France

"La Marine Nationale"
(The National Navy)

CLICK HERE FOR PICTURES OF CONDORCET

France had one pre-dreadnought battleship still in service during WWII, the Condorcet. The Marine Nationale does not use a prefix for their ship names.

Condorcet was the second of six Danton class battleships, arguably the best pre-dreadnought battleships ever built. These were the last French pre-dreadnoughts, authorized in the 1906 Programme. They were very fine ships, with good protection, a very heavy intermediate battery, and a good turn of speed, thanks to being the first large French warships with turbines. But they were one of France's biggest shipbuilding mistakes; All six of the ships were laid down after HMS Dreadnought had made their type obsolete, so they tied up all of France's dockyard capacity, and delayed that nation's dreadnought program by several years.

During WWI, these six sister ships served in the Mediterranean theater, where Danton was sunk by an enemy submarine. Another, Mirabeau, ran aground during the post-war Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, and was salvaged, but not returned to service. Condorcet served as a convoy escort in 1914, in the Adriatic in 1915, and in the Aegean in 1916. Post-war, she received a refit from 1923 to 1924.

The other ships of the class, Voltaire, Vergniaud, and Diderot, were cut up for scrap between the wars. Condorcet was retained to serve as the torpedo school at the naval base at Toulon, starting in 1931. She was partially disarmed, and had most of her machinery removed, in compliance with the Washington Treaty. A few deck-mounted torpedo tubes were added, but the ship was no longer able to move under her own power. She served quietly until the German invasion of Vichy France in 1942. On November 27 of that year the German Army surrounded the naval base at Toulon and attempted to seize the 135 ships there. The French Fleet, honoring a promise that their ships would never be used against the Allies, scuttled their vessels.

Condorcet was of no military value, but was heavily damaged by explosions to deny her to the Germans. She remained afloat, and was given some repairs so that she could be used as an accommodation ship by the German and Italian crews attempting to salvage the other vessels.

In August 1944, Allied bombers heavily damaged the ship again, sinking her at the pier so that the Germans could not tow her to the harbor entrance and sink her as a blockship. She was salvaged in December 1945, but no effort as made to repair her. In 1947 she was discarded, and slowly broken up for scrap over the next twelve years. By 1959, the last of her was gone.

BACK