out the armor, and during the last decade of the century
it steadily increased its ascendancy over the gun.

_The Battle of Lissa_

The adoption of armor meant sacrifice of armament, and a departure
from Farragut's well-tried maxim, "The best protection against the
enemy's fire is a well-sustained fire from your own guns." Thus
the British _Dreadnought_ of 1872 gave 35% of its displacement to
armor and only 5% to armament. Invulnerability was secured at the
expense of offensive power. That aggressive tactics and weapons
retained all their old value in warfare was to receive timely
illustration in the Battle of Lissa, fought in the year after the
American war. The engagement illustrated also another of Farragut's
pungent maxims to the effect that iron in the ships is less important
than "iron in the men"--a saying especially true when, as with the
Austrians at Lissa, the iron is in the chief in command.

In 1866 Italy and Prussia attacked Austria in concert, Italy having
secured from Bismarck a pledge of Venetia in the event of victory.
Though beaten at Custozza on June 24, the Italians did their part
by keeping busy an Austrian army of 80,000. Moltke crushed the
northern forces of the enemy at Sadowa on July 3, and within three
weeks had reached the environs of Vienna and practically won the
war. Lissa was fought on July 20, just 6 days before the armistice.
This general political and military situation should be borne in
mind as throwing some light on the peculiar Italian strategy in
the Lissa campaign.

Struggling Italy, her unification under the House of Piedmont as
yet only partly achieved, had shown both foresight and energy in
building up a fleet. Her available force on the day of Lissa consisted
of 12 armored ships and 16 wooden steam vessels of same fighting
value. The ironclads included 7 armored frigates, the best of which
were the two "kings," _Re d'Italia_ and _Re di Portogallo_, built
the year before in New York (rather badly, it is said), each armed
with about 30 heavy rifles. Then there was the new single-turret
ram _Affondatore_, or "Sinker," with two 300-pounder 10-inch rifles,
which came in from England only the day before the battle. Some
of the small protected corvettes and gunboats were of much less
value, the _Palestro_, for instance, which suffered severely in
the fight, having a thin sheet of armor over only two-fifths of
her exposed hull.

The Austrian fleet had the benefit of some war ex