SMS Zenta was the lead ship of the of protected cruisers built for the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the late 1890s. The class included two other vessels, and . The Zentas were intended to serve as fleet scouts and to guard the battleships against attacks by torpedo boats. She carried a main battery of eight guns manufactured by Škoda; Zenta and her sisters were the first major warships of the Austro-Hungarian fleet to be armed entirely with domestically produced guns. Unlike earlier Austro-Hungarian cruisers, the Zenta class discarded heavy belt armor in favor of a higher top speed. After entering service in 1899, Zenta was sent to East Asia to represent Austria-Hungary in the region. She was involved in the Boxer Rebellion in Qing China in 1900, sending landing parties ashore as part of the Eight-Nation Alliance to guard the Legation Quarter and to fight in the Battle of the Taku Forts. Zenta returned home in 1901 and was sent on another long-distance cruise in 1902–1903 to visit various ports in Africa and South America. The ship served in home waters beginning in 1904, spending her time with training exercises. In 1913, during the First Balkan War, she participated in the blockade of Montenegro by an international fleet. At the start of World War I in July 1914, Zenta was sent to the southern end of the Adriatic Sea to attack targets in Montenegro. She was cruising off that country's coast to enforce another blockade on 16 August when she and the destroyer encountered the main French battle fleet. In the ensuing Battle of Antivari, Zenta was sunk by the French battleships, with heavy loss of life as the French failed to pick up survivors. Some 139 men, including her commander Paul Pachner, swam to shore, where they were captured by Montenegrin forces and imprisoned until 1916 when the Austro-Hungarian Army overran the country. Design In January 1895, the senior officers of the Austro-Hungarian Navy decided to build two types of modern cruisers: large armored cruisers of around and smaller vessels of around . The latter were intended to screen the battleships of the main fleet, scouting for enemy vessels and protecting them from torpedo boat attacks. The chief constructor, Josef Kuchinka, prepared the initial design based on specifications that had been issued by the naval command, though by the time his design was finally approved in mid-1897, it had grown