perience against
Denmark in the North Sea two years before, but it was far inferior
and less up-to-date, its armored ships consisting of 7 screw frigates
armed chiefly with smoothbores. Of the wooden ships, there were
7 screw frigates and corvettes, 9 gunboats and schooners, and 3
little side-wheelers--a total of 19. The following table indicates
the relative strength:

--------------------------------------------------------------------
|Armored | Wooden |Small craft| Total | Rifles |Total w't
|--------|--------|-----------|--------|----------|of metal
|No.|Guns|No.|Guns| No.| Guns |No.|Guns|No.|Weight|
--------|---|----|---|----|----|------|---|----|---|------|---------
Austria | 7| 176| 7| 304| 12 | 52 | 22| 532|121| 7,130| 23,538
Italy | 12| 243| 11| 382| 5 | 16 | 28| 641|276|28,700| 53,236
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Thus in general terms the Italians were nearly twice as strong
in main units, could fire twice as heavy a weight of metal from
all their guns, and four times as heavy from their rifles. Even
without the _Affondatore_, their advantage was practically as great
as this from the beginning of the war.

With such a preponderance, it would seem as if Persano, the Italian
commander in chief, could easily have executed his savage-sounding
orders to "sweep the enemy from the Adriatic, and to attack and
blockade them wherever found." He was dilatory, however, in assembling
his fleet, negligent in practice and gun drill, and passive in his
whole policy to a degree absolutely ruinous to morale. War was
declared June 20, and had long been foreseen; yet it was June 25
before he moved the bulk of his fleet from Taranto to Ancona in
the Adriatic. Here on the 27th they were challenged by 13 Austrian
ships, which lay off the port cleared for action for two hours, while
Persano made no real move to fight. It is said that the Italian
defeat at Custozza three days before had taken the heart out of
him. On July 8 he put to sea for a brief three days' cruise and
went through some maneuvers and signaling but no firing, though
many of the guns were newly mounted and had never been tried by
their crews.

At this time Napoleon III of France had already undertaken mediation
between the hostile powers. In spite of the orders of June 8, quoted
above, which seem sufficiently definite, and urgent orders to the
same effect later, Persano was unwilling t