page_title: French battleship Démocratie
section_title: Construction – 1911
hierarchical_section_title: French battleship Démocratie / Service history / Construction – 1911
caption_attribution_description: English: Identifier: scientific-american-1904-07-23 (find matches) Title: Scientific American Volume 91 Number 04 (July 1904) Year: 1904 (1900s) Authors: Subjects: electric scientific apparatus ramsay steam railroad american coupling sir william william san francisco motor cars scientific american american july william ramsay shingle dip roof leak average speed kilowatt hour Publisher: View Book Page: Book Viewer About This Book: Catalog Entry View All Images: All Images From Book Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book. Text Appearing Before Image: in their nativeislands. They are a bright, sunny race, glad to talkwith the Americano, and ever ready to respond, witha smile that shows their pearly-white teeth, to anyquestions which they are able to answer. Down in the shady canyons of the Expositiongrounds, and along the shores of the lake, one maystudy the Filipino as he was when the United Statestook charge of the islands. On the central plateau of thegrounds above, may be seen the Filipino as the UnitedStates government has improved him; for here, strut-ting around in their natty khaki uniforms, and lookingevery inch the United States soldier, are to be seenseveral companies of the native scouts, a body of sol-diers which owe their origin to that ever-to-be-lamentedarmy officer, Gen. Lawton. The original body of scoutsdid good service under Gen. Lawton, and later underGen. Young; and they proved so serviceable, and gaveevidence of such good soldierly qualities, that in 1901an act of Congress authorized the enlistment of 12,000 Text Appearing After Image: Displacement) 14,800 tone; l.ilislli, 139 feet; Ream, 79 feet; Draught, 28 feet; Armament&#160;: four 12-iuch, ten 7.6 inch, two submerged and two above-water torpedo tubes. THE NEW FRENCH BATTLESHIP DEMOCRATIE. Stern. It will have a maximum thickness of 11 inchesamidships, but will taper off toward bow and stern. Alighter cuirass will surmount this, protecting hersides from all but the heaviest kinds of projectiles.On the top of the waterline belt will be an armoreddeck 2.4 inches h. thickness, while the armor is rein-forced lower down by a second deck 2 inches thickon the flat and 2.8 inches at the ends. The two mainturrets will be covered with armor from 11 to 12%inches in thickness, while the smaller turrets andcasemates will have the protection of plating abouthalf that thickness. The Democratic will havethree screws actuated by three engines having a com-bined horse-pow r of 17,500. She will have, it is esti-mated, a full speed of 18 knots an hour and will carry1,800 tons of coal in Note About Images Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations may not perfectly resemble the original work.
context_page_description: Démocratie was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the French Navy in the mid-1900s. She was the fourth member of the Liberté class, which included three other vessels and was a derivative of the preceding République class, with the primary difference being the inclusion of a heavier secondary battery. Démocratie carried a main battery of four 305 mm guns, like the République, but mounted ten 194 mm guns for her secondary armament in place of the 164 mm guns of the earlier vessels. Like many late pre-dreadnought designs, Démocratie was completed after the revolutionary British battleship HMS Dreadnought had entered service, rendering her obsolescent.
  On entering service, Démocratie joined the Mediterranean Squadron, based in Toulon. She immediately began the normal peacetime training routine of squadron and fleet maneuvers and cruises to various ports in the Mediterranean. She also participated in several naval reviews for a number of French and foreign dignitaries. Following the outbreak of war in July 1914, Démocratie was used to escort troopship convoys carrying elements of the French Army from French North Africa to face the Germans invading northern France.
context_section_description: Démocratie was laid down at the Arsenal de Brest shipyard on 1 May 1903, launched on 30 April 1904, and completed on 9 January 1908, over a year after the revolutionary British battleship HMS Dreadnought entered service, which rendered the pre-dreadnoughts like Démocratie outdated before they were completed. Following her completion, she left Brest on 20 January and steamed south to Toulon, where she joined the 1st Division of the 1st Battle Squadron on 10 March, which included the battleships Patrie and République. In June and July, the Mediterranean and Northern Squadrons conducted their annual maneuvers, this time off Bizerte. In October, the 1st Division ships steamed to Barcelona, Spain, but Démocratie did not join her division mates, since the French government feared her name would be provocative to the Spanish King Alfonso XIII.
  In early 1909, the fleet went to Villefranche-sur-Mer, where the ships were inspected by Albert I, Prince of Monaco during his visit to the port from 18 to 24 February. After his departure, the Mediterranean Squadron conducted training exercises off Corsica, followed by a naval review in Villefranche for President Armand Fallières on 26 April. Démocratie, Patrie, Liberté, and the armored cruiser Ernest Renan steamed into the Atlantic for training exercises on 2 June; while at sea ten days later, they rendezvoused with République, Justice, and the protected cruiser Galilée at Cádiz, Spain. Training included serving as targets for the fleet's submarines in the Pertuis d'Antioche strait. The ships then steamed north to La Pallice, where they conducted tests with their wireless telegraphy sets and shooting training in Quiberon Bay. From 8 to 15 July, the ships lay at Brest and the next day, they steamed to Le Havre. There, they met the Northern Squadron for another fleet review for Fallières on 17 July. Ten days later, the combined fleet steamed to Cherbourg, where they held another fleet review, this time during the visit of Czar Nicholas II of Russia. Démocratie, République, and Patrie departed for Toulon on 17 August and arrived on 6 September.
  Démocratie joined Patrie, Justice, Vérité, République, and Suffren for a simulated attack on the port of Nice on 18 February. The ships of the 1st Squadron held training exercises off Sardinia and Algeria from 21 May to 4 June, followed by combined maneuvers with the 2nd Squadron from 7 to 18 June. An outbreak of typhoid among the crews of the battleships in early December forced the navy to confine them to Golfe-Juan to contain the fever. By 15 December, the outbreak had subsided. On 16 April 1911, Démocratie and the rest of the fleet escorted Vérité, which had aboard Fallières, the Naval Minister Théophile Delcassé, and Charles Dumont, the Minister of Public Works, Posts and Telegraphs, to Bizerte. They arrived two days later and held a fleet review that included two British battleships, two Italian battleships, and a Spanish cruiser on 19 April. The fleet returned to Toulon on 29 April, where Fallières doubled the crews' rations and suspended any punishments to thank the men for their performance. Démocratie and the rest of 1st Squadron and the armored cruisers Ernest Renan and Léon Gambetta went on a cruise in the western Mediterranean in May and June, visiting a number of ports including Cagliari, Bizerte, Bône, Philippeville, Algiers, and Bougie.
  By 1 August, the battleships of the Danton class had begun to enter service, and they were assigned to the 1st Squadron, displacing six Liberté and République-class ships to the 2nd Squadron. The fleet held another fleet review outside Toulon on 4 September. Admiral Jauréguiberry took the fleet to sea on 11 September for maneuvers and visits to Golfe-Juan and Marseilles, returning to port five days later. On 25 September, Liberté exploded while in Toulon, another French battleship claimed by unstable Poudre B propellant. Several ships in the harbor were damaged, and Démocratie lost three men who were killed by flying debris. Despite the accident, the fleet continued with its normal routine of training
caption: Illustration of Démocratie
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