Unlike her sister ships that served in the Mediterranean Fleet, Requin spent her early career in the Northern Squadron in the English Channel.

She was the only member of the class to see action during World War I, during which she was stationed in the Suez Canal to defend the waterway against attacks from the Ottoman Empire.

The Terrible class of barbette ships was designed in the late 1870s as part of a naval construction program that began under the post-Franco-Prussian War fleet plan of 1872.

[1] After entering service, the Terrible-class ships were found to have very poor seakeeping as a result of their shallow draft and insufficient freeboard, even in the relatively sheltered waters of the Mediterranean Sea.

The Navy had little use for the ships, and through the 1880s and 1890s, a series of French naval ministers sought to find a role for the vessels, along with another ten coastal-defense type ironclads built during that period.

Her propulsion system was replaced with a pair of triple-expansion steam engines and twelve Niclausse boilers, which were the water-tube type.

[3][8] The keel for Requin, the last member of the class to be built, was laid down on 15 November 1878 at the Forges et Chantiers de la Gironde shipyard in Lormont.

The ship was then briefly placed in limited commission to be moved to the Arsenal de Rochefort on 18 December, still incomplete, before continuing on to Brest on the 23rd.

At the time, the division also included the ironclads Marengo and Furieux, the former serving as the squadron flagship for Vice Admiral Charles Duperré.

[9] In 1891, a French squadron that included Requin and the ironclads Marengo, Marceau, and Furieux, under the command of Admiral Alfred Gervais was sent to visit Kronstadt, Russia.

On the way, the ships visited a number of foreign ports, including Bergen and Larvik, Norway, Copenhagen, Denmark, and Stockholm, Sweden, before arriving in Kronstadt on 23 July.

That year, she served as the flagship of the Northern Squadron, which at that time also included Furieux on active duty, with another three ironclads in reserve.

[15] Requin was relieved by the coastal defense ship Valmy on 39 July 1895, and she was reduced to the 2nd category of reserve at Cherbourg on 8 August, where she was to undergo repairs.

She briefly went to Toulon on 18 May,[9] before resuming her assignment to the Northern Squadron later that year, where she was based in Cherbourg with the gunboat Styx as harbor guard ships.

[9] In 1906, she was attached to the Reserve Squadron in the Mediterranean Fleet for the annual maneuvers, along with her sister ships Indomptable, Caïman, the ironclad Hoche, and the pre-dreadnought battleship Charles Martel.

[9] On 8 October 1914, shortly after the start of World War I, Requin was mobilized at Bizerte, with the mission of guarding the Suez Canal.

In January 1915, some of the French and British cruisers in the canal zone were sent to patrol the southern Anatolian coast between Mersin and Smyrna, and Requin was moved further north to support them if necessary.

Early that month, she was sent to join the patrol itself, but in mid-January, additional cruisers arrived to relieve Requin, which was sent back to the canal to resume guard duties.

A berth was dredged in Lake Timsah in the Nile Delta for Requin, where she supported the ground forces defending the northern end of the canal.

[20] Toward the end of the month, an Ottoman force approached the canal, prompting the French to send the protected cruiser D'Entrecasteaux to join Requin in Lake Timsah.

Aircraft from the British seaplane tender HMS Raven II assisted the French gunners during a bombardment of Wadi el Hesi on 1 November.