Lewin of Greenwich Naval History & Forum

President Raymond Poincare awaits the arrival of Tsar Nicholas II aboard Courbet Class Battleship France at Krondstadt on July 20th 1914, WWI will break out ten days later.

Another view of FRANCE with the Russians pulling away in a launch....polished up with more SHINE than a show car!! Also, a view of FRANCE arriving........DFO

Courbet Class Battleship Paris pictured under refit at Arsenal de Brest c1922.

Courbet Class Dreadnought Battleship Jean Bart pictured under construction at Arsenal de Brest in 1911. She was commissioned on November 19th 1913 and spent the war in the Mediterranean and helped to sink the Austro-Hungarian Protected Cruiser Zenta on August 16th 1914. She was torpedoed by an Austro-Hungarian Submarine in December and steamed to Malta for repairs that required three and a half months. She spent the rest of the war providing cover for the Otranto Barrage that blockaded the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the Adriatic Sea and sometimes served as a flagship...After the war, she and her sister ship France participated in the occupation of Constantinople and were then sent to the Black Sea in 1919 to support Allied troops in the Southern Russia Intervention. Jean Bart's war-weary crew briefly mutinied, but it was easily put down and she returned to France mid-year. She was partially modernised twice during the 1920s, but was deemed to be in too poor condition to be refitted again in the 1930s. Therefore, she became a Training Ship in 1934 and was then disarmed and hulked as an Accommodation Ship in 1935–1936 in Toulon. The Germans captured her intact when they occupied Toulon in 1942 and used her for testing large shaped charge warheads. She was sunk by Allied bombing in 1944, and after the war ended, was refloated and scrapped beginning in late 1945.

Here is the COURBET as built and as part of the breakwater off Normandy in 1944...... DFO

Courbet Class Dreadnought Battleship France pictured at Toulon in 1920...France and the Battleship Bretagne hosted the British Battleship Queen Elizabeth and Light Cruiser Coventry during a port visit to Villefranche from February 18th to March 1st 1922. The two French Battleships had gunnery exercise on June 28th using the former Austro-Hungarian Battleship Prinz Eugen as a target and sank her. On July 18th, France, Paris and Bretagne began a cruise visiting French ports in the Bay of Biscay and English Channel. On the evening of 25/26 August, France struck an uncharted rock while entering Quiberon Bay at 00:57. The after boiler room flooded quickly and the ship lost all power at 01:10. She had a 5° list by 02:00 and the order was given to abandon ship. The Battleship capsized two hours later after Bretagne and Paris were able to rescue all but three of her crew. Her wreck was slowly broken up in situ in 1935, 1952 and 1958.

A close up of some of BRETAGNE's main guns.............. DFO

Courbet Class Dreadnought Battleship Paris pictured under construction at Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée at La Seyne in 1912.

COURBET scuttled off Normandy as part of a breakwater for a Mulberry "harbor"! DFO

Courbet Class Dreadnought Battleship Jean Bart pictured fitting out at Arsenal de Brest on October 12th 1912.