page_title: French battleship Bouvet
section_title: Service history
hierarchical_section_title: French battleship Bouvet / Service history
context_page_description: Bouvet was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the French Navy that was built in the 1890s. She was a member of a group of five broadly similar battleships, along with Charles Martel, Jauréguiberry, Carnot, and Masséna, which were ordered in response to the British Royal Sovereign class. Bouvet was the last vessel of the group to be built, and her design was based on that of Charles Martel. Like her half-sisters, she was armed with a main battery of two 305 mm guns and two 274 mm guns in individual turrets. She had a top speed of 18 knots, which made her one of the fastest battleships in the world at the time. Bouvet proved to be the most successful design of the five, and she was used as the basis for the subsequent Charlemagne class. Nevertheless, she suffered from design flaws that reduced her stability and contributed to her loss in 1915.
  Bouvet spent the majority of her peacetime career in the Mediterranean Squadron conducting routine training exercises. This period was relatively uneventful, though she was involved in a collision with the battleship Gaulois in 1903 that saw both ships' captains relieved of command.
context_section_description: Bouvet was laid down at the French Navy shipyard in Lorient on 16 January 1893, and was launched on 27 April 1896. After completing fitting-out work, she began sea trials on 5 March 1898. The ship was intended to have conducted her trials from Brest, but she was sent to Toulon to reinforce the Mediterranean Squadron due to the Fashoda crisis with Britain. She was commissioned into the French Navy in June 1898. The ship was named in honor of Admiral François Joseph Bouvet.
  Throughout the ship's peacetime career, she was occupied with routine training exercises that included gunnery training, combined maneuvers with torpedo boats and submarines, and practicing attacking coastal fortifications. Since Bouvet was one of the most modern French battleships in the late 1890s and early 1900s, she spent this time in the Mediterranean Squadron, France's primary fleet. One of the largest of these exercises was conducted between March and July 1900, and involved the Mediterranean Squadron and the Northern Squadron. On 6 March, Bouvet joined the battleships Brennus, Gaulois, Charlemagne, Charles Martel, and Jauréguiberry and four protected cruisers for maneuvers off Golfe-Juan on the Côte d'Azur, including night firing training. Over the course of April, the ships visited numerous French ports along the Mediterranean coast, and on 31 May the fleet steamed to Corsica for a visit that lasted until 8 June. After completing its own exercises in the Mediterranean, the Mediterranean Squadron rendezvoused with the Northern Squadron off Lisbon, Portugal in late June before proceeding to Quiberon Bay for joint maneuvers in July. The maneuvers concluded with a naval review in Cherbourg on 19 July for President Émile Loubet. On 1 August, the Mediterranean Fleet departed for Toulon, arriving on 14 August.
  Bouvet was assigned to the 2nd Battle Division of the Mediterranean Squadron, along with Jauréguiberry and the new battleship Iéna, the latter becoming the divisional flagship. Bouvet departed Toulon on 29 January 1903 in company with the battleships Saint Louis, Gaulois, and Charlemagne, four cruisers, and accompanying destroyers for gunnery training off Golfe-Juan. At the time, Bouvet and Gaulois were the 2nd Division, with Bouvet in the lead; the other two ships formed the 1st Division. Two days later, when the divisions were ordered to change from two columns to a single line ahead for shooting drills, Bouvet failed to take her prescribed position and instead turned too closely to Gaulois. The latter accidentally struck the former, with Bouvet losing a ladder and incurring damage to one of the deck-mounted torpedo tubes. Gaulois had two armor plates torn from her bow. Both ships' captains were relieved of command over the incident. In October, Bouvet and the rest of the Mediterranean Squadron battleships steamed to Palma de Mallorca, and on their return to Toulon they conducted training exercises.
  The year 1904 saw the Mediterranean Squadron visit Souda Bay in Crete, Beirut, Smyrna, and Salonika in the Ottoman Empire, Messina in Sicily, and Piraeus, Greece during a cruise of the eastern Mediterranean in the middle of the year. The following year passed uneventfully for Bouvet, and on 10 April 1906, she, Iéna, and Gaulois were sent to Italy in the aftermath of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The three ships carried some 9,000 rations and their crews assisted the victims to recover from the disaster. The division returned to France in time for a naval review on 16 September held in Marseilles that included detachments from Britain, Spain, and Italy. Bouvet and the other French ships then returned to Toulon. The following year, in January 1907, Bouvet was withdrawn from front-line service with the Mediterranean Squadron. Now part of the Second Squadron, she was retained on active service for the year, but with a reduced crew. In July 1908, the Mediterranean Fleet was reorganized and Bouvet was attached to the 3rd Battleship Division as its flagship, under the command of Contre-amiral (Rear Admiral) Laurent Marin-Darbel, along with Jauréguiberry
caption: Map of the western Mediterranean, where Bouvet spent the majority of her peacetime career
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