His first wife was the granddaughter of Robert Whitehead, who invented the torpedo, first tested around 1860 in the bay at Fiume for the Austrian Navy. He developed it with a Italian who had been in the A-H Navy, and his son John. I don’t recall who John married (if she was British or not), but John’s daughter Agathe married Georg. Robert worked on commission for a lot of countries, but sold his patents to UK weapons manufacturer Vickers...and Agathe inherited a lot of money. Robert also had a daughter who married the Austrian who commanded the gunboat that tested the first torpedo.
I have a spouse who does a lot of military history (including alternate history, like Germany winning the Great War, and fantasy retelling of the Balkan Wars, etc.). My collection of theatre books is impressive, but the military history here dwarfs it significantly.
Laura, historian at large |
