French destroyer Boutefeu. Boutefeu was one of a dozen s built for the French Navy in the first decade of the 20th century.

Design and description
The Bouclier class were designed to a general specification and varied significantly from each other in various ways. The ships had an overall length of , a beam of , and a draft of . Designed to displace , they displaced  at normal load. Their crew numbered 80–83 men.

Boutefeu was powered by a pair of Zoelly steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft using steam provided by four water-tube boilers. The engines were designed to produce  which was intended to give the ships a speed of . Boutefeu handily exceed that speed, reaching  during her sea trials. The ships carried enough fuel oil to give them a range of  at cruising speeds of .

The primary armament of the Bouclier-class ships consisted of two  Modèle 1893 guns in single mounts, one each fore and aft of the superstructure, and four  Modèle 1902 guns distributed amidships. They were also fitted with two twin mounts for  torpedo tubes amidships.

During World War I, a  or  anti-aircraft gun, two  machine guns, and eight or ten Guiraud-type depth charges were added to the ships. The extra weight severely overloaded the ships and reduced their operational speed to around .

Construction and career
Boutefeu was ordered from Dyle et Bacalan and was launched from its Bordeaux shipyard on 2 May 1911. The ship was completed later that year. During the preliminary stages of the Battle of Antivari, Montenegro, on 16 August, the 1st, 4th and 5th Destroyer Flotillas were tasked to escort the core of the 1st Naval Army while the 2nd, 3rd and 6th Flotillas escorted the armored cruisers of the 2nd Light Squadron () and two British cruisers. After reuniting both groups and spotting the Austro-Hungarian protected cruiser  and the destroyer , the French destroyers played no role in sinking the cruiser, although the 4th Flotilla was sent on an unsuccessful pursuit of Ulan. Having broken the Austro-Hungarian blockade of Antivari (now known as Bar), Vice-Admiral () Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère, commander of the 1st Naval Army, decided to ferry troops and supplies to the port using a small requisitioned passenger ship, , escorted by the 2nd Light Squadron, reinforced by the armored cruiser , and escorted by the destroyer  with the 1st and 6th Destroyer Flotillas under command while the rest of the 1st Naval Army bombarded the Austro-Hungarian naval base at Cattaro, Montenegro, on 1 September. Four days later, the fleet covered the evacuation of Danilo, Crown Prince of Montenegro, aboard Bouclier, to the Greek island of Corfu. The flotilla escorted multiple small convoys loaded with supplies and equipment to Antivari, beginning in October and lasting for the rest of the year, always covered by the larger ships of the Naval Army in futile attempts to lure the Austro-Hungarian fleet into battle. Amidst these missions, the 1st and 6th Flotillas were led by the  as they conducted a sweep south of Cattaro on the night of 10/11 November in an unsuccessful search for Austro-Hungarian destroyers.

The torpedoing of the  on 21 December caused a change in French tactics as the battleships were too important to risk to submarine attack. Henceforth, only the destroyers would escort the transports. While returning from an attack on a suspected Austro-Hungarian submarine base in the Gulf of Drin by a mixed group of Italian, British and French cruisers and destroyers on 9 June, the British light cruiser  was torpedoed by the submarine U-4, despite a close escort of six destroyers, that included Boutefeu and . After Italy signed the Treaty of London and declared war on the Austro-Hungarian Empire on 23 May 1915, Boué de Lapeyrère reorganized his forces in late June to cover the approaches to the Adriatic and interdict merchant shipping of the Central Powers since the Royal Italian Navy () now had primary responsibility for the Adriatic itself. His area of responsibility extended from Sardinia to Crete and he divided it into two zones with the 1st Light Squadron assigned to the western zone and the 2nd Light Squadron in the east. Those destroyers of the 1st Naval Army not assigned to reinforce the Italians were transferred to the newly-formed 1st and 2nd Flotillas of the Naval Army (). The 1st and 3rd Destroyer Flotillas were assigned to the 2nd Flotilla of the Naval Army, of which Dehorter was the flagship, which was tasked to support the cruisers of the 2nd Light Division.

On 15 May 1917, during the Battle of the Strait of Otranto, Boutefeu struck a mine laid earlier that day by the Imperial German Navy submarine UC-25 just outside Brindisi harbor. The destroyer broke in two and sank in under two minutes, with heavy loss of life.

References

Bibliography

 
 

Bouclier-class destroyers
Ships built by Dyle et Bacalan
1911 ships
Maritime incidents in 1917
Ships sunk by mines
World War I shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea