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In the 19th century, the Croatian coast was part of Austria-Hungary, whose Navy sought a good way to defend such an indented his coast and, to those means, developed a torpedo.
So one of the retired officers of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, a Croat Giovanni Luppis (1813/1875) from Rijeka, started looking for an invention that could defend the coast from potential attacks and thus prevent possible conflicts. This is exactly the kind of invention that the Navy itself was looking for. So, Luppis did not have enough financial resources and had to ask for help from the then-British manager of the ship furnace factory in Rijeka, the british engineer Robert Whitehead (1823/1905).
The original inventor of the torpedo, Luppis, was rejected several times by the head of the Navy because his invention was not good enough. Namely, it was not suitable for cheap and mass production. So Whitehead adapted Luppis’s invention for factory production and received approval from the Austrian-Hungarian authorities for mass production. How did the story between the industrialist and the inventor end? Whitehead took most of the credit for the torpedo, and Luppis died alone without much financial gain from his invention.
Robert Whitehead (right) is seen here inspecting a damaged test torpedo around 1875 in Rijeka, Croatia.
As for the further career of the deadly weapon, at first, the torpedo was a secret and well-guarded weapon of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. However, Whitehead had a patent for the invention and soon opened a torpedo factory in his native England. And oh, the irony! The patent was called the Whitehead-Luppis torpedo, although Luppis was completely excluded from further development of the weapon. But the irony did not stop there. During the WW1, the Croatian coast and Austro-Hungarian ships were fired upon by Italian ships with torpedoes perfected in the Whitehead factory.
Undoubtedly, the torpedo brought a breakthrough in naval warfare. It was later also used in air attacks. And the original intended purpose of defending the Croatian coast was lost long, long, long ago.
A torpedo factory operated in Rijeka for years until it was closed in the 1990s, as other countries took the lead in the development of increasingly advanced and faster torpedoes. Yet, the original idea will always remain... Croatian.
So one of the retired officers of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, a Croat Giovanni Luppis (1813/1875) from Rijeka, started looking for an invention that could defend the coast from potential attacks and thus prevent possible conflicts. This is exactly the kind of invention that the Navy itself was looking for. So, Luppis did not have enough financial resources and had to ask for help from the then-British manager of the ship furnace factory in Rijeka, the british engineer Robert Whitehead (1823/1905).
The original inventor of the torpedo, Luppis, was rejected several times by the head of the Navy because his invention was not good enough. Namely, it was not suitable for cheap and mass production. So Whitehead adapted Luppis’s invention for factory production and received approval from the Austrian-Hungarian authorities for mass production. How did the story between the industrialist and the inventor end? Whitehead took most of the credit for the torpedo, and Luppis died alone without much financial gain from his invention.
Robert Whitehead (right) is seen here inspecting a damaged test torpedo around 1875 in Rijeka, Croatia.
As for the further career of the deadly weapon, at first, the torpedo was a secret and well-guarded weapon of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. However, Whitehead had a patent for the invention and soon opened a torpedo factory in his native England. And oh, the irony! The patent was called the Whitehead-Luppis torpedo, although Luppis was completely excluded from further development of the weapon. But the irony did not stop there. During the WW1, the Croatian coast and Austro-Hungarian ships were fired upon by Italian ships with torpedoes perfected in the Whitehead factory.
Undoubtedly, the torpedo brought a breakthrough in naval warfare. It was later also used in air attacks. And the original intended purpose of defending the Croatian coast was lost long, long, long ago.
A torpedo factory operated in Rijeka for years until it was closed in the 1990s, as other countries took the lead in the development of increasingly advanced and faster torpedoes. Yet, the original idea will always remain... Croatian.
Adaptation of the article published in 3seaseurope.com
