was an ironclad warship of the French Navy built in the 1870s. She was a hybrid central battery and barbette ship, and she was the first large warship in the world to use steel as a building material. The ship's design was heavily influenced by the French experience in the recent Franco-Prussian War, which demonstrated the need for a shallow draft, mixed sail and steam propulsion, and a heavy armament. was armed with a uniform main battery of eight guns, half in the central battery, three in revolving barbette mounts, and the last in the bow. She provided the basis for the subsequent s built later in the decade.
took part in routine training exercises through the 1880s and into the early 1890s, including shooting practice and large-scale fleet maneuvers. During this period, she operated with the Mediterranean Fleet. In the mid-1890s, the ship was modernized twice, upgrading her armament and her propulsion system. By that time, newer, more powerful pre-dreadnought battleships began to enter service, and was eventually displaced to the Northern Squadron in the English Channel. She was deployed to East Asia in 1900 in response to the Boxer Uprising in China, and she remained in French Indochina for the next several years. She had been reduced to reserve status by 1903, stationed in Saigon. was ultimately sold to local ship breakers in 1911 and was dismantled over the course of 1912.
Background In the midst of the French collapse during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, Vice Admiral Louis Pierre Alexis Pothuau became the naval minister in February 1871. France sued for peace the following month, and the war was formally concluded by the Treaty of Frankfurt on 10 May. In a report to the National Assembly on 19 August, the parliament member Daniel Ancel noted that the French fleet was still governed by the program that had been laid out in 1859 and that most of the required ships had been built, and he argued that a new fleet plan was needed given the French defeat just a few months earlier. In addition, the ironclad warships that had been built in the late 1850s and 1860s would soon begin to deteriorate as their wooden hulls aged. Ancel and Pothuau had already discussed the idea, and Pothuau had received a report from the (Director of Equipment) for recommendations for the new fleet program. Pothuau in turn passed the matter to the (Council of the Admiralty) for further discussion and to solicit its members for comment.
On 14 September, Pothuau sent the draft program to the (Board of Construction) and instructed the board to begin drawing up a list of specifications for the ships that would be built under the plan. By November, the board had completed their proposals, by which time the construction program had been finalized. A total of 157 ships would be built, a significant reduction from the number of vessels that had been called for under the 1859 plan; this amounted to a tacit abandonment of French competition with the British Royal Navy. Instead of competing with Britain, the French fleet would now orient its forces toward coastal defense and inshore operations against Germany. Even its sea-going battleships would be capable of operating in shallower coastal waters. Furthermore, all new ships were to be the equal of foreign contemporaries. The 1872 budget, which was submitted in the Assembly in December 1871, called for the construction of one large ironclad, among a number of other smaller warships.
Design
In the course of completing Pothuau's request for specifications for new ships, the completed its requirements for a 1st-class ironclad on 18 October 1871. The basic characteristics called for a ship that was long, capable of steaming at , and armed with four and six guns in a mix of casemates and open barbettes. Pothuau decided that the armament should be altered to six 274 mm guns and five 240 mm weapons. He then forwarded the specifications to the various French shipyards and solicited more detailed proposals.
Seven firms responded to the request by 21 June 1872, when the convened to evaluate them, ultimately selecting the proposal that had been designed by Louis de Bussy. His design allowed for six heavy guns to fire either ahead or astern, which the preferred. After revisions on 15 July and 5 November, de Bussy's design had increased in size to long and speed had grown slightly to . The four 240 mm guns were mounted on twin rotating platforms, which were placed side by side so they could both fire forward. De Bussy had also decided to incorporate steel into the hull, using it for the structural frames and much of the outer hull plating, although much of the underwater skin was iron instead. She was the first major warship to use steel as a major building material, predating any British steel warship by two years, in large part due to the superiority of the French iron industry at that time.
French lessons from the conflict with Prussia also influenced the design; de Bussy noted that because "in our epoch a battleship must more often operate on coasts than on the high seas", he adopted a full-ship rig, since the French blockade of Prussian ports had been significantly hampered by the need to continuously replenish coal stocks off Heligoland. Draft was reduced to permit use of the new ship close to shore, and a number of smaller guns were planned for use against coastal fortifications.
On 5 November, De Bussy argued that major revisions were needed, mainly due to his perception that the 240 mm gun was insufficiently powerful. He proposed increasing the 274 mm guns to but reducing the number of barrels from six to four; the 240 mm weapons in turn replaced by 274 mm guns, which were distributed in four single mounts, rather than in the two pairs. The weight savings obtained would then be used to increase armor protection. The 305 mm gun was a new weapon, and so four 274 mm guns were substituted in the battery and a pair of M1870 guns would be mounted on the upper deck. Pothuau approved the plan on 14 November.
The finalized design was approved on 14 November 1873, by which time work on the ship had already begun. Further revisions were made during construction, including an increase in the belt armor from in July 1875. In addition, the main battery was changed to a uniform armament of eight 274 mm guns. proved to be a successful, influential design, as many subsequent French capital ships copied most of her features, including her immediate successors, the two ships.
General characteristics and machinery
was long between perpendiculars, long at the waterline, and long overall. She had a beam of and an average draft of , which increased to aft. She displaced normally, which increased to at full load. As was standard for French capital ships of the period, she had a pronounced tumblehome shape and a prominent ram bow. The ship had a short forecastle at the bow and a raised platform amidships that included a small conning tower and a walkway above the main battery guns. Her hull included a double bottom for resistance to damage below the waterline, but it lacked any watertight compartmentalization. Her metacentric height measured . The crew numbered 30 officers and 679 enlisted men.
Her propulsion machinery consisted of three compound steam engines driving a single screw propeller. Each engine consisted of a pair of cylinders that could be decoupled so that reduced power could be applied for greater efficiency at lower speeds. The engines were manufactured by Schneider et Cie. Steam was provided by eight coal-burning fire-tube boilers that were vented through a single large funnel.
's engines were rated to produce , and on her initial speed trials, the system produced for a top speed of . Coal storage capacity amounted to . The ship had a cruising radius of at an economical speed of . To supplement the steam engines, she was equipped with a three-masted full-ship rig.
Armament and armor was armed with a main battery of eight M1875, 19.75-caliber guns. Four of these were carried in the central battery in armored casemates, which was sponsoned out over the hull to allow the guns to fire directly ahead or astern. Two more guns were in open barbette mounts placed on the upper deck atop the battery; one was in the forecastle, and the last was on the upper deck at the stern. The three upper-deck guns were fitted with armored gun shields. The positioning of the guns emphasized all-around firing, which came at the cost of limited broadside firepower, which meant that under most bearings, only one battery gun could engage a single target.
The main guns were supported by a secondary battery of six guns, all of which were placed on the upper deck; one pair was located ahead of the battery and the other two pairs were placed aft of it. Close-range defense was provided by a tertiary battery of eight Hotchkiss revolver cannon. Her armament was rounded out by four torpedo tubes that were in the hull above the waterline, two per side.
The ship's armor consisted of wrought iron. Her belt armor covered the entire length of the hull. It was in the central section of the ship, where it protected the ammunition magazines and the propulsion machinery spaces. Toward the bow, the belt tapered down to , and the stern section was reduced to . The belt extended from below the waterline to above the line. Directly above the belt, the main battery guns were protected with of iron armor on the sides, which were connected at either end by transverse bulkheads that were thick.
The forward section of the ship was protected by an armor deck that was and was connected to the belt; it extended from the front of the battery to the bow and from the rear of the battery to the stern. The battery itself did not have horizontal armor protection. 's conning tower received of iron plating on the sides and on the top. The main-deck gun shields were thick.
Modifications
underwent a series of modifications and two major refits over the course of her career. Several relatively minor changes were made over the course of the 1880s. In 1882, a gun shield was added to the aft main gun, which had not originally received one. Her sailing rig was reduced slightly to a barque rig in 1883, and was cut down even further in 1886 to a barquentine rig. At that time, she also received new boilers. Two years later, her bowsprit was removed. More work in 1890 saw several light guns added to provide better defense against torpedo boats. She then carried a pair of guns, eight M1885 quick-firing (QF) guns, one 47 mm Hotchkiss revolver, and sixteen 37 mm Hotchkiss revolvers.
A more significant refit took place between 1893 and 1894 at Toulon. 's sailing rig was removed and a pair of heavy military masts were installed. Her main battery guns were replaced with newer models; the battery, amidships barbette, and bow guns were all replaced with 28.5-caliber M1881 guns, while the stern mount received an M1884 gun of 30 caliber. The existing gun mounts were retained, which meant that the longer (and thus higher velocity) guns could only be fired with reduced propellant charges. The light battery was significantly expanded, and now consisted of two 65 mm guns, fourteen 47 mm quick-firing guns, one 47 mm Hotchkiss revolver, six 37 mm M1885 quick-firing guns, and fourteen 37 mm Hotchkiss revolvers. Schneider et Cie converted the compound engines into triple-expansion steam engines by replacing the central compound engine with a high-pressure cylinder that fed steam into the remaining engines; when cruising at lower speeds, the high-pressure cylinder could be bypassed. Following the conversion, was capable of steaming at for long periods and could reach for brief sprints.