French Battleship Bouvet (1898)
Bouvet was arguably the most successful of the 1890s generation of French battleships. She presented a haughty entry and less futuristic masts the Marceau type used in the Jauréguiberry -- employing instead the type of hexagonal gunhouse used in Masséna and the Charlemagne class ships. Named for the French Admiral François Joseph Bouvet, she was built at the Arsenal de Lorient, laid down in 1893 and completed in 1898. Her tumble-home hull shape and lack of effective watertight subdivision were to prove fatal when she went to war, but in the 17 intervening years, she was considered a crack ship. Her lines were closely followed in developing the 3-ship Charlemagne class, completed 1899, but the Charlmagnes mounted twin turrets bow and stern on a slightly smaller (11,300-ton) displacement, beginning the move away from the classic "diamond pattern" armament layout.
Bouvet had a somewhat less extreme appearance than other contemporary French battleships, particularly her near sister Masséna. Her entry was longer, with a foredeck that sloped forwards, welcoming in the seas and contributing to the ship's rambunctious ride. The lower foredeck broke in front of the fore turret, giving some protection from spray for the forward guns (left), though as usual in French design of the period, the forward gun was placed well forward, giving modern observers one more reason to wonder of French naval architects, what were they thinking? The peculiar bow is difficult to interpret in contemporary photos of the ship, as is the beam armament. Poorly seen in most photographs, it consisted an elongated, elliptical 10.8" turret book-ended by two round single 5.5" turrets.
Bouvet was said to handle as vilely as her 1890s contemporaries in the French fleet, sharing their propensity for sickening, groggy rolling -- a stability problem caused by the excessive tumble-home and slender beam of their design; a problem even retrofitted bilge keels could not amend. In watertight subdivision she was deficient, relying predominantly on longitudinal bulkheads like her French contemporaries. When added to her sluggishness in righting herself, this was to prove deadly, making her prone to capsize. But there were amenities aboard. Internal electric elevators took the watch up to their stations in the ship's fighting tops. There was also a tiny fantail directly over the steering flat, about big enough for 2-3 sailors to stand and smoke (see at right).Like other French ships of her generation, Bouvet had Belleville boilers, electrically operated turrets with all-round loading capability, and triple screw propulsion. Built at Lorient, Bouvet was one of the first French battleships to employ Harvey armor, an improved process manufactured in France under license from the U.S. inventor, under the name acier special durci. France was somewhat behind the rest of the world in armor technology; Britain had already switched from Harvey to the improved Krupp Cemented (KC) process by the time Bouvet joined the fleet. But the sprawling German arms conglomerate of Krupp AG held the patent to the KC manufacturing process. Due to the political and military rivalry between Germany and France, Krupps withheld permission to license manufacture of their state-of-the-art armor process from the French until well after the turn of the century, deliberately increasing the lag between the French navy and the Kaiser's own burgeoning fleet.
Bouvet's main belt was about 7'4" wide and extended four feet below the waterline, tapering from 16" at its midpoint to 8" at the lower edge. There was also a 4" upper belt carrying one deck up the sides and shielding the hoists of the wing turrets. As was standard in the French fleet at the time, there was a separate splinter deck below the main armored deck, bending down to meet the top of the main belt at the sides of the ship. Above right, section through the Bouvet at frame 8 shows the extreme tumble-home shape of the hull sides. The boat deck was cantilevered over the secondary guns on the beam. These turrets are poorly seen in most photographs, but the 10.8" guns were in elliptical turrets (actually more rectangular with rounded ends) while the 5.5" single turrets on either side of it were cylindrical in shape. An old picture from Jane's Fighting Ships 1906-7 shows this detail well. The guns rode about 21 feet (6.4m) above the waves except the bow turret, which was 28 feet (8.5m) above the waterline, but sited so close to the bow as to be frequently drenched in spray -- a standard practice in the French service at the time.
Specifications for the Bouvet:
Dimensions: 397' x 70'2" x 28'4" Length OA: 401'3" Displacement: 12,205 tons. Armament: (2) 12"/40 cal M1893 (2x1), (2) 10.8"/40 cal M1893 (2x1), (8) 5.5"/45 M1891, (8) 3.9", (12) 3-pdr, and (20) 1-pdr guns; (4) 18" torpedo tubes, two each submerged and above water. Armor: Harvey type. 16"/12"/10" belt; 14.75" turret; 10" conning tower; 8" barbette; 4" secondary turrets and upper belt; 3½" deck; 1½" splinter deck. Fuel capacity: 620 tons of coal normal; 800, maximum. Propulsion: 24 Belleville M1894 water-tube boilers in three groups; (3) vertical inverted triple expansion engines developing 14,400 hp, shafted to triple screw. Speed: 18 knots. Cruising radius: 3,590 nm. Crew: 666. Cost: £1,200,000 at 1896 valuation.
Metric specifications:
Dimensions: 121m x 21.4m x 8.63m Length OA: 122.3m Displacement: 12,205 tons. Armament: (2) 305 mm/30 cal (2x1), (2) 274 mm/40 cal M1893 (2x1), (8) 174 mm M1891 (8x1), (8) 100 mm, (12) 3-pdr, and (20) 1-pdr guns; (4) 45 cm torpedo tubes, two each submerged and above water. Armor: Harvey type. 406/305/254 mm belt; 375 mm turret; 254 mm conning tower; 203 mm barbette; 100 mm secondary turrets and upper belt; 90 mm deck; 38 mm splinter deck. Fuel capacity: 620 tons of coal normal; 800, maximum. Propulsion: 24 Belleville M1894 water-tube boilers in three groups; (3) vertical inverted triple expansion engines developing 10,738 kW, shafted to triple screw. Speed: 33.3 km/hr. Cruising radius: 6,649 km. Crew: 666. Cost: £1,200,000 at 1896 valuation.
In the Great War Bouvet, like so many other pre-dreadnoughts, was assigned to the assault on Gallipoli. Reflecting Churchill's original vision of the campaign, the first action was an attempt to force the Straits by naval power alone. The first stage was to be heavy bombardment of the defending forts at the Narrows. The bombardment was to be performed by a mighty armada, led by the British superdreadnought Queen Elizabeth and battlecruiser Inflexible, the semi-dreadnought gunships Lord Nelson and Agamemnon, and otherwise consisting of eight British and four French pre-dreadnoughts. Before the Allies arrived in early 1915, the Turks and their German advisors had obstructed the Dardanelles leading up to the Narrows with booms, chains, and ten discrete minefields, mostly sown by the minelayer Nusret, built in Germany in 1910 and still extant at Tarsus.
The joint Franco-British fleet of 16 battleships sailed in to bombard the defenses on March 18, 1915 after only a perfunctory minesweeping operation. After loosing several broadsides, each ship in turn had to circle around behind the firing line and rotate up again. Once the fortifications were reduced and resistance ceased, the fleet was to muscle its way into the Narrows and on to Istanbul. But the ancient fortifications, largely manned by German gun crews, put up an unexpectedly stiff resistance. Bouvet took 8 hits from shore fortifications during her first at-bat; her forward 12" turret was knocked out. As she went about to starboard, performing the turn-around maneuver, she struck a mine amidships which blew up a magazine (probably the starboard 10.8"). Promptly and inexorably, Bouvet rolled over and sank. In less than two minutes she was gone, taking with her 640 members (96%) of her crew. The British battleships Ocean and Irresistible were also sunk by mines later that day (although they managed to stay afloat for some hours and avert the catastrophic loss of life which marked Bouvet's demise). The French battleships Suffren and Gaulois were badly damaged as well, Suffren by mines and Gaulois by Turkish gunfire. Inflexible too was damaged after hitting two mines, and was lucky to reach Malta in time for repairs; accompanied by Gaulois, being towed backward. Although these older ships were deemed expendable, the actual sight of brave seamen being killed and ships foundering -- the suddenness and the finality -- chilled those in a position to see the sacrifice.
All round, 18 March had been a bloody rotten show for the Allies. Although they had nearly succeeded in silencing the Narrows forts, a few guns still spoke from shore; the invaders withdrew in some confusion rather than press their advantage. Undetected mines were not immediately suspected as the cause of the sudden and deadly losses.
Bouvet had always been a crack ship, one of the handsomest in the French fleet, and her sudden loss caused dismay in France; though amid the torrent of terrible news and slaughter in that first year of WWI it tended to get lost; it did not become a defining moment in the way the sinking of the Hood would for Britons in 1941. But the disastrous losses of March 18 (among which the shocking sudden end of Bouvet stood out as the worst case) convinced the British C-in-C, Admiral de Robeck, to switch tactics. De Robeck and, in turn, the Allied high command came to back a land invasion of Gallipoli supported by naval gunfire. At Whitehall Churchill (author of the original Gallipoli operation) quickly assented, perceiving how the ballooning size of the campaign could inflate his powers, and his prestige if victory followed. The rest, as they say, is history.
Ever wonder what the 1890s French fleet looked like on maneuvers? Well, wonder no more, but feast your eyes. At right is Bouvet, her patented stepped-down bow slicing through the Mediterranean billows, while the Jauréguiberry wallows along beside her.
Here is Bouvet, wearing her largest ensign, anchored in the roadstead at Bizerta, attended by native feluccas. Enlarged view
Quarter view across the bow of a large armored cruiser. Judging by the fluttering signal flags, the volume of smoke issuing from the funnels, and the crewmen standing by at stations, this squadron is preparing to weigh anchor for exercises. Click here for marvelous enlarged view.
