The Austro-Hungarian Navy (Kaiserliche und Königliche Kriegsmarine, shortened to k.u.k. Kriegsmarine) built a series of U-Boats between the 1907 and 1918 to defend its coastline and project naval power into the Adriatic and Mediterranean Seas in wartime. With the establishment of the Austrian Naval League in September 1904 and the appointment of Vice-Admiral Rudolf Montecuccoli to the post of Chief of the Naval Section of the War Ministry in October that same year, the k.u.k.