[8] She was powered by two 4-cylinder vertical triple expansion steam engines rated at 19,800 indicated horsepower and had a maximum speed of 20.5 knots (38.0 km/h; 23.6 mph).

[1] On the second cruise into the Aegean Sea, conducted from November to December, she was accompanied by the cruiser Admiral Spaun and a pair of destroyers.

[12] The most important action of the combined flotilla, which was under the command of British Admiral Cecil Burney, was to blockade the Montenegrin coast.

The goal of the blockade was to prevent Serbian reinforcements from supporting the siege at Scutari,[13] where Montenegro had besieged a combined force of Albanians and Ottomans.

Pressured by the international blockade, Serbia withdrew its army from Scutari, which was subsequently occupied by a joint Allied ground force.

[14] The first seaplanes used in combat, supplied by French manufacturer Donnet-Lévêque, were operated from Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand and her two sisters during the blockade.

Along with the remainder of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand was mobilized in late July 1914 to support the flight of SMS Goeben and Breslau.

Additional targets that were damaged or destroyed included wharves, warehouses, oil tanks, radio stations, and the local barracks.

[22] The objective of the bombardment of Ancona was to delay the Italian Army from deploying its forces along the border with Austria-Hungary by destroying critical transportation systems.

This delay gave Austria-Hungary valuable time to strengthen its Italian border and re-deploy some of its troops from the Eastern and Balkan fronts.

[11][25] Their operations were limited by Admiral Anton Haus, the commander of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, who believed that he would need to husband his ships to counter any Italian attempt to seize the Dalmatian coast.

Since coal was diverted to the newer Tegetthoff-class battleships, the remainder of the war saw Erzherzog Franz Ferdinand and the rest of the Austro-Hungarian Navy acting as a fleet in being.

[26] With his fleet blockaded in the Adriatic Sea, and with a shortage of coal, Haus enacted a strategy based on mines and submarines designed to reduce the numerical superiority of the Allied navies.

Italy originally intended to seize the three remaining Tegetthoff-class ships, but Italian frogmen sank SMS Viribus Unitis three days before the Armistice took effect.

[29] She was formally ceded to Italy under the terms of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, signed in September 1919, and was moved to Venice by sailors of the Regia Marina (Royal Italian Navy).