Upon retiring from the office of Minister of Marine, Boué de Lapeyrère was appointed Commander-in-Chief of France's 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, the Austro-Hungarian navy did not sortie and no general fleet action occurred.