The Regional Diving Center for the Training of Divers and Underwater Demining (RCUD) from Podgorica and the Ministry of Culture caused a new international embarrassment to Montenegro because they presented the official representatives of the French Navy as the location of their submarine "Monge", which sank in the southern Adriatic during the First World War. the location of the British war grave in front of Boka Kotorska - the wreck of the British submarine H-3.
Director of RCUD Veselin Mijajlović announced to the media a month ago that "RCUD professional divers are conducting extensive research with colleagues from the French Navy on the wreck of a submarine located at a depth of 90 meters, which is assumed to be French".
He said that the submarine was pretty much destroyed during the war, "so extensive research is needed for identification". As he stated, experts from the Ministries of Culture and Defense are involved in the research.
"We located the submarine during our regular activities in 2020, since then we have been researching this location with experts from France on several occasions," said Mijajlović.
He announced that in the coming period they are planning a detailed investigation of this and some other localities in the vicinity, "appreciating these findings as very interesting, especially considering that they were completely unknown until now."
The location to which MIjajlović, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Defense of Montenegro took the French has been very well known for decades and it has long been known that there are no remains of any French but British submarine H-3.
"Vijesti" already at the beginning of April, when the minesweeper "Lyre" M-648 of the French Navy sailed into Boka Kotorska, wrote about the fact that the French had come to continue researching the position in front of the entrance to the bay, where the underwater research vessel RM In July 2021, the French "Pluton" searched the bottom of the sea with a multibeam sonar and on that occasion located the wreck of a submarine. The French were already told by their Montenegrin hosts about that wreck that it might be the French submarine "Monge" which was lost in the First World War in December 1915 in the waters southeast of the entrance to Boka.
However, "Monge" sank much further away from this location, which was found to contain the remains of the British submarine H-3 back in the time of the SFRY, and this was even recorded in certain nautical charts.
On the "Monge", the wreck of which has not yet been officially located and reliably identified more than 100 years after its sinking, its commander, one of the French national heroes, the lieutenant of the battleship, died during the sinking Roland Moriot. The Austro-Hungarian cruiser "Helgoland" ran into the "Monge", which was charging its batteries in surface navigation, about fifteen miles southeast of the entrance to Boka, and hit her with her bow, causing her heavy damage. The submarine, which began to sink, was finished off by the Austro-Hungarian destroyer "Balaton" with a couple of cannon shots. Commander Morijo, in the manner of the old captains, refused to leave the "Monge" and sank with his ship. In addition to him, two more Frenchmen perished, and 25 survivors were rescued by Austro-Hungarian warships.
For his heroism, Roland Moriot was posthumously awarded the highest award of the French Republic, the Legion of Honor, and the Italians awarded Moriot the Gold Medal for Military Courage. The French Navy later even named three of its submarines after Roland Moriot, one of its greatest naval heroes. His name and that of his submarine are on the Submarine Memorial, which was erected in Toulon in honor of all the French submariners who died in battle. The Training Center for the crews of nuclear submarines of the RM of France in Brest is also named after Roland Moriot.
"Vijesti" had the exact coordinates of the wreck that they were investigating at the beginning of April when the "Lyre" was staying and the French divers from that ship were diving at a location south of Mamula. For that position, however, the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry of Defense have not found it appropriate to include experts in underwater archeology and naval history in the project, and they have known for a long time that there is no French submarine in that position at all. Namely, on those coordinates is the wreck of the British submarine H-3, which is about a mile southeast of Mamula, sank on July 15, 1916, when it fell into one of the Austro-Hungarian defensive minefields in front of their naval base in Boka, while "Monge" is located somewhere much further south of this position, in significantly deeper waters of the southern Adriatic.
Despite these well-known facts, the French were led to the wrong wreck lying at a depth of about 75 meters, which is the final resting place of 22 British submariners led by the commander of that submarine, frigate Lt. By George Eric Jenkinson. H-3 was killed in that position when, in underwater driving, she tried to enter the Boka Bay of Kotorska undetected as the main Austro-Hungarian naval base on the South Adriatic and attack the opposing ships in Boka. However, the submarine ran into one of the Austro-Hungarian protective minefields and died after hitting an enemy anti-ship anchor mine.
From the Ministry of Culture and Media (MKIM), which through its Directorate for Cultural Heritage is responsible for underwater cultural heritage, even after more than 20 days, "Vijesti" did not respond to the question of how the department headed by the minister Masha Vlaović looks at misleading foreign institutions when it comes to the identification of an already identified British submarine. MKIM did not answer the questions whether they consider RCUD a scientific research institution, and whether, according to their knowledge, RCUD has professional capacities for underwater archeology in general.
RCUD already made an international gaffe in a similar way in August 2020 when, together with RTCG, that state enterprise launched a story about the supposedly found until then unknown wreck of a warship in the shallows at the mouth of Bojana, for which the leaders of RCUD were then on camera said that "it looks most like a rocket gunship".
However, we are talking about the wreck of the French submarine "Fresnel", which ran aground at the mouth of Bojana and was later destroyed by the Austro-Hungarian destroyer "Warasdiner" on December 5, 1915. Since then, the wreck and its identity have been known, and this position where the RCUD is in August 2020, "found an unknown, serious battleship" was recorded in all nautical charts. Despite this, neither the Ministry of Culture nor the Ministry of Defense eliminated the RCUD and its "expertise" from similar research endeavors in the Montenegrin undersea in the past few years.
MKIM did not comment on how they view the fact that the RCUD shares underwater cultural heritage sites with foreign institutions and arranges research on those sites, as well as whether the research of the H-3 submarine by the French army is in accordance with the UNESCO convention signed by Montenegro.
"Does MKIM have a project proposal in which the roles of the research participants are precisely defined and why the Ministry allows RCUD representatives to go public with incorrect information about the site, declaring the H3 site to be the French submarine Monge, and telling lies about the depth and nature of the site" questions to which "Vijesti" did not receive answers from Minister Vlaović's department, from which they did not explain what role the Montenegrin researcher aboard the ship "Lyre" played in the research of this site and whether he was the leader of the research or just an observer. They did not even explain why an archaeologist-expert for medieval glass was sent to investigate the site of the submarine H-3 on behalf of the state institutions of Montenegro, if the Center for Archeology and Conservation already has experts in maritime archaeology.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs, under whose auspices RCUD activities are often carried out, did not answer "News" to a set of questions related to the activities of that state-owned company, including its "hydroarchaeological research".
"Due to your interest, we inform you that the Limited Liability Company Regional Diving Center for Underwater Demining and Training of Divers" Podgorica was founded by the decision of the Government of Montenegro Sl. Gazette of the Republic of Montenegro 8/15 and 62/20, and that the Ministry of Internal Affairs - Directorate for Protection and Rescue is not responsible for answering the questions, but the founder of the company is the Government of Montenegro", the MUP replied.
Montenegro's Independence Day was also celebrated at the British war grave
RCUD divers also unfurled the Montenegrin national flag at the location of the British war grave where the remains of 22 of their submariners rest, thus celebrating May 21, Montenegro's Independence Day, by paying "honor to the sailors who died at this site during the First World War."
The submarine H-3, which perished on Austro-Hungarian mines about a mile south of the island of Mamula at the entrance to the Bay of Kotorska, like all other sunken warships regardless of the location where they perished around the world, still belongs to the country whose flag it carried and in whose Navy she served - Great Britain. Placing, even symbolically, the flag of another country on the remains of a warship that does not belong to that country, in international maritime and war law, is an act of piracy, as well as disrespecting the remains of one's soldiers, the crew that rests in that wreck, which officially has the status of a war grave and thus enjoys special protection.
When asked how the Ministry of Culture and Media views the fact of the celebration of Montenegro's Independence Day at the war grave of the British army and the possible consequences, "Vijesti" also did not receive answers from the department of Minister Maša Vlaović.
Bonus video:
