the Adriatic with the battle fleet, while smaller vessels, such as MAS torpedo boats, conducted raids on Austro-Hungarian ships and installations. Meanwhile, Revel's battleships would be preserved to confront the Austro-Hungarian battle fleet in the event that it sought a decisive engagement. In 1919 she sailed to North America and visited ports in the United States as well as Halifax, Canada. The ship was mostly inactive in 1921 because of personnel shortages, and was refitted at La Spezia from November to March 1922. Conte di Cavour and Giulio Cesare supported Italian operations on Corfu in 1923 after an Italian general and his staff were murdered at the Greek–Albanian frontier; Italian leader Benito Mussolini, who had been looking for a pretext to seize Corfu, ordered Italian troops to occupy the island. Conte di Cavour bombarded the main town on the island with her 76 mm guns, killing 20 civilians and wounding 32. She escorted King Victor Emmanuel III and his wife aboard Dante Alighieri on a state visit to Spain in 1924, and was placed in reserve upon her return until 1926, when, in April, she conveyed Mussolini on a voyage to Libya. The ship was again placed in reserve from 1927 until 1933, when she began her reconstruction. World War II Early in World War II, the Conte di Cavour and her sister took part in the Battle of Calabria (also known as the Battle of Punta Stilo) on 9 July 1940. They were part of the 1st Battle Squadron, commanded by Admiral Inigo Campioni, when they engaged major elements of the British Mediterranean Fleet. The British were escorting a convoy from Malta to Alexandria, while the Italians had finished escorting another from Naples to Benghazi, Italian Libya. Vice Admiral Andrew Cunningham, commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, attempted to interpose his ships between the Italians and their base at Taranto. Crews on the fleets spotted each other in the middle of the afternoon and the Italian battleships opened fire at 15:53 at a range of nearly . The two leading British battleships, and , replied a minute later. Three minutes after she opened fire, shells from Giulio Cesare began to straddle Warspite which made a small turn and increased speed, to throw off the Italian ship's aim, at 16:00. At the same time, a shell from Warspite struck Giulio Cesare at a distance of about . Uncertain how severe the