French Battleship Masséna (1898)

Some critics contend that, among the pantheon of monstrosities that was the French navy of the time, Masséna took the all-time crown for utter hideousness among battleships. While others have contended that those eyeless monstrosities the Neptune and Magenta of 1892 deserve consideration, this writer feels that, on balance, the Masséna has the better claim. It is as though, pausing to contemplate what they had wrought, French designers gasped in disbelief and began the retreat towards more sensible, better-handling hulls. It is as though Masséna set a limit to outrageousness and sent the pendulum swinging backwards. For the next 10 years after she completed, however,the French navy remained a floating freak show with its many one-off designs and bizarrely sculpted hulls.

The ship was an improvement on the Charles Martel class battleships built 1891-97, being laid down in 1892 by Ateliers et Chantiers de Loire, Nantes, and completed in 1898. Together with her half-sister Bouvet, she was among the last of the 9 battleships built for the French Navy in the Nineties. Her version of tumble-home was unique: almost straight-up sides, with a monstrous bulge (containing a protective cellular layer) suddenly jutting out only 6 feet above the waterline. Where the beam turrets on the Martels had been buried in the ships' voluptuous flanks, with only the gunhouse protruding from the top, Masséna's popped up like periscopes from the top of the blister. Four of the eight single 5.5" turrets were paired with the 10.8" rather than the main guns, which somewhat improved blast interference but made up for it with spray and weather problems, being so exposed to the elements. Masséna's exaggerated, bulbous plow ram and flat hull studded with square scuttles, like a factory wall, made her perhaps the ugliest of French battleships, and the most industrial-looking. The two funnels were huge, oblong and flat, No. 1 much larger than No. 2, and often had weird-looking clinker screens mounted on top. (Weird-looking clinker screens and funnel caps were a specialty of the Marine Nationale, and changed nearly as often as the Paris fashions. Unlikely masts were another specialty.)

The fighting tops on the masts were octagonal -- a common design with her contemporaries the Iéna and Bouvet -- providing a different approach than had been seen since the advent of Marceau in 1891. Almost continuously rigged with pyramidal shaped awnings at top, they lent a curious complex shape to the ships so equipped. The ship featured prominent anchor cranes at the bow, enormous vent cowls, unusual and elaborate davits. She is seen at top with a very early aeroplane passing overhead. The photographer has wisely concentrated on his main subject.

The scene at right shows the ship's stepped-down bows, anchor cranes, and complex arrangement of davits. Clearly extra reach was needed to swing the boats from the narrow superstructure out past the blister and into the water. One assumes there was a clear method for denoting which falls belonged to which boat! One can also see that the French still favored the time-honored "hook" form of anchor, complete with wooden stock, when the British, Italians and Germans had already adopted the modern stockless anchor. This shot emphasizes the ship's massiveness, and its factory-like features. One can also see the nearness of the forward 12" gun to the ship's stem; an improvement on the Jauréguiberry's layout perhaps, but not enough of one.

Specifications for the Masséna:
Dimensions: 112.6 m x 20.2 m x 8.8 m (370' x 66'3" x 29'). Displacement: 12,007 tons. Armament: (2) 12"/30 cal, (2) 10.8"/45 cal, (8) 5.5", (8) 3.9", (12) 3-pdr, (4) 18" torpedo tubes. Nickel-steel armor: 18" belt; 2.76" deck; 14" turret' 14" conning tower. Fuel bunkerage: 980 tons coal. Propulsion: 24 Belleville water-tube boilers; (3) 14,200-HP triple-expansion engines, shafted to triple screw; 17 knots. Cruising radius: 3,520 nm. Crew: 644.

The ship was named for Marshal André Masséna, Duc de Rivoli, who led the Napoleonic armies against the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular Campaign. Following many years of loyal service, Masséna herself went to war in 1915. She was disabled by mines while supporting the Gallipoli invasion. Her crew beached her at Seddul Bahr in November 1915 close to the ancient French cargo-liner Saghalien (Sakhalin), the two grounded ships forming a breakwater to cover the year-end evacuation of Allied troops. There the two hulks -- the massive, factory-like Massena streaked with rust, and the modest and portly China steamer just astern -- lay abandoned when the Turks reclaimed their territory. Masséna became a rich source of scrap metal for the locals in after years; her fate no worse than many of her contemporaries, nearly all of which went to the knackers' within 5 years of the Armistice. Thankfully Masséna's crew escaped disaster, which too often overtook all hands when their ship ran into trouble in the First World War.

A MASSÉNA PICTURE GALLERY

Masséna at anchor, in a colourised postcard view.

Masséna dashing through the waves.

Masséna - bow view, in harbor at Toulon.

Docked at Brest, 1900. Note the destroyer Baliste berthed at right. Click here to enlarge.

Masséna making speed in the Mediterranean.