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French battleship Gaulois (1896)
Encyclopedia
The Gaulois was a pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought
Pre-dreadnought battleship is the general term for all of the types of sea-going battleships built between the mid-1890s and 1905. Pre-dreadnoughts replaced the ironclad warships of the 1870s and 1880s...
battleship
Battleship
A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...
of the French Navy
French Navy
The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...
.
In 1915, along with her sister-ship Charlemagne
French battleship Charlemagne (1895)
The Charlemagne was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the French Navy. In 1915, along with her sister-ship Gaulois, she took part in the Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign, under admiral Émile Paul Amable Guépratte. She was named after Charlemagne, a famous Frankish king.-Design:The...
, she took part in the Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign
Naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign
The naval operations in the Dardanelles Campaign of the First World War were mainly carried out by the Royal Navy with substantial support from the French and minor contributions from Russia and Australia. The Dardanelles Campaign began as a purely naval operation...
, under admiral Guépratte
Émile Paul Amable Guépratte
Émile Paul Aimable Guépratte was a French admiral.Guépratte was born in Granville to a family of naval officers. He studied at the Lycée impérial in Brest from 1868, and joined the École Navale on 1 October 1871....
. The French squadron was leading the assault, and the Gaulois suffered hits from the Turkish forts. She was seriously damaged and in danger of sinking when the Bouvet
French battleship Bouvet
The Bouvet was a French pre-dreadnought battleship, launched in 1896 and sunk by a mine in 1915 during World War I.Bouvet, named for the maritime family of Bouvet de Lozier, the most famous being French Admiral François Joseph Bouvet, belonged to the Jauréguiberry quasi-class which comprised...
hit a mine and exploded. The Gaulois managed to beach herself to avoid a complete loss. She was refloated and brought back to service. However, on 27 December 1916, as she sailed for Corfu
Corfu
Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...
, she was torpedoed and sunk by the U-boat
U-boat
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...
UB-47
SM UB-47
SM UB-47 was a Type UB II submarine or U-boat for the German Imperial Navy during World War I. UB-47 was sold to the Austro-Hungarian Navy during the war...
.
Construction
The Gaulois was the second and last battleship to be constructed from the Charlemagne-classCharlemagne class battleship
The Charlemagne class was a class of pre-dreadnought battleships of the French Navy. It consisted of three ships, the Charlemagne, the St Louis and the Gaulois. Several other single ship classes were based on the Charlemagne class...
. She was laid down in January 1895 and after almost two years of construction, she was launched on 8 October 1896. Three years later, she was formally commissioned into the French Navy in December 1899.
Design
The Gaulois displaced 11300 tonnes (11,121.5 LT), was 118 metres (387.1 ft) long, had a beamBeam (nautical)
The beam of a ship is its width at the widest point. Generally speaking, the wider the beam of a ship , the more initial stability it has, at expense of reserve stability in the event of a capsize, where more energy is required to right the vessel from its inverted position...
of 20.5 metres (67.3 ft) and a draught of 8.4 metres (27.6 ft). She was manned by 694 men. Equipped with a set of two steam engines rated at 14500 ihp, the Gaulois could move at a maximum speed of 18 knots (9.8 m/s). She was one of the first French ships to be armed with twin mounted main guns, although a low displacement severely diminished the capability of them. The ship's main guns were four 305 mm Mle 1893/96 guns. The main battery was augmented by a secondary battery of ten single 138 millimetres (5.4 in) guns and a tertiary battery of eight 100 millimetres (3.9 in). She was also armed with four 450 millimetres (17.7 in) torpedo tubes.
World War I
In World War I, the Gaulois participated in the Gallipoli Campaign during her time serving in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. On 18 March 1915, the battleship was located in Turkish waters 8 miles (12.9 km) inside of the Dardanelles and came under fire from Turkish fixed and mobile artillery batteries. Gaulois was at the time located at the far left of the IV French battleship squadron. During the attack on the battleship squadron, Gaulois was badly damaged by a large shell from a nearby Turkish fort which hit the ship below her waterline near the bow and tore the hull plating apart. The battleship was seriously damaged and almost sank following the battleship BouvetFrench battleship Bouvet
The Bouvet was a French pre-dreadnought battleship, launched in 1896 and sunk by a mine in 1915 during World War I.Bouvet, named for the maritime family of Bouvet de Lozier, the most famous being French Admiral François Joseph Bouvet, belonged to the Jauréguiberry quasi-class which comprised...
striking a mine and exploding next to her. However, she was able to beach herself on Rabbit Island, north of Tenedos and saved herself from sinking. Gaulois then pumped the remaining water in her hull out, was patched and refloated and travelled to Malta for proper repairs. Following these repairs, Gaulois returned to active service.
Fate
Gaulois was to not survive the war. On 27 December 1916, the German U-boat UB-47 was on patrol in the Aegean SeaAegean Sea
The Aegean Sea[p] is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
and her captain, Wolfgang Steinbauer, met the Gaulois. Although she was fully protected by light cruisers and naval trawlers, UB-47 was still able to sink the pre-dreadnought battleship east of Cerigo. Two of Gaulois crew members were killed following the initial explosion from the torpedo that UB-47 had fired and another two men died in the aftermath of the ship's sinking. UB-47 was able to escape the scene unharmed and continued her patrol. She was to survive the war and later be handed over to the Allies following the end of World War I.