page_title: List of battleships of France
section_title: Carnot
hierarchical_section_title: List of battleships of France / Pre-dreadnought battleships / Carnot
caption_attribution_description: The French battleship Carnot Original caption&#58; "Le nouveau cuirassé d'escadre «&#160;Carnot&#160;», pendant ses essais de machine."
context_page_description: Between 1889 and 1949, the French Navy built a series of pre-dreadnought, dreadnought, and fast battleships, ultimately totaling thirty-four vessels: twenty-three pre-dreadnoughts, seven dreadnoughts, and four fast battleships. Another seven—five dreadnoughts and two fast battleships—were cancelled in various stages of construction and seven more were cancelled before work began. The first battleship construction program followed a period of confusion in strategic thinking in France over the optimal shape of the fleet. At the time, the French naval command consisted of competing factions, with one that favored building fleets of capital ships, continuing the program of traditional ironclad warships that had dominated the fleet in the 1860s and 1870s. The other major faction preferred the Jeune École doctrine, which emphasized the use of cheap torpedo boats to destroy expensive capital ships. During the period, naval construction decisions often depended on the Minister of the Navy in office at the time.
context_section_description: Carnot was ordered under the same program that produced Charles Martel, and like the other vessel, she was largely based on Brennus and Magenta. But rather than simply repeat the same design, the French Naval Staff decided to allow different naval architects to build several different designs to evaluate the competing proposals for future programs. Carnot was designed by Victor Saglio, the Under-director of Naval Construction in Toulon. Compared to Charles Martel, Carnot was broadly similar, with the same main battery, though she had a smaller superstructure in an attempt to minimize topweight and thus instability that plagued many French capital ships during this period. The ship was nevertheless still too top-heavy and proved to suffer from insufficient stability. Modifications were made to the ship after she was completed, but they did not solve the problem, and like the rest of the ships of the 1890 program, Carnot was not a particularly successful vessel. 
  The ship's early career followed a similar trajectory to Charles Martel's; she spent much of it in the Mediterranean Squadron, and she too served with the International Squadron in 1897. She thereafter began alternating stints in the Northern and Mediterranean Squadrons; she was with the Northern Squadron in 1901, followed by a brief return to the Mediterranean as part of the Reserve Squadron in 1903. The year 1904 saw her back with the Northern Squadron, where she remained until 1907, when she was assigned to the 2nd Battle Squadron in the Mediterranean. In early 1911, the unit was moved to Brest, France, before returning to Toulon later that year, where it was renumbered as the 3rd Squadron. Carnot was reduced to reserve in 1913 and was ultimately broken up in 1922.
caption: Illustration of Carnot still under construction after her launching, c. 1896
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