo Sokol, in his work "The Austro-Hungarian Naval War 1914-18", published in Vienna in the thirties of the last century. Around midnight on March 1 and 2, 1915, the destroyers "Csikós", "Streiter" and "Ulan" and torpedo boats TB 57 sailed from Boka under the command of the battleship's lieutenant Albert Heinz-Erian, TB 66 (Battleship Lieutenant Guido Magerl von Kufheim) and TB 67 (Battleship Lieutenant Johan Ressel). The most difficult part of the task and carefully prepared plan of action fell to the torpedo boats - to sail into the port of Bar itself, capture or destroy the "Rumija", destroy the main wooden wall of the port of Bar, as well as to set fire to or blow up the harbor warehouses with food and ammunition for the Montenegrin army .
The destroyers were supposed to give artillery support to the action of the torpedo boats from the open sea in front of the Bar and to put the Montenegrin coastal batteries to sleep with the fire of their guns. At the same time, the destroyers, with their powerful deck reflectors, were supposed to literally blind the Montenegrin artillerymen on the coastal guns and thus hinder them in targeting the Austro-Hungarian ships.
The Austro-Hungarian ships rolled and stumbled in the heavy sea on a stormy, rainy night in a strong gale, and at around 2.30:2 on the night of March 800, they arrived in front of the Bar. The destroyers took the planned positions: "Csikós" at a distance of 1.000 to 500 meters from the Volujica bridge, "Streiter" 2.000 meters away from it towards the northwest, and "Ulan" about 67 meters west of Volujica. Just a few minutes later, Montenegrin coastal batteries from the Šušanje area and from the Volujica hill opened fire on the Austro-Hungarian destroyers, who responded by firing their cannons and directing the beams of strong light from their searchlights towards the coastal artillery positions. In the meantime, the wind increased even more and the rain poured down like a cable, so the three torpedo boats used that and the fact that the attention of the Montenegrins from the coast was drawn to them by the destroyers, to sail at full speed from the direction of the Black Cape into the harbor area of Bar. As soon as the torpedo boats entered the harbor basin, suddenly the rain stopped and the moonlight illuminated the harbor as the strong wind quickly dispersed the clouds. At that moment, the torpedo boat TB450 launched one of its three XNUMX mm torpedoes towards the main pier of Pristan harbor.
The topredo hit the mule about a third of its length from shore and completely destroyed it. The explosion inside the port alerted all units of the Montenegrin army present here, so they opened fire on the Austro-Hungarian torpedo boats with all available weapons. Firing their 47 mm guns, and especially for that occasion on the decks of heavy machine guns, the torpedo boats, however, immediately bombarded the Montenegrin positions on the coast, especially towards Topolica, where a smaller gun fired unsuccessfully at them from the vicinity of the royal castle. The torpedo boat TB 66 docked with the bow of the second mule and, according to the task, next to it at a distance of about six meters, laid three anchor mines in the sea, at the height of the first to the third harbor warehouse.
A sabotage group of sailors and miners quickly landed on the shore from this ship. They immediately broke into the building of the customs service and three nearby warehouses, and found that the pile of crates that had previously been spotted by seaplanes at the foot of the mountain was actually just a pile of useless wooden waste, but not the expected ammunition in the crates. In the warehouses, however, they found large quantities of newly arrived grain that had been delivered to the Montenegrin army by the allies, so the Austro-Hungarian sailors and miners blew up and set fire to these warehouses and the supplies in them, and without any losses of their own, they then returned to TB 66. during their action, the other two torpedo boats covered the action of the sabotage group by firing their cannons and machine guns, which silenced the Montenegrin defense in the port. Despite the bad weather conditions, big waves and strong wind, TB 57, with the assistance of TB 67, managed to land next to the side of the four-berth tied "Rumija", which the crew had already abandoned, thus leaving their ship at the mercy of the enemy.
Deputy commander of TB 57, frigate lieutenant Paul Meixner, together with eight of his sailors, jumped from the deck of the torpedo boat onto the yacht and moored both Austro-Hungarian ships at "Rumija". The Austro-Hungarians quickly severed "Rumija's" stern ropes and springs that tied the yacht to the moor, but since the yacht was not ready for steam, they could not start the anchor windlass and raise both of her anchors, so the torpedo boats tied forward, moved "Rumija" away from the moor and turned her 180 degrees, as if the sailors would then use explosive charges to break the anchor chains of the yacht so that they could take "Rumija" towboat and drag her to captivity in Bok. However, a sudden gust of wind first broke the brake of the anchor windlass "Rumije", so the sticks that had just been set alight fell with the part of the chain by which they were fixed into the sea and went out.
The second attempt to break the chains with explosives was successful, but in the meantime the wind got even stronger and now the "Rumija", freed from its anchors and moorings, was carried uncontrollably to the northeast, towards the coast. In such circumstances, faced with a strong storm and little room for maneuver, the Austro-Hungarians estimated that they could not take the "Rumija" in tow and drag her out to sea, beyond the range of the Montenegrin cannons, which in the meantime returned to the fight and began to threaten more and more precisely Austro-Hungarian torpedo boats in the port basin.
Therefore, the commander of TB 57, the lieutenant of the battleship Albert Heinz-Erian, ordered his first officer and sailors to leave "Rumija" and return to his ship, and the torpedomen to target the Montenegrin royal yacht and sink it. From a distance of about 200 meters, TB 57 fired a torpedo at around 3.45:57 a.m. and hit "Rumija" in the middle. The beautiful yacht was split in half by the force of the explosion and immediately sank, and the three Austro-Hungarian torpedo boats quickly left the Bar harbor and moved out into the open sea. Although towards the end of the action, Montenegrin shells fell very close to the Austro-Hungarian ships, which were occasionally hit and shrapneled by the explosions of the missiles, there was no damage to the torpedo boats, and no human casualties. The only success of the Montenegrins that evening was the destruction of the wooden boat with TB 57, which was used during the placement of explosive charges on the anchor chains of "Rumija", so the torpedo boat later in the heat of the battle did not have time to lift it from the sea and return it to its deck. The boat was therefore taken in a tow astern of TB 66, but shortly after the torpedo boat headed out of the harbor at full speed, one of the Montenegrin coastal artillery shells hit that boat and blew it up. TB 67, after boarding her sabotage squad, sank two masons in the harbor with cannon fire and then withdrew from the scene, without any losses of her own, and the same was the case with TB 4. Around XNUMX o'clock, the torpedo boats met three Austro-Hungarian destroyer after which the Austro-Hungarian ships in perfect order took a course northwest towards Boka where they sailed in triumph at dawn.
The Austro-Hungarian naval raid on Bar on 2 March 1915 was one of the best planned and best executed such surprise raids in the entire First World War. In addition to achieving the main goal - the destruction of the largest Montenegrin steamship - the yacht "Rumija", the Austro-Hungarians achieved something even more important for them in the long term with this attack: they made the only serious way to supply Montenegro during the war - maritime transport - even more difficult.
The destroyed main pier, the burning of port warehouses and, in particular, the laying of sea mines in the port water area, in the following year made it completely impossible to deliver weapons, food and other necessities to Montenegro via Bar, which had to be done in a much more complicated, longer and technically limited way. via Ulcinj, Bojana or Medova in Albania.
In the end, this led to huge problems in supplying the army and the civilian population of Montenegro in the fall and winter of 1915-16, that is, it accelerated the military defeat and led to the capitulation of the Kingdom of Montenegro in January 1916. It is interesting that the three silk mines that Austria - In the raid on March 2, 1915, the Ugars placed by the port wall in Bar, they failed to remove the members of the French and Italian navies to whom the Montenegrin government appealed for help in this, and the personal efforts of King Nikola to - the Hungarian navy who fell into Montenegrin prisoners of war tried to get them to remove these mines themselves in exchange for a rich reward and release. Therefore, these mines, which until then effectively prevented the arrival of larger ships in Bar, welcomed the return of the Austro-Hungarians themselves to that port, which happened at the end of January 1916, after the Kingdom of Montenegro capitulated and was occupied by Austro-Hungarian troops.
Although during the following decades the port in Bar was built and expanded, and the wreck of the "Rumija" often interfered with these efforts, Montenegro never took any action to retrieve the wreck of the "Rumija" from the bottom of the sea or at least move it, as it once did with remains also here in the First World War, of the sunken French destroyer "Dague".
At a depth of only 8,3 to 12,5 meters, lying in the middle of the port's water area, the wreck of "Rumije" was additionally destroyed over the years by large ships that came to the port of Bar and literally trampled on the remains of the royal yacht, which in the meantime, in 1967, was even officially declared for protected cultural property. In the meantime, the wreck was largely ravaged by various divers who took some of its parts from the "Rumija", so that the ship's bell of the Montenegrin royal yacht is now in a private collection in Novi Sad. The most beautiful existing model of the yacht "Rumija" is also not located in Montenegro, but it is part of the exhibition of the Croatian Maritime Museum in Split..., while the deck torpedo tube from the Austro-Hungarian torpedo boat TB 67 from which the torpedo was fired on March 2, 1915 .destroyed the main port wall in Bar, today it is preserved in the War History Museum in Rovereto, Italy.
Bonus video:
