was the lead ship of the of battleships built for the French Navy in the 1930s. The class also included . The two ships were the first capital ships to be built by the French Navy after World War I; the planned and es had been cancelled at the outbreak of war, and budgetary problems prevented the French from building new battleships in the decade after the war. was laid down in December 1932, was launched October 1935, and was completed in May 1937. She was armed with a main battery of eight 330mm/50 Modèle 1931 guns arranged in two quadruple gun turrets and had a top speed of .
and formed the French Navy's (1st Division of the Line) prior to the Second World War. The two ships searched for German commerce raiders in the early months of the war, and also participated in convoy escort duties. The ship was badly damaged during the British attack at Mers-el-Kébir after the Armistice that ended the first phase of France's participation in World War II, but she was refloated and partially repaired to return to Toulon for comprehensive repairs. was scuttled in November 1942 to prevent her capture by the Germans, and subsequently seized and partially scrapped by the Italians and later the Germans. Her wreck remained in Toulon until she was stricken in 1955, and scrapped three years later.
Development
The French Navy's design staff spent the decade following the 1922 Washington Naval Treaty attempting to produce a satisfactory design to fill 70,000 tons as allowed by the treaty. Initially, the French sought a reply to the Italian s of 1925, but all proposals were rejected. A 17,500-ton cruiser, which could have handled the s, was inadequate against the old Italian battleships, however, and the 37,000-ton battlecruiser concepts were prohibitively expensive and would jeopardize further naval limitation talks. These attempts were followed by an intermediate design for a 23,690-ton protected cruiser in 1929; it was armed with guns, armored against guns, and had a speed of . Visually, it bore a profile strikingly similar to the final .
The German s became the new focus for French naval architects in 1929. The design had to respect the 1930 London Naval Treaty, which limited the French to two 23,333-ton ships until 1936. Drawing upon previous work, the French developed a 23,333-ton design armed with 305 mm guns, armored against the German cruisers' guns, and with a speed of . As with the final , the main artillery was concentrated entirely forward. The design was rejected by the French parliament in July 1931 and sent back for revision. The final revision grew to 26,500 tons; the 305 mm guns were replaced by 330mm/50 Modèle 1931 guns, the armor was slightly improved, and the speed slightly decreased. Parliamentary approval was granted in early 1932, and was ordered on 26 October.
Characteristics
displaced as built and fully loaded, with an overall length of , a beam of and a maximum draft of . She was powered by four Parsons geared steam turbines and six oil-fired Indret boilers, which developed a total of and yielded a maximum speed of . Her crew numbered between 1,381 and 1,431 officers and men. The ship carried a pair of spotter aircraft on the fantail, and the aircraft facilities consisted of a steam catapult and a crane to handle the floatplanes.
She was armed with eight 330mm/50 Modèle 1931 guns arranged in two quadruple gun turrets, both of which were placed in a superfiring pair forward of the superstructure. Her secondary armament consisted of sixteen /45 dual-purpose guns; these were mounted in three quadruple and two twin turrets. The quadruple turrets were placed on the stern, and the twin turrets were located amidships. Close range antiaircraft defense was provided by a battery of eight guns in twin mounts and thirty-two guns in quadruple mounts. The ship's belt armor was thick amidships, and the main battery turrets were protected by of armor plate on the faces. The main armored deck was thick, and the conning tower had thick sides.
Modifications was modified several times throughout her relatively short career. In 1937, a funnel cap was added and four of the 37 mm guns, which were the Modèle 1925 variant, were removed. These were replaced the following year with new Modèle 1933 guns. The 13.2 mm guns were also rearranged slightly, with the two mounts that were located abreast of the second main battery turret moved further aft. A new rangefinder was installed in 1940 on the fore tower.
Service history
Construction and working up was laid down in the Arsenal de Brest, on 24 December 1932, in the Salou graving dock number 4. The hull was completed except for the forward-most section, since the dock was only long. She was launched on 2 October 1935 and towed to Laninon graving dock number 8, where the bow was fitted. After that was completed, she was towed out to the to have her armament installed and begin fitting-out. Sea trials were carried out, starting on 18 April 1936, at which time her superstructure was not yet complete, and many of her secondary and anti-aircraft guns had not been installed. Two days later, she returned to Brest and had her machinery inspected before further trials through May. Her formal evaluation began on 22 May and continued until 9 October. On 4 February 1937, got underway for shooting trials to test the ship's secondary guns; she had aboard (VA—Vice Admiral) Morris and (CA—Rear Admiral) Rivet to observe the tests. Main battery tests were delayed by bad weather from 8 February to 11–14 February. VA François Darlan, the Chief of the Naval General Staff, came aboard on 3 March to observe further gunnery tests. The tests continued through April.
VA Devin, the (Prefect of the 2nd Maritime Region), came aboard on 15 May to take the ship to represent France at the Naval Review marking the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The ship left Brest on 17 May for the review and arrived back on 23 May. She participated in another review off the Île de Sein on 27 May, where she hosted Darlan and Alphonse Gasnier-Duparc, the Naval Minister. Gunnery testing resumed after the review and continued into mid-June, at which point she returned to the shipyard in Brest for further work. In late July, she went to sea for further trials before returning to Brest for additional work that lasted from 15 August to 14 October. In early 1938, the crew prepared the ship for her first major cruise to test her ability to operate at extended ranges, which began on 20 January. The voyage took the ship on a tour of French colonial possessions in the Atlantic; ports of call included Fort-de-France in the Antilles (from 31 January to 4 February) and Dakar, Senegal (from 25 February to 1 March). She returned to Brest on 6 March, thereafter conducting more gunnery testing on 11 March.
underwent another period of equipment inspections and gunnery testing after her return from the voyage that continued into May. From 1 to 4 July, she steamed to the English Channel to visit her namesake town, returning to Brest on 6 July by way of a stay in Saint-Vaast-la-Hougue on 4–5 July. George VI and Elizabeth were visiting Boulogne on 16 July, so left Brest that day in company with a group of warships to visit the British monarch there. got underway again on 22 July, bound for Calais, where she saluted the British Royal Family as they left for home. On 1 September, was finally pronounced ready for service and was assigned to the Atlantic Squadron, becoming the flagship of its commander, (Squadron Vice Admiral) Marcel-Bruno Gensoul.
Prewar service
After entering service, continued her training program, though she was now included in exercises with the rest of the squadron. At the time, the squadron included the three s (the 2nd Battle Division), three cruisers (the 4th Cruiser Division), the aircraft carrier , and numerous destroyers and torpedo boats. From 18 to 20 October, she took part in maneuvers with , two torpedo boats, and a sloop off the coast of Brittany. departed Brest on 8 November in company with and the 4th Cruiser Division for a visit to Cherbourg to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Armistice with Germany that ended World War I. The ships thereafter got underway for training exercises that concluded with a return to Brest on 17 November. then used the wreck of the old battleship as a target before returning to the shipyard for maintenance that lasted until 27 February 1939.
The next day, sortied to take part in maneuvers with the Atlantic Squadron off the Brittany coast; another stint in the shipyard for repairs followed from 17 March to 3 April. Gunnery training off the coast of Brittany from 4 to 7 April. In response to the Sudetenland Crisis over Nazi Germany's demand to annex the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia, the French naval command sent elements of the Atlantic Squadron, including , three light cruisers, and eight large destroyers, on 14 April to cover the training cruiser as it returned from a cruise to the French West Indies; at the time, a German squadron centered on the large heavy cruiser was off the coast of Spain. The ships returned to port two days later. On 24 April, the squadron was joined by s sister ship ; the two ships were designated the 1st Battle Division. The ships received identification stripes on their funnels, one for as division leader, and two for .
The squadron went to sea again the next day for exercises that lasted until 29 April. On 1 May, joined for the first time for a cruise to Lisbon, Portugal on 1 May, arriving there two days later for a celebration of the anniversary of Pedro Álvares Cabral's discovery of Brazil. The ships left Lisbon on 4 May and arrived in Brest three days later. There, they met a British squadron of warships that were visiting the port at the time. The two -class ships sortied on 23 May in company with the 4th Cruiser Division and three destroyer divisions for maneuvers held off the coast of Great Britain. and then visited a number of British ports, including Liverpool from 25 to 30 May, Oban from 31 May to 4 June, Staffa on 4 June, Loch Ewe from 5 to 7 June, Scapa Flow on 8 June, Rosyth from 9 to 14 June, before stopping in Le Havre, France from 16 to 20 June. The ships arrived back in Brest the next day. The squadron conducted more training off Brittany through July and into early August.
World War II
In August, as tensions with Germany were again heightened, this time over territorial demands on Poland, the French and British navies discussed coordination in the event of war with Germany; they agreed that the French would be responsible for covering Allied shipping south from the English Channel to the Gulf of Guinea in central Africa. To protect shipping from German commerce raiders, the French created the (Raiding Force), with and as its core. The group, which was under Gensoul's command, also included three light cruisers and eight large destroyers, and was based in Brest. British observers informed the French Navy that the German "pocket battleships" of the class had gone to sea in late August, bound for the Atlantic, and that contact with the vessels had been lost. On 2 September, the day after Germany invaded Poland, but before France and Britain declared war, the sortied from Brest to guard against a possible attack by the s. Upon learning that the German ships had been spotted in the North Sea, Gensoul ordered his ships to return to port after they met the French passenger liner in the Azores. The escorted the liner back to port and arrived in Brest on 6 September.