The signing of the Armistice of 11 November 1918 marked the end of the First World War, and the final thirteen planned Arras-class ships were cancelled.

The majority of the ships were powered by oil-fired twin-shaft Parsons steam turbine engines and carried 200 tonnes (200 long tons) of fuel oil.

The Arras class were armed with two single 138 mm (5 in)/55 Modèle 1910 guns in unshielded mounts with wide broadside arcs, located fore and aft of the amidships island where they could be disguised as cargo-handling booms until brought into action against a submarine (the submarine's easiest attack angle would place it naturally on broadside to the aviso, obviating the need for heavy bow fire).

In the Interwar period the avisos Belfort, Épernay, Lunéville, Péronne, Revigny in November 1927 and Reims in 1928, were loaned to the Compagnie générale aéropostale.

Bar-le-Duc foundered and was stricken off of Lesbos while escorting Wrangel's fleet during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War in 1920.

Those ships still in France and her colonial empire swore allegiance to the new collaborationist Vichy French government of Philippe Pétain.

Tahure was sunk by USS Flasher (the United States having declared war on the Vichy French government with Operation Torch) on 29 April 1944.

[5] Cancelled ships were Betheny, Chalons, Château-Thierry, Compiègne, Douaumont, Fère-Champenoise, Gerbeviller, Noyon, Roye, Saint-Dié, Senlis, Soissons and Souchez.