 A painting showing SMS Wien and the other ships of the Monarch class on maneuvers
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| History | |
|---|---|
 Austro-Hungarian Empire | |
| Name | SMS Wien |
| Namesake | Vienna, Austria |
| Ordered | May 1892 |
| Builder | Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino, Trieste |
| Laid down | 16 February 1893 |
| Launched | 7 July 1895 |
| Sponsored by | Countess Kielmannsegg |
| Commissioned | 13 May 1897 |
| Fate | Sunk, 10 December 1917, salvaged and scrapped 1920s |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Monarch-class coastal defense ship |
| Displacement | 5,785 tonnes (5,694 long tons) (full load) |
| Length | 99.22 m (325 ft 6 in) |
| Beam | 17 m (55 ft 9 in) |
| Draught | 6.4 m (21 ft 0 in) |
| Installed power | |
| Propulsion |
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| Speed | 17.5 knots (32.4 km/h; 20.1 mph) |
| Range | 3,500 nmi (6,500 km; 4,000 mi) @ 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) |
| Complement | 26 officers and 397 enlisted men |
| Armament |
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| Armour |
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SMS Wien [a] ("His Majesty's Ship Vienna") was one of three Monarch-class coastal defense ships built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the 1890s. After her commissioning, the ship participated in an international blockade of Crete during the Greco-Turkish War of 1897. Wien and the two other Monarch-class ships made several training cruises in the Mediterranean Sea in the early 1900s. They formed the 1st Capital Ship Division of the Austro-Hungarian Navy until they were replaced by the newly commissioned Habsburg-class predreadnought battleships at the turn of the century. In 1906 the three Monarchs were placed in reserve and only recommissioned for annual summer training exercises. After the start of World War I, Wien was recommissioned and assigned to 5th Division together with her sisters.
The division was sent to Cattaro in August 1914 to attack Montenegrin and French artillery that was bombarding the port and they remained there until mid-1917. Wien and her sister Budapest were sent to Trieste in August 1917 and bombarded Italian fortifications in the Gulf of Trieste. On the night of 9–10 December, while Wien and Budapest were at anchor in Trieste, two Italian torpedo boats managed to penetrate the harbor defenses undetected and fired several torpedoes at the two ships. Budapest was not hit, but Wien was struck by two torpedoes and sank in less than five minutes with the loss of 46 of her crew. The wreck was salvaged sometime during the 1920s by the Italians.
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