was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the French Navy in the mid-1900s. She was the second member of the , which included three other vessels and was a derivative of the preceding , with the primary difference being the inclusion of a heavier secondary battery. carried a main battery of four guns, like the , but mounted ten guns for her secondary armament in place of the guns of the earlier vessels. Like many late pre-dreadnought designs, was completed after the revolutionary British battleship had entered service and rendered her obsolescent.
Even before being commissioned into service with the fleet, carried President Armand Fallières on a tour of the Baltic Sea in 1908. After formally entering service, was assigned to the 2nd Division of the Mediterranean Squadron, based in Toulon. She then embarked on the normal peacetime training routine of squadron and fleet maneuvers and cruises to various ports in the Mediterranean. She also participated in several naval reviews for a number of French and foreign dignitaries. In September 1909, the ships of the 2nd Division crossed the Atlantic to the United States to represent France at the Hudson–Fulton Celebration.
Following the outbreak of World War I in July 1914, was used to escort troopship convoys carrying elements of the French Army from French North Africa to face the Germans invading northern France. She thereafter steamed to contain the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the Adriatic Sea, taking part in the minor Battle of Antivari in August. The ship was transferred to the Dardanelles Division in September, bombarded Ottoman coastal fortifications in November, and thereafter patrolled for contraband being shipped into the Ottoman Empire until mid-December, when she left the area. She saw little activity until 1916 when the Allies began an effort to force Greece to enter the war on their side; she shot down a German zeppelin over Salonika in May and joined a blockade of the country in December. saw little further activity for the rest of the war, was placed in reserve in 1919 after the war ended, and was sold to Italian ship breakers in 1921.
Design
The -class battleships were originally intended to be part of the , which was to total six ships. After work on the first two ships had begun, the British began construction of the s. These ships carried a heavy secondary battery of guns, which prompted the French Naval General Staff to request that the last four s be redesigned to include a heavier secondary battery in response. Ironically, the designer, Louis-Émile Bertin, had proposed such an armament for the class, but the General Staff had rejected it since the larger guns had a lower rate of fire than the smaller guns that had been selected for the design. Because the ships were broadly similar apart from their armament, the s are sometimes considered to be a sub-class of the type.
was long overall and had a beam of and an average draft of . She displaced up to at full load. The battleship was powered by three vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one propeller shaft using steam provided by twenty-two Belleville boilers. They were rated at and provided a top speed of . Coal storage amounted to , which provided a maximum range of at a cruising speed of . She had a crew of 32 officers and 710 enlisted men.
s main battery consisted of four Modèle 1893/96 guns mounted in two twin-gun turrets, one forward and one aft of the superstructure. The secondary battery consisted of ten Modèle 1902 guns; six were mounted in single turrets, and four in casemates in the hull. She also carried thirteen Modèle 1902 guns and ten Modèle 1902 guns for defense against torpedo boats. The ship was also armed with two torpedo tubes, which were submerged in the hull on the broadside.
The ship's main belt was thick in the central citadel, and was connected to two armored decks; the upper deck was thick while the lower deck was thick, with sloped sides. The main battery guns were protected by up to of armor on the fronts of the turrets, while the secondary turrets had of armor on the faces. The casemates were protected with of steel plate. The conning tower had thick sides.
Modifications Over the course of 1912 through 1914, the navy tried to modify and her sister to allow the 305 mm guns to be aimed continuously. Tests to determine whether the main battery turrets could be modified to increase the elevation of the guns (and hence their range) proved to be impossible, but the Navy determined that tanks on either side of the vessel could be flooded to induce a heel of 2 degrees. This increased the maximum range of the guns from . New motors were installed in the secondary turrets in 1915–1916 to improve their training and elevation rates. Also in 1915, the 47 mm guns located on either side of the bridge were removed and the two on the aft superstructure were moved to the roof of the rear turret. On 8 December 1915, the naval command issued orders that the light battery was to be revised to eight of the 47 mm guns and ten guns. The light battery was revised again in 1916, with four 47 mm guns being converted with high-angle anti-aircraft mounts. They were placed atop the rear main battery turret and the number 7 and 8 secondary turret roofs. In 1912–1913, the ship received two Barr & Stroud rangefinders. To direct the anti-aircraft guns, she received a rangefinder, which was installed on the aft superstructure.
Service history Construction – 1910
was laid down at the shipyard in Lormont in April 1903, launched on 28 May 1907, and completed on 11 September 1908, over a year after the revolutionary British battleship entered service, which rendered the pre-dreadnoughts like outdated before they were completed. Before entering service, on 5 July, (VA—Vice Admiral) Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère came aboard the ship to command a flotilla that included the armored cruiser , the destroyers and , and the torpedo cruiser that was to carry President Armand Fallières for a tour of the Baltic Sea. The ships cruised north to Dunkirk, where Fallières embarked on , and then continued on into the Baltic, stopping in Copenhagen, Denmark and Stockholm, Sweden. In the latter city, King Gustaf V of Sweden visited . From there, the ships steamed to Reval, where Czar Nicholas II of Russia visited the ships. The squadron arrived back in Brest on 6 August.
After commissioning on 11 September, departed Brest for Toulon on 15 September, arriving there on 1 October. She was assigned to the 2nd Division of the Mediterranean Squadron, along with her sisters (the divisional flagship) and . The 2nd Division ships visited Bizerte in October. The entire squadron was moored in Villefranche in February 1909 and thereafter conducted training exercises off Corsica, followed by a naval review in Villefranche for Fallières on 26 April. On 30 December, , , and the destroyers and carried relief aid to Messina, Sicily to help survivors of an earthquake there.
did not operate with the 2nd Division in the first half of 1909. Instead, she joined the rest of the fleet on 27 July for a naval review with the combined Mediterranean and Northern Squadrons in Le Havre for Fallières and Nicholas II, who was visiting the country at the time. A major reception for the two was held aboard that night. On 12 September, and the other 2nd Division battleships departed Brest, bound for the United States. There they represented France during the Hudson–Fulton Celebration, which marked the 300th anniversary of the European discovery of the Hudson River. The ships arrived back in Toulon on 27 October. joined , , , , and for a simulated attack on the port of Nice on 18 February 1910. The ships of the 1st Squadron held training exercises off Sardinia and Algeria from 21 May to 4 June, followed by combined maneuvers with the 2nd Squadron from 7 to 18 June. An outbreak of typhoid among the crews of the battleships in early December forced the navy to confine them to Golfe-Juan to contain the fever. By 15 December, the outbreak had subsided.
1911–1914 On 16 April 1911, hosted Fallières, the Naval Minister Théophile Delcassé, and Charles Dumont, the Minister of Public Works, Posts and Telegraphs, on a cruise to Bizerte in company with the rest of the fleet. They arrived two days later and held a fleet review that included two British battleships, two Italian battleships, and a Spanish cruiser on 19 April. The fleet returned to Toulon on 29 April, where Fallières doubled the crews' rations and suspended any punishments to thank the men for their performance. By 1 August, the battleships of the had begun to enter service, and they were assigned to the 1st Squadron, displacing the and -class ships to the 2nd Squadron. On 4 September, both squadrons held a major fleet review for Fallières off Toulon. The fleet then departed on 11 September for maneuvers off Golfe-Juan and Marseille, returning to Toulon on 16 September. On 25 September, was destroyed by a magazine explosion, the result of the spontaneous combustion of nitrocellulose gel in her propellant magazines. Debris hurled by the explosion damaged several nearby battleships, including , though her crew avoided any casualties. Despite the accident, the fleet continued with its normal routine of training exercises and cruises for the rest of the year. These included trips to Les Salins, Le Lavandou, and Porquerolles through 15 December.
In January 1912, left Bizerte and joined , the battleship , and the destroyers and , which were steaming to Malta. The five vessels arrived in Valletta on 22 January, where they met King George V and Queen Mary of Britain, then returning from their voyage to India that year. The 2nd Squadron conducted in maneuvers in April 1912, and on 25 April, and steamed to the Hyères roadstead for gunnery training. The two ships, joined by , left Toulon on 21 May for a set of exercises held between Marseille and Villefranche; while at sea, joined them. had now- (Admiral) Boué de Lapeyrère and the British Prince of Wales aboard. Boué de Lapeyrère inspected both battleship squadrons in Golfe-Juan from 2 to 12 July, after which the ships cruised first to Corsica and then to Bizerte. From there, Boué de Lapeyrère transferred to for the voyage back to Toulon, and upon arriving there shifted his flag to the battleship . On 20 August, the alarm was sounded aboard the ship in Toulon when crewmen noticed thick black smoke pouring from the magazines, prompting fears that the magazines had caught fire. Instead, it turned out that there was a problem with the ventilation system from the boiler rooms, leading to an accumulation of smoke in the boilers.
In early 1913, and the rest of the 2nd Squadron took part in training exercises off Le Lavandou. The French fleet, which by then included sixteen battleships, held large-scale maneuvers between Toulon and Sardinia beginning on 19 May. The exercises concluded with a fleet review for President Raymond Poincaré. Gunnery practice followed from 1 to 4 July. The 2nd Squadron departed Toulon on 23 August with the armored cruisers and and two destroyer flotillas to conduct training exercises in the Atlantic. While en route to Brest, the ships stopped in Tangier, Royan, Le Verdon, La Pallice, Quiberon Bay, and Cherbourg. They reached Brest on 20 September, where they met a Russian squadron of four battleships and five cruisers. The ships then steamed back south, stopping in Cádiz, Tangier, Mers El Kébir, Algiers, and Bizerte before ultimately arriving back in Toulon on 1 November. During this cruise, while moored in Cádiz, broke free from her anchor and nearly collided with the Spanish ironclad battleship . Her stokers quickly got steam up in the boilers, which enabled her to avoid the collision. On 3 December, , , , and conducted torpedo training and range-finding drills.