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Charlemagne at anchor
Career (France)
Name: Namesake: Builder: Laid down: Launched: Completed: Commissioned: Charlemagne Charlemagne Arsenal de Brest 2 August 1894 17 October 1895 12 September 1897 15 September 1897
Decommissioned: 1 November 1917 Struck: Fate: 21 June 1920 Sold for scrap, 1923
General characteristics
Class & type: Displacement: Length: Beam: Draught: Installed power: Propulsion: Speed: Range: Complement: Charlemagne-class battleship 11,275t (11,097 long tons) (deep load) 117.7m (386ft2in) 20.3m (66ft7in) 8.4m (27ft7in) 14,500PS (10,700kW) 20 Belleville water-tube boilers 3 shafts, 3 four-cylinder vertical triple-expansion steam engines 18 knots (33km/h; 21mph) 4,200 miles (3,650nmi) at 10 knots (19km/h; 12mph) 727
2
2 2 - 305mm (12in) Mle 1893 guns 10 1 - 138.6mm (5.46in) Mle 1893 guns 8 1 - 100mm (3.9in) Mle 1893 guns 20 1 - 47 mm Mle 1885 Hotchkiss guns 4 450mm (17.7in) torpedo tubes Belt: 110320mm (4.312.6in) Decks: 5590mm (2.23.5in) Barbettes: 270mm (10.6in) Turrets: 320mm (12.6in) Conning tower: 326mm (12.8in)
Armament:
Armour:
Charlemagne was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the French Navy in the mid-1890s, name ship of her class. She spent most of her career assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron (escadre de la Mditerrane). Twice she participated in the occupation of the port of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, then owned by the Ottoman Empire, once as part of a French expedition and another as part of an international squadron. When World War I began in August 1914, she escorted Allied troop convoys for the first two months. Charlemagne was ordered to the Dardanelles in November 1914 to guard against a sortie into the Mediterranean by the German battlecruiser SMSGoeben. In 1915, she joined British ships in bombarding Turkish fortifications under the command of Rear Admiral (contre-amiral) Emile Gupratte. The ship was transferred later that year to the squadron assigned to prevent any interference by the Greeks with Allied operations on the Salonica front. Charlemagne was placed in reserve and then disarmed in late 1917. She was condemned in 1920 and later sold for scrap in 1923.
French battleship Charlemagne (5.46in) guns were 55mm thick and they were protected by transverse bulkheads 150mm (5.9in) thick. The conning tower walls were 326mm (12.8in) thick and its roof consisted of 50mm armour plates. Its communications tube was protected by armour plates 200mm (7.9in) thick.[4]
World War I
Together with the older French pre-dreadnoughts, Charlemagne escorted Allied troop convoys through the Mediterranean until November when she was ordered to the Dardanelles to guard against a sortie by the Goeben. During the bombardment on 25 February 1915, the ship engaged the fort at Kum Kale with some effect. On 18 March, Charlemagne, together with Bouvet, Suffren, and Gaulois, was to penetrate deep into the Dardanelles after six British battleships suppressed the defending Turkish fortifications and attack those same fortifications at close range. After the French ships were ordered to be relieved by six other British battleships,[13] Bouvet struck a mine and sank almost instantly while Gaulois was hit twice, one of which opened a large hole in her hull that began to flood the ship. Charlemagne escorted Turkish defenses of the Dardanelles, FebruaryMarch 1915 Gaulois to the Rabbit Islands, north of Tenedos, where the latter ship could be beached for temporary repairs.[14] Charlemagne herself was moderately damaged during the bombardment and continued onwards to Bizerte for repairs that lasted through May.[12] Upon her return, she was assigned to the Dardanelles Squadron (escadre des Dardanelles), although naval operations were limited to bombarding Turkish positions in support of Allied troops by that time. The ship was transferred to Salonica in October 1915 where she joined the French squadron assigned to prevent any interference by the Greeks with Allied operations in Greece. Charlemagne was relieved for a major refit at Bizerte in May 1916 that lasted until August. She returned to Salonica later that month and was assigned to the Eastern Naval Division (division navale d'Orient). The ship remained there until she was ordered to Toulon in August 1917. Charlemagne was placed in reserve on 17 September and disarmed on 1 November. She was condemned on 21 June 1920[12] and later sold for scrap in 1923.[2]
Notes
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] Gille, p. 98 Silverstone, p. 92 Caresse, pp. 114, 11617 Caresse, p. 117 Chesneau and Kolesnik, p. 117 Caresse, pp. 11920 Gille, p. 96 Caresse, p. 121 This is not mentioned in Caresse's detailed history of Gaulois, and may be a mix up with Gaulois's collision with the battleship Bouvet on 31 January 1903.<ref>Caresse, p. 122 [10] Lange-Akhund, p. 299 [11] Gille, pp. 9697 [12] Gille, p. 97 [13] Corbett, pp. 160, 214, 218
Footnotes Bibliography
Caresse, Phillippe (2012). "The Battleship Gaulois". In Jordan, John. Warship 2012. London: Conway. ISBN978-1-84486-156-9. Chesneau, Roger; Kolesnik, Eugene M., eds. (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 18601905. Greenwich, UK: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN0-8317-0302-4. Corbett, Julian (1997). Naval Operations. History of the Great War: Based on Official Documents II (reprint of the 1929 second ed.). London and Nashille, TN: Imperial War Museum in association with the Battery Press. ISBN1-870423-74-7. Gille, Eric (1999). Cent ans de cuirasss franais. Nantes: Marines. ISBN2-909675-50-5. Lange-Akhund, Nadine (1998). The Macedonian Question, 1893-1908, from Western Sources. East European Monographs. CDLXXXVI. Boulder, Colorado: East European Monographs. ISBN0-88033-383-9. Silverstone, Paul H. (1984). Directory of the World's Capital Ships. New York: Hippocrene Books. ISBN0-88254-979-0.
External links
(French) CUIRASSE Charlemagne (http://le.fantasque.free.fr/php3/ship.php3?page_code=charlemagne)
License
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported //creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/