Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère

préfet maritime

Minister of Marine, a political position, from 24 July 1909 until 27 February 1911 in the governments of Aristide Briand. While in this position he championed the production of large capital ships, deferring the production of submarines and anti-submarine warships in favor of larger vessels. He reorganized the service and constructed many ships, in particular the Courbet-class dreadnoughts

Mediterranean forces in anticipation of sea battles in the Mediterranean between the allies and the navies of Italy and Austria-Hungary and was made Commander in chief of the allied Mediterranean navies. However, these large battles did not materialize, and fighting in the Mediterranean remained limited to raids by submarines and light craft of the Austro-Hungarian navy. (Italy remained neutral until it joined the Allies in 1915, and hence posed no threat to France.) Boué de Lapeyrère thus found his main duty as commander-in-chief to be policing the sea lanes to protect allied shipping. He was criticised at the start of the war in August 1914 for his part in the escape of the German ships Goeben and Breslau from the Mediterranean to form a Turkish navy in the Black Sea. He then attacked isolated Austro-Hungarian naval units at the Battle of Antivari in an attempt to entire the Austro-Hungarians into a fleet action. Despite Lapeyrere's squadron destroying Austro-Hungarian cruiser SMS Zenta

Légion d'honneur in April 1921. Admiral Boué de Lapeyrère lived until 1924, when he died at the age of 72, in Pau. His body was transferred to Les Invalides in Paris, France