List of protected cruisers of France

The period was also marked by strategic confusion in the French naval command, as the country reoriented from its traditional rivalry with Great Britain to the perceived threat posed by the Italo-German alliance.

By 1886, the pro-Jeune École Admiral Théophile Aube became the French Minister of Marine and initiated a large construction program that included the cruisers Davout, Suchet, and Alger, and the three-ship Forbin, Troude, and Jean Bart classes.

The early 1890s saw the construction of the Friant and D'Assas classes, derivatives of the Davout design, and the Linois-class cruisers, which were improvements on the Troude and Forbin types.

Beginning in the mid-1890s, a series of large cruisers were ordered; the first of these, D'Entrecasteaux, carried the largest guns of any French cruiser, and was intended to serve as a flagship of the squadron stationed in French Indochina, while three more vessels, Guichen, Châteaurenault, and Jurien de la Gravière, were designed to serve as long-range commerce destroyers.

Most of the vessels had relatively uneventful careers, serving in a variety of locations with the main fleets, in the French colonies in Asia, and on patrol in the Atlantic.

Many of the ships had either been broken up or reduced to secondary roles by the start of World War I in August 1914, but several saw action, including Jurien de la Gravière at the Battle of Antivari and a number of vessels along the coast of Ottoman Syria.

The Conseil des Travaux (Council of Works) intended for the vessels to be used as commerce raiders to attack British merchant shipping.

Since she was to attack merchant shipping during long cruises far from port, she was fitted with a barque sailing rig to supplement her steam engines.

She was more than fifty percent larger than her predecessor in terms of displacement; the increase in size was primarily used to install a significantly more powerful propulsion system and thereby attain a much higher speed, though she also carried an additional pair of main battery guns.

Aube was a proponent of the ideas of the Jeune École doctrine, which envisioned using a combination of cruisers and torpedo boats to defend France and attack enemy merchant shipping.

[33] The ship was reassigned to the Naval Division of the Atlantic Ocean in 1900,[34] and she was one of the first responders to the 1902 eruption of Mount Pelée in May, helping to rescue survivors from Saint-Pierre and its harbor, along with other towns on the island of Martinique.

That vessel, designed by Louis-Émile Bertin, provided the basis for an improved version that incorporated an armor deck, heavier armament, and higher top speed.

[6] Coëtlogon suffered from machinery problems that significantly delayed her completion,[41] and after finally entering service in 1894, joined Surcouf in the Northern Squadron.

[11] The three Troude-class cruisers, which were an iterative development of the Forbin design, completed the requirement for six fleet scouts under Aube's program.

During the design process, the Conseil examined several proposals and ultimately selected two; the first became Jean Bart, and the second became the similar cruiser Alger.

[49] The orders for both ships, along with a second member of the Jean Bart class,[50] were placed by Aube and fulfilled his requirement for the three medium cruisers in his program.

They proved to be the last of the larger commerce raiding cruisers ordered by Aube,[21][51][52] though the French Navy would later return to the idea with Guichen and Châteaurenault in the late 1890s.

Jean Bart was present in the Far East during the Boxer Uprising in Qing China the following year, by which time Isly had been transferred to the North Atlantic station.

[60] By the late 1880s, the French Navy had come to regard Italy and its ally Germany as a more pressing threat than France's traditional rival, Great Britain.

[77] The Descartes class, also ordered under the 1890 program, marked a break from previous French cruiser designs, which traced their origin to either Davout or Milan.

The ships were fitted with wood and copper sheathing to protect their hull on extended voyages overseas, improving their suitability for use in the French colonies.

[87] D'Assas was discarded in 1914,[11] but the other two members of the class saw service during World War I, primarily patrolling the Atlantic for German commerce raiders.

[89] The two Catinat-class cruisers were derivatives of the Descartes design, with some alterations to the layout of the armament, a slight reduction in the thickness of the armor deck, and equipment to carry and lay fifty naval mines.

Traditionalist officers preferred armored cruisers and small scouts like the Forbin and Troude classes suited to fleet operations, while advocates of the Jeune École pressed for more large, long-range commerce raiders like those that had been ordered by Aube.

The new vessel, which became D'Entrecasteaux, was armed with a main battery of two 240 mm (9.4 in) guns, the largest weapons ever mounted on any French cruiser.

She was then sold to the Polish Navy the following year, renamed Król Władysław IV and then Bałtyk, and was used as a stationary training vessel until the start of World War II in September 1940.

These new vessels were intended to serve as long-range commerce raiders, and their design was based on the United States Navy's Columbia-class cruisers.

By that time, Admiral Armand Besnard had become the naval minister, and he requested a sister ship to D'Entrecasteaux, which was rejected by the Chamber of Deputies in 1896.

[131] Jurien de la Gravière had been transferred to the Reserve Division of the Mediterranean Squadron by 1911,[111] though she was reactivated in 1913 to serve with the main French fleet.

She remained on active service into the start of World War I, and after ensuring the safe passage of French Army units, the fleet entered the Adriatic Sea to engage the Austro-Hungarian Navy and fought the Battle of Antivari.