the dreadnoughts, choosing to name the first ship using his own personal motto, Viribus Unitis (Latin: "With United Forces"), while the fourth ship in the class would be named Szent István after the Hungarian king and saint, Stephen I. Commissioning When Viribus Unitis was commissioned on 6 October 1912, she was at the time the most expensive warship ever to be constructed. The Italian Dante Alighieri had been laid down before Viribus Unitis but was not commissioned until January 1913. This meant Austria-Hungary became the sixth nation, after the United Kingdom, Germany, Brazil, the United States, and Japan to possess a dreadnought battleship. Montecuccoli addressed the Austrian and Hungarian Parliaments on 15 October 1912 and laid out his vision for the role the Tegetthoff class would play in naval policy. Declaring that Austria-Hungary had become "a Mediterranean power" in light of her new dreadnoughts, Montecuccoli expected that the new class of battleships would help Austria-Hungary "assume our proper place among the Mediterranean powers". Viribus Unitis was soon followed by Tegetthoff, the namesake of the class, on 14 July 1913. During her gunnery trials, a discharge from one of the main guns of Tegetthoff damaged the staterooms of the ship's officers. Prinz Eugen was commissioned on 8 July 1914, ten days after Archduke Franz Ferdinand's assassination in Sarajevo. Expansion of the Graz-Danubius shipyards in Fiume delayed the launching and christening of Szent István until 17 January 1914. Though it was customary for either the Emperor or his heir to be present at the launching of a major warship, Franz Joseph was too feeble and his heir, Franz Ferdinand, refused to be there due to his anti-Hungarian attitudes. Franz Joseph sent a telegram of congratulations to avoid controversy, and the ceremony was presided over by Archduchess Maria Theresa who launched it with the words: "Slip out and may the protection of the Almighty be with you on all your ways!" Also present at the ceremony was Hungarian Prime Minister Tisza, Minister of Finance János Teleszky, and Minister to the Imperial Court Stephan Burián von Rajecz. As the German cruiser had recently been refitted at Trieste, her officers also attended the ceremony. During the launching itself there was an accident when the starboard anchor had to be dropped to prevent the ship from hitting a ship carrying spectators of the celebrations, but the anchor chain had not been shackled to the ship and