Sailor's Monument - Pula, Croatia
Posted by: Groundspeak Premium Member PISA-caching
N 44° 52.429 E 013° 50.924
33T E 409063 N 4969577
Statue of a sailor commemorating the rebellion of the sailors in 1918
Waymark Code: WM1585G
Location: Croatia
Date Posted: 11/05/2021
Published By:Groundspeak Premium Member Outspoken1
Views: 3

 

In the Valerijn park next to the Pula Arena a Sailor's Monument has been erected in 1953. It is a life size statue of a sailor with his right arm raised. The monument was created by the sculptor Pavle Peric and is intended to commemorate the sailors' revolt in 1918.

"The mutiny of the sailors on Cattaro (Kotor), the Austrian-Hungarian Navy Base, occurred on 1 February 1918. The incident ended with the mutineers surrendering. Even if the revolt did not significantly impact the balance of power in the Adriatic, its memory played a role in the ideological conflicts over the commemoration of the Great War. [...]

[...] Throughout January 1918, strikes and social unrest spread across the Empire, notably in the major Navy base of Pula. But by the end of January, work resumed and order was restored.

On 1 February 1918 at noon, the mutiny started on the flagship cruiser Sankt Georg. Two hours later, after limited violence (though several officers were wounded), the red flag of revolt flew on all of the surface ships. Significantly, no active naval officers and only one reserve officer associated with the revolt. The mutineers presented captured Rear Admiral Alexander Hansa, in charge of the Cattaro flotilla, with a list of demands. Half of these demands dealt with conditions of service and the other half with political matters, inspired by Woodrow Wilson's (1856-1924) Fourteen Points, pacifism, and support for the Bolshevik revolution. Hansa agreed to most of the non-political demands, but the radical mutineers, under the leadership of the Moravian German Franz Rasch (?-1918), a boatswain, decided not to end the mutiny.

In the meantime, the Cattaro army garrison and the Navy took measures to quickly put an end to the mutiny. The shore batteries forbade the rebel vessels from leaving their anchorage, while smaller ships - less affected by boredom and inaction during the course of the previous months - rapidly gave up the mutiny. The Navy command sent a fleet to supress the revolt; once the mutineers saw the loyal battleships entering the bay with their battle flags, they all surrendered and Hansa was freed. Four mutineers, including Rasch, were executed on 11 February. 800 sailors disembarked, and of this group, 392 were tried and imprisoned until October 1918. [...]"

Source and further information: encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/cattaro_mutiny_of

Sector of the workforce: Sailor

Created or Donated by which group: 1953

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