French cruiser D'Estaing
D'Estaing coaling in Algiers, likely in late 1884
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History | |
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France | |
Name | D'Estaing |
Builder | Arsenal de Brest |
Laid down | 4 August 1876 |
Launched | 16 October 1879 |
Commissioned | 1 September 1880 |
Stricken | 2 May 1901 |
Fate | Sold for scrap, 1902 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | Lapérouse-class cruiser |
Displacement | 2,320 t (2,280 long tons) |
Length | 79.5 m (260 ft 10 in) lwl |
Beam | 11.4 m (37 ft 5 in) |
Draft | 5.3 m (17 ft 5 in) |
Installed power |
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Propulsion |
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Sail plan | Full ship rig |
Speed | 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) |
Range | 4,980 nmi (9,220 km; 5,730 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
Complement | 264 |
Armament |
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D'Estaing was an
The ship was sent to
Design
The four ships of the Lapérouse class were ordered under the auspices of the naval plan of 1872, which was laid out to modernize the French Navy in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871. The navy sought new unprotected cruisers that carried a heavier armament than earlier vessels, while maintaining a similar size to keep costs from increasing during a period of limited naval budgets. The design for the ships was drawn up by Arthur Bienaymé as part of a competition that also resulted in the subsequent and very similar Villars-class cruisers. The Lapérouse-class ships were intended to serve overseas in the French colonial empire.[1][2]
D'Estaing was 79.5 m (260 ft 10 in)
The ship was armed with a main battery of fifteen 138.6 mm (5.46 in) M1870M 21.3-caliber guns. Two were placed atop the forecastle as chase guns, one was on the stern, and the remainder were placed in an amidships battery on the upper deck, six guns per broadside. The broadside guns were in pivot mounts firing through embrasures. A pair of 37 mm (1.5 in) Hotchkiss revolver cannon provided close-range defense against torpedo boats. She also carried four 86.5 mm (3.41 in) bronze cannon that could be sent ashore with a landing party or used to arm the ship's boats.[3]
Service history
D'Estaing was
Sino-French War
She had arrived in the region by March 1884, and at that time, the squadron also included the
Battle of Fuzhou
On 23 August, the French flotilla attacked the Chinese Fujian Fleet in the Battle of Fuzhou. D'Estaing, Villars, and the cruiser Duguay-Trouin engaged the Chinese cruisers Feiyun and Ji'an and the gunboat Zhenwei, along with a coastal artillery battery. At the start of the action, D'Estaing engaged Zhenwei while the other two French ships engaged Feiyun and Ji'an together. Zhenwei put up unexpectedly stiff resistance and she was only sunk by the combined firepower of all three French vessels after the other Chinese cruisers had been sunk. As Zhenwei burned furiously, her crew attempted to ram D'Estaing, but another salvo from Villars caused small arms ammunition aboard the Chinese vessel to explode and she quickly sank. The French ships then turned their attention to a shore battery that was neutralized shortly thereafter. Another group of French warships also quickly destroyed or captured other elements of the Fujian Fleet further inside the harbor; the entire action lasted a mere eight minutes. Most of the battle was fought at very close range, roughly two to three cables.[8][9]
Over the night of 23–24 August, the Chinese sent several fire ships toward the French ships, forcing them to repeatedly shift position to evade them as they drifted down river. Courbet sought to destroy the arsenal facilities at Fuzhou and used his shallow-draft gunboats to bombard the fortifications around it on 24 August, and the next day, a 600-man landing party went ashore to complete the destruction of the facilities. Courbet then organized his fleet to leave the river, Triomphante in the lead, followed by Duguay-Trouin, Villars, and then D'Estaing, followed by the rest of the vessels. As the ships approached Couding near the mouth of the river, they needed to neutralize Chinese artillery batteries that blocked their exit. Triomphante and Duguay-Trouin engaged one set of batteries and drove off the gun crews. D'Estaing and Villars then sent a landing party ashore to destroy the guns. The French spent the night anchored off Couding and proceeded further downriver on 26 August; the forts at Mingan Pass were the next obstacle to reaching the open ocean. D'Estaing supported attacks by Triomphante and Duguay-Trouin, but her 138.6 mm guns were less useful than the 240 and 194 mm (7.6 in) guns of the larger vessels. She nevertheless covered landing parties that were sent ashore to destroy gun batteries.[10][11]
These operations continued to 28 August, which again saw landing parties from D'Estaing and other vessels go ashore to destroy gun batteries blocking their progress downriver. By late on the 28th, the French had succeeded in destroying most of the coastal fortifications and; the next morning, Courbet took his ships down the last section of river and rendezvoused with La Galissonnière, which had been waiting to meet his ships since 25 August. D'Estaing and Villars immediately sailed for the Matsu Islands, while the larger vessels had to wait for high tide. The French victory at Fuzhou ended the initial diplomatic efforts to reach a compromise solution to the dispute over Tonkin, as the scale of the attack was such that the Chinese government could not ignore it.[12]
Battle of Tamsui
Courbet concentrated his squadron at Matsu, where the French spent September trying to decide what to do next. Three transport vessels carrying a total of 1,600 soldiers arrived on 29 September, by which time the French had decided to return to Keelung and try to conquer the port along with
The British gunboat HMS Cockchafer was trapped in the port when the Chinese defenders scuttled junks in the harbor mouth to block a French attack; when Lespès sent a warning to the British commander that he intended to attack on 2 October, the Chinese also observed the signal. Unlike at Fuzhou, when the French ships appeared on the morning of 2 October, the Chinese garrison did not wait for the French to fire first. The French ships, anchored about 2 to 3 nmi (3.7 to 5.6 km; 2.3 to 3.5 mi) from shore, quickly returned fire but their gun crews were blinded by a combination of the sunrise and fog close to shore. After a lengthy bombardment, the French eventually silenced the Chinese guns, but the stiffness of Chinese resistance convinced Lespès to delay the landing of ground troops until the next day.[14]
The presence of a field of naval mines forced the French to clear it before sending men ashore, which further delayed the landing, along with bad weather. Finally, on 6 October, the landing party drawn from the squadron went ashore, but the French proceeded slowly and failed to attack aggressively, which permitted the Chinese defenders to pin down the French, call for reinforcements, and then use the additional forces to attack the French flanks. Threatened with encirclement, the French fled to their boats, but the Chinese were unable to exploit their victory owing to gunfire from Lespès' ships. The French suffered a total of 17 deaths and 49 wounded in the defeat, despite inflicting roughly four times as many casualties on the Chinese.[15]
Blockade of Formosa and the Pescadores campaign
The French thereafter embarked on a blockade of Formosa on 20 October, while ground forces at Keelung waged a long battle with surrounding Chinese troops. D'Estaing joined the blockade, which extended well into 1885. On 2 November 1884, while cruising with Villars, D'Estaing stopped the Chinese gunboat Fei Hu. From 5 to 20 January 1885, D'Estaing cruised in company with Triomphante and the cruiser Champlain, and during this period, they stopped some thirty junks and captured two hundred Chinese sailors. D'Estaing remained on blockade duty in mid-February 1885 when Courbet took several of his ships to attack Chinese naval reinforcements at the Battle of Shipu. At that time, she was stationed on the northern end of the island in company with La Galissonnière, the ironclad Atalante, and the cruiser Volta. The blockade was not particularly effective, however, as the French lacked sufficient numbers of vessels to enforce it.[16]
In March, Courbet secured approval from Paris to launch an attack on the
On 30 March, elements of the French squadron began to force their way into
D'Estaing thereafter returned to blockade patrols off Formosa, and on 22 April, she stopped the troopship Pingon, which was carrying some 770 Chinese soldiers to Formosa. Secret negotiations between French and Chinese representatives had already begun, as both countries were losing patience with the costly war, and in late April, an agreement was reached that was formally signed on 9 June, ending the war.
Later career
By the early 1890s, D'Estaing had been
Notes
- ^ Roberts, pp. 108, 110.
- ^ Ropp, pp. 32–40.
- ^ a b c d Roberts, p. 110.
- ^ Campbell, p. 318.
- ^ Olender, pp. 10–16.
- ^ Loir, p. 5–6.
- ^ Olender, pp. 38–42.
- ^ Olender, pp. 42–53.
- ^ Wilson, pp. 4–9.
- ^ Olender, pp. 55–58.
- ^ Wilson, pp. 11–12.
- ^ Olender, pp. 58–60.
- ^ Olender, pp. 63–65.
- ^ Olender, pp. 65–66.
- ^ Olender, pp. 66–68.
- ^ Olender, pp. 72–75, 78.
- ^ Olender, pp. 87–89.
- ^ Olender, pp. 89–90.
- ^ Olender, pp. 76, 101.
- ^ Loir, p. 351.
- ^ Roberts, p. 109.
- ^ a b Nunez, p. 76.
- ^ Maclay, p. 248.
- ^ Notes, p. 617.
- ^ Leyland, p. 66.
- ^ Marine Casualties, p. 169.
References
- Campbell, N. J. M. (1979). "France". In Gardiner, Robert (ed.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. London: Conway Maritime Press. pp. 283–333. ISBN 978-0-85177-133-5.
- Leyland, John (1900). Brassey, Thomas A. (ed.). "Chapter III: Comparative Strength". The Naval Annual. Portsmouth: J. Griffin & Co.: 63–70. OCLC 496786828.
- Loir, M. (1886). L'escadre de l'amiral Courbet, notes et souvenirs [The Squadron of Admiral Courbet, Notes and Memories] (in French). Paris: Berger-Levrault. OCLC 457536196.
- Maclay, Edgar Stanton (1901). A History of the United States Navy: From 1775 to 1901. Vol. III. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
- "Naval and Military Notes". Journal of the Royal United Service Institution. XXXVIII (191). London: J. J. Keliher & Co.: 81–95 January 1894. OCLC 1077860366.
- "Marine Casualties". Notes on Naval Progress. 20. Washington, D.C.: United States Office of Naval Intelligence: 161–181. July 1901. OCLC 699264868.
- "Notes and Queries of Service Afloat and Ashore". The Navy and Army Illustrated. VI (85). London: Hudson & Kearns. 17 September 1898.
- Nunez, Severo Gomez (1899). The Spanish-American War: Blockades and Coast Defense. Information From Abroad. Washington DC: Government Printing Office.
- Olender, Piotr (2012). Sino-French Naval War 1884–1885. Sandomir: Stratus. ISBN 978-83-61421-53-5.
- Roberts, Stephen (2021). French Warships in the Age of Steam 1859–1914. Barnsley: Seaforth. ISBN 978-1-5267-4533-0.
- ISBN 978-0-87021-141-6.
- OCLC 1111061.