She was intended to serve as a long-range commerce raider, designed according to the theories of the Jeune École, which favored a strategy of attacking Britain's extensive merchant shipping network instead of engaging in an expensive naval arms race with the Royal Navy.

As such, Châteaurenault was built with a relatively light armament of just eight medium-caliber guns, but was given a long cruising range and the appearance of a large passenger liner, which would help her to evade detection while raiding merchant shipping.

In the mid-1880s, elements in the French naval command argued over future warship construction; the Jeune École advocated building long-range and fast protected cruisers for use as commerce raiders on foreign stations while a traditionalist faction preferred larger armored cruisers and small fleet scouts, both of which were to operate as part of the main fleet in home waters.

These vessels were ideally suited to attack the extensive merchant shipping network of Britain, not the continental powers of Germany or Austria-Hungary.

[1] In the early 1890s, the United States Navy built two very large and fast cruisers intended to raid merchant shipping in the Atlantic, the Columbia class.

These ships greatly impressed many senior officers in the French Navy, including the French Naval Minister, Félix Faure, who issued requests for design proposals in late 1894. the chief characteristics were very high speed and great cruising range on a displacement of around 8,500 t (8,400 long tons; 9,400 short tons).

The Conseil des Travaux (Council of Works) issued its more detailed list of specifications to shipyards on 18 December 1894 to solicit design proposals.

To this end, he gave the ship four tall and evenly spaced funnels and an overhanging stern, common features of liners of the day.

[3] The French cruisers suffered from several defects, including insufficient speed to catch the fast transports that would be used to carry critical materiel in wartime and their vast expense militated against their use to attack low-value shipping.

Her hull had a long forecastle deck that extended almost her entire length; her stem was slightly sloped backward and she had an overhanging stern.

Combined with her four raked and equally spaced funnels, her appearance was adopted to make it relatively easy to disguise her as a passenger liner while on commerce raiding patrols.

Her machinery was rated to produce 23,000 indicated horsepower (17,000 kW) for a top speed of 24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph) Coal storage amounted to 1,960 long tons (1,990 t).

[10] Despite her large size, Châteaurenault carried a relatively light armament, since she was intended to engage unarmed merchant vessels, not other cruisers.

[4] Châteaurenault was recommissioned on 15 January 1910, and just fifteen days later, she accidentally ran aground off Cape Spartel, Morocco in poor weather.

At that time, the unit consisted of the armored cruisers Marseillaise, Amiral Aube, Jeanne d'Arc, Gloire, Gueydon, and Dupetit-Thouars.

On 4 October, the troopship SS Gallia, a converted passenger liner carrying more than 2,000 soldiers and crew to Greece, was torpedoed and sunk by a German U-boat.

No distress signal could be sent before she rapidly sank, leaving thousands in the water; more than 1,300 died before Châteaurenault passed through the area the next day and picked up the survivors.

[26] As the threat of U-boats increased in late 1916, against which large cruisers were particularly vulnerable, the French naval command ordered Châteaurenault and the rest of the division to return home.

While passing into the Gulf of Corinth, she encountered the German U-boat UC-38, which hit Châteaurenault with a single torpedo, inflicting fatal damage.

Ronald Ross, a Nobel laureate, was aboard Châteaurenault at the time, and he recounted the sinking in his memoirs, noting that the ship sank slowly enough for the crew to be taken off by her escorting destroyers Mameluck and Lansquenet and nearby drifters.

UC-38 attempted to maneuver for a second shot while Châteaurenault began to sink, but Mameluck and Lansquenet launched depth charges that forced the U-boat to surface, where she was sunk by gunfire.