SMS Csepel was one of six Tátra-class destroyers built for the kaiserliche und königliche Kriegsmarine (Austro-Hungarian Navy) shortly before the First World War. Completed in 1913, she helped to sink an Italian destroyer during the in May 1915 after Italy declared war on Austria-Hungary. Two months later the ship participated in an unsuccessful attempt to recapture a small island in the central Adriatic Sea from the Italians. In November and early December Csepel was one of the ships conducting raids off the Albanian coast to interdict the supply lines between Italy and Albania. She was hit one time during the First Battle of Durazzo in late December. Her stern was blown off by a French submarine in early 1916 and her repairs were not completed until early 1917.