Louis René Charles Marie Dartige du Fournet (Putanges-Pont-Écrepin, 2 March 1856 – Périgueux, 16 February 1940) was a French vice admiral during World War I.

[2] Dartige du Fournet was promoted to enseigne de vaisseau (ensign) on 20 June 1878,[2] after which he served aboard the 30-gun brig Beaumanoir on the Iceland Station.

Dartige du Fournet distinguished himself in the battle,[2] which contributed to Siam conceding the Mekong River′s left bank (now Laos) to France.

[3] Promoted to capitaine de frégate (frigate captain) on 18 September 1893,[2] Dartige du Fournet served as executive officer of a new school ship Borda, which housed the Ecole Navale, at Brest from 1894 to 1895.

[2] France entered World War I in August 1914, and Dartige du Fournet became commander of the newly created French 3rd Squadron in February 1915, with the battleship Saint Louis as his flagship.

[2] Based in Syria or at Port Said in Egypt (according to different sources), the squadron became responsible for enforcing the blockade of the Ottoman Empire decreed in August 1915.

On 5 September 1915, Armenians entrenched on Musa Dagh[4] ("Mount Moses") to resist the Armenian genocide undertaken by the Ottoman Turks used a white bed sheet marked with a red cross to attract the attention of the French protected cruiser Guichen, which was operating north of the Bay of Antioch under the command of Captain Jean-Joseph Brisson.

After Brisson brought the Armenians' desperate situation to his attention, Dartige du Fournet sought instructions from the French general staff.

On 10 October 1915, Dartige du Fournet replaced Vide Admiral Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère as Allied commander in the Mediterranean Sea.

He received the Croix de Guerre with palms,[2] the citation reading, that he had "demonstrated the finest military qualities, both in the exercise of his current command and in those of the Algerian-Tunisian district and the 'Syrian Squadron.

'"[2] After an Allied force had landed at Salonica in neutral Greece in September 1915 both to defend Salonica and support the hard-pressed Serbian Army in its struggle to defend Serbia against a Central Powers offensive, the National Schism developed in Greece between pro-Allied Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and the pro-Central Powers King Constantine I.

[8] In the autumn of 1916, Venizelos and his supporters created a separate Greek government at Salonica, and the French then led Allied efforts to pressure Constantine I into a more pro-Allied stance.

[8] Although he disliked interfering in the affairs of a neutral country, Dartige du Fournet aboard his flagship, the battleship Provence, led a French naval squadron into the Bay of Salamis which seized and disarmed the Royal Hellenic Navy fleet[8] on 11 October 1916.

[8] Admiral Lucien Lacaze, the French Minister of the Navy, criticized Dartige du Fournet for refusing to bombard Athens more vigorously and accused him of weakness and recklessness.