No major naval battles were fought, and much of the war was an ongoing stalemate between fleets lacking the superiority over each other to strike a decisive blow against the enemy.

[1] Vice-Admiral Anton von Martini, Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, attempted to put an end to the rebellion but was captured and held prisoner.

[2] By the end of March, the Austrian troops in Venice were forced out of the city altogether and the navy appeared to be collapsing as many of its sailors and officers were of Italian descent.

While this action left the Navy drastically undermanned, it prevented any wider disintegration like that suffered by the Imperial Austrian Army in Italy.

There was also the loss of Venice's naval dockyards, warehouses and arsenal, as well as four corvettes, three brigs, one steamer and several smaller vessels to the Venetian rebels.

Due to the proximity of Trieste to the parts of Italy revolting against Austrian rule, the small port of Pola was chosen as the navy’s new base.

In late April 1848, the reconstituted Austrian fleet prepared to begin hostilities with a blockade of Venice in order to assist Austria's army against the Italian nationalists who had seized the city.

[3]: 20 The ships Austria could deploy by late April 1848 were the frigates Bellona and Guerriera, the brigs Oreste and Montecuccoli, and the steam corvette Vulcano.

[5]: 155  Together with four steamships later requisitioned from Österreichischer Lloyd, the Maria Dorotea, the Custoza, the Curtatone and the Trieste, they were placed under the command of Ludwig von Kudriaffsky.

[5]: 153 The Republic of San Marco began organising its forces under Navy Minister Antonio Paulucci and rear admiral Leone Graziani.

[12] The French navy played a role in deterring an Austrian attack on Venice in 1848, and landed a military force at Civitavecchia in 1849 to restore Pope Pius IX to Rome.

[4]: 47 [13][14] At various points throughout war, the British navy had ships positioned off many Italian ports such as Naples,[15]: 588  Livorno[15]: 488–9  and Genoa,[16]: 140  though none of them were involved in combat.

The Spanish navy played a minor role in the war, when seven ships transported troops from Spain to Gaeta to support Pope Pius IX in his campaign to regain control of the Papal States.

This time-consuming manoeuvre allowed Kudriaffsky to call the Lloyd steamers out from Trieste to do likewise with his own sailing ships, so that they all reached port safely without any threat from the Italians as night fell.

[6]: 149 [8]: 367 On the 23 May the combined Italian fleet dropped anchor off Trieste and issued a demand that the Austrians return the warships to Venice that they had removed from the city back in March.

[20]: 528  The French Republic also sent a frigate, the Asmodée, under the command of Louis-Alphonse de Ricaudy, which reached Venice in early May and took up station off Trieste after the combined Italian fleet anchored there.

[6]: 151 [20]: 603–4  The following weeks saw sporadic minor action as the Austrians captured an Italian ship and there was an exchange of fire off Piran, but effectively a stalemate prevailed.

[5]: 55 France, while working with the United Kingdom to secure a final peace between Austria and Sardinia, strengthened her naval force in the Adriatic and made clear that her ships too would come to the aid of Venice if hostilities were resumed.

[16]: 201  Just three days later the Austrians inflicted a final defeat on them at the battle of Novara, ending the war before Albini had time to sail his squadron back to Venice to engage Dahlerup.

[16]: 231 With Sardinia out of the war and Venice isolated, the only other Italian state fighting the Austrians and their allies was the short-lived Roman Republic, formed after Pius IX fled Rome.

[26]: 584  His Ancona squadron thus consisted of the frigates Bellona, Curtatone and Custoza along with two Lloyd steamers, the Maria Dorotea and Arciduchessa Sofia and the brig Triest.

The fortifications of Ancona had powerful guns, so the Austrians decided not to force an early assault on the city in order to keep their frigates clear of the defending artillery.

[27] To defend against Dahlerup’s squadron, the Roman Republic had only the Roma, sent back from Trieste the previous year, and two coastguard ships, the Annibale and the Cesare.

[13] In contrast, with the exception of the Pio IX, Venice now had only sailing ships, which depended on favourable wind and tides to get out of port and then safely back in again.

Two artillery lieutenants, Franz von Uchatius and his brother Josef, invented a system for launching bombs into the air and letting the wind carry them to their target.

[32] Eventually, hunger, exhaustion, relentless bombardment and the outbreak of cholera drove Venice to surrender on 22 August 1849, bringing the naval operations of the First Italian War of Independence to a close.

[3]: 23 The appointment of Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour as the Sardinian naval minister in 1850 marked the start of a period of reorganization; he restored discipline in the ships' crews and improved the technical quality of the fleet.

[33][4]: 76  To ensure better discipline and warlike spirit in its officer corps, Cavour worked to instill strong nationalist sentiment in the Sardinian naval academy in Genoa.

Sardinia also began preparations to move its main naval base from the commercial port of Genoa to a new purpose-built site in La Spezia.