Saint Georg was a handsome but awkward compromise: sizeable, reasonably fast, and armed with several main and secondary calibres. Its larger problem was geographical. An Austro-Hungarian cruiser seeking open-water commerce warfare would first have to fight through the Adriatic, Ionian, and Mediterranean, while a battle with Italy offered no comfortable escape route. The Royal Navy stationed only a handful of its fifty-seven armoured cruisers in the Mediterranean, reinforcing the judgment that the theatre did not reward the type.
Chapter · 30:01-39:50
The Adriatic trap for Austro-Hungarian cruisers
In the Adriatic, an armoured cruiser had too little sea room either to evade Italy or to break out for commerce raiding.