French battleship Bretagne

Bretagne in Toulon during World War I
History
France
Name	Bretagne
Namesake	Brittany
Ordered	1 May 1912
Laid down	22 July 1912
Launched	21 April 1913
Completed	29 November 1915
Commissioned	10 February 1916
Fate	Sunk, 3 July 1940
General characteristics (as built)
Class and type	Bretagne-class battleship
Displacement	23,936 t (23,558 long tons) (normal) 26,600 t (26,200 long tons) (deep load)
Length	166 m (544 ft 7 in) (o/a)
Beam	27 m (88 ft 7 in)
Draught	9.1 m (29 ft 10 in) (mean)
Installed power	28,000 PS (20,594 kW; 27,617 shp) 24 Niclausse boilers
Propulsion	4 shafts; 2 steam turbine sets
Speed	20.6 knots (38.2 km/h; 23.7 mph)
Range	4,700 nmi (8,700 km; 5,400 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Crew	1,193 (1,250 as flagship)
Armament	5 × twin 34 cm (13.4 in) guns 22 × single 138 mm (5.4 in) guns 2 × single 47 mm (1.9 in) guns 4 × 450 mm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes
Armour	Belt: 140–250 mm (5.5–9.8 in) Decks: 40–70 mm (1.6–2.8 in) Conning tower: 266 mm (10.5 in) Turrets: 300 mm (11.8 in) Casemates: 160 mm (6.3 in)

Bretagne was the lead ship of her class of three dreadnought battleships built in the 1910s for the French Navy. Bretagne entered service in February 1916, after the start of World War I. She spent the bulk of her nearly 25-year-long career with the Mediterranean Squadron and sometimes served as its flagship. During World War I she provided cover for the Otranto Barrage that blockaded the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the Adriatic Sea, but saw no action.

The ship was significantly modernised in the interwar period, and when she was on active duty, conducted normal peacetime cruises and training manoeuvres in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean. After World War II broke out in September 1939, Bretagne escorted troop convoys and was briefly deployed to the Atlantic in search of German blockade runners and commerce raiders. Germany invaded France on 10 May 1940 and the French surrendered only six weeks later, at which time the battleship was stationed in Mers-el-Kébir, French Algeria. Fearful that the Germans would seize the French Navy, the British attacked the ships there on 3 July 1940 after the French refused to surrender or demilitarise the fleet; Bretagne was hit four times and exploded, killing the majority of her crew. Her wreck was salvaged in 1952 and broken up for scrap.