French Battleships of World War One Hardcover – June 15, 2017

Having read and immensely enjoyed the books that John Jordan co-authored on French battleships, cruisers, and destroyers, I was genuinely looking forward to this one. French naval policy and ship design tended to be an incoherent affair, which might explain why there seem to be so few books on it. There was some grumbling that the Courbet and Bretagne classes were barely mentioned in "French Battleships 1922-1956," and outside of "Jane's" and "Conway's" type references, not much seems to have been written in English about these ships. Thankfully, I can say without hesitation that this is the most in-depth book on the subject and a fine complement to John Jordan's other works.A word about what this book is and isn't. It's not a narrative history, nor does it goes into the same depths regarding strategy, politics, and ship designs you might see in something by Norman Friedman. It's more of an old-school naval reference, where everything is neatly segregated into different subjects, and there's plenty of excellent photographs, diagrams, and data tables to accompany the text. The first two chapters cover French capital ships of the 1870s and 1880s, including the notorious "fleet of samples." Each class from the "Charlemagnes" of 1894, to the "Normandies" of 1913 (none of which were actually finished, due to the onset of World War 1) receives its own chapter, each about 20 pages long. Each chapter starts with a brief introduction to the ship's design and development, and some of the problems encountered during their construction. Further sub-sections look at each type's hull design, armament, command and control facilities, armor protection, machinery, ground tackle, and boats. Each chapter ends with a brief evaluation of the type's handling qualities, and value as a warship. Spread throughout the book are numerous "appendixes," focusing on subjects such as fire control in the Bretagne-class, paint schemes, and the numerous interwar refits and modifications to the Bretagne and Courbet classes.Although some of the photographs are (unsurprisingly) rather rough looking, most of them are pretty sharp and crisp. Planwise, each ship receives an overhead plan, profile, longitudinal section, between eight and ten transverse sections, plans of the armor layout, and diagrams of the main and secondary mountings. Some ships also receive plans of the bridge decks, boat layout, conning tower, redoubt, and transmitting station. There's also a color section, featuring 16 paintings by the late Jean Blade.If this book stumbles a bit, it's in the last third, which presents a blow-by-blow history of the ships. Jordan's prior book on French battleships featured alternating technical and historical chapters and definitely flowed a bit better. This one feels somewhat like a unit history grafted onto a technical reference. The writing is definitely a bit dry, and a few more maps would have been useful. The book ends very abruptly, and although it does a fine job comparing these ships with their foreign contemporaries, it doesn't offer much in the way of praise or criticism of them.Although it's not a 100% flawless masterpiece ("French Destroyers, 1922-1956" is still my favorite book in the series), this book did greatly enhance my understanding of these ships. I'm always happy to expand my horizons beyond British and American fighting ships, and books of this quality are a fine way of doing it.

Outstanding! The book discusses the design histories of all the French battleships from 1890 through the projected designs of 1913 - 1914. It also discusses their deployments in the Great War of 1914 - 1918 (World War I). There is also a brief summary of the eleven French battleships built before 1890.This is then followed by a description of the fates of the survivors after 1918. The pre-Dreadnoughts were gradually scrapped in the 1920s and 1930s. The "Courbet" and "Bretagne" classes survived into World War II, but sadly they didn't accomplish much: sunk at Oran, used as breakwaters at Normandy, or scuttled at Toulon.The book covers the following battleship classes in detail:* The "Fleet of Samples" (5 ships) that were constructed in the early- to mid- 1890s;* The "Charlemagne" Class (3 ships);* The "Iena" and "Suffren" (2 ships);* The "Patrie" Class (6 ships);* The "Danton" Class (6 ships);* The "Courbet" Class (4 ships);* The "Bretagne" Class (3 ships);* The projected "Normandie" Class (5 ships);* The projected "Lyon" Class (4 ships).Good reading and lots of black and white photos!

Technical and historical info in abundance.Not to many modern English books on this subject of French battleships.Pick it up for a coffee table or just read it like a paperback novel.Very worth it.

Excellent book I've wait years to get. If you build models or love the weird French pre-dreadnoughts, you will love this book. The intro goes over the history and then then the book has 13 chapters. These cover the Flotte d'Echantillons, the Charelemagne class, the Iena and Suffren, the Patrie class including Henri IV, the Danton, the Courbet, Bretagne, the Normandie classes and the Projects of 1913. A historical section covers the ships, paint schemes and identification markings, wartime modifications and interwar modifications. There are a lot of great pics of each class, line drawings and technical tables. One table gives the Admirals and their flagships. The book also includes maps of the French ports, their dry docks and installations and ship battle formations. An excellent book for the money and highly recommended.

A superbly crafted work that is not only well laid out, but full of data, beautiful photography, and excellent plans configured to fit on a single page, thus avoiding "the gutter effect" so common in books of this type. There are great explanations of French warship design, which clarify their often odd appearance in comparison to their contemporaries, it's all revealed here. The buyer can expect many hours of entertainment here,in a volume that compares favorably with the many other works covering the Capital Ships of Britain and Germany. I would advise any potential buyer to ensure that their seller is competent in packaging a large, heavy book for safe shipment.

Though published more recently, this is the first of two volumes that taken together review the design and operation of French battleships from about 1870 to nearly 1960. Wonderfully clear black-and-white photos, plans and diagrams (and a lovely color collection of watercolor views) make this transitional era in capital ship design vividly clear. Some of the interior photos make the difference in officer and sailor conditions aboard only too clear. This volume carries these ships up to and through World War II, but see the author's parallel and equally excellent study of later French battleships in that war. Recommended . . .

This is a superb book and I give five stars, though whether I will have the stamina to read it fully, cover to cover, I am not sure, given the dry narrative style. It is a problem now that of course there are no people still alive who knew these ships and, like all such modern books, the content focuses on statistical data. There is a paragraph or so of .evaluation at the end of each chapter, but that does not quite meet the criticism.Like 'Uncle Bob' I also dislike the 'of world war one' title. The book starts with a short resume from 1870, picks up with rather more detail about ships of the early 90's, but does not really get into its stride until the chapter on the Charlemagnes - partly because Mr Caresse has written previous monographs about these and the following Iena and Suffren designs. Notably the 'section' and 'profile' drawings -which are excellent- only begin with the Charlemagnes. The impression is always given that older ships were just inferior and of little consequence by 1914 - which may be true but they should be considered far more for their value when new.The authors do emphasise that the constructors were always hampered by political refusal to spend money on really adequate dimensions. In France wrangling over designs went on for years, meanwhile the British were busy building many battleships. The irony is that construction periods lasting up to about seven years resulted in very expensive ships - much more expensive than the far larger but standarized British designs which were built in less than half the time. More discussion about these matters would have been useful here.There seem to be some other blind spots where design parameters have been accepted without critical comment. For example there is a long paragraph covering the thickness of armour on the Charles Martel's, but little explanation of its actual coverage or effectiveness. It is not very useful to be told that these ships and the British Royal Sovereigns both had belt armour about 450mm thick without mention of its very different distribution in the two designs. The authors seem to accept the end- on fire logic for the lozenge gun layout, whereas in practice it was impossible to make effective use of midship mounted gums in this way.There are some excellent drawings showing turret arrangement and working ('Patrie', for example) but I would have liked this for all the classes of ship and, again, the earlier ones receive few such drawings. I also note that the authors are not very interested in machinery. Usually there is a paragraph, but I cannot find any pictures or drawings dedicated to the subject.216 pages detail design and construction, the remaining 100 pages cover later history, including reconstruction of the Dreadnoughts prior to World War Two. There are good drawings showing these design changes, though not many photographs. These sections are quite comprehensive though, again, the narrative style is rather dry.This is a much better book than you may imagine from reading this review! Many of the photo's are superb glass plate portraits and thankfully not many stretch across the binding. The detailed drawing are also excellent. Overall, the book rather resembles RA Burts' series of books on British Battleships and like those it is excellent value for money at less than £30 to buy.So, this substantial tome is well worth buying but I just wish authors would include more real critical analysis, including the 'hunting out' of comment and anecdotes from people who lived with the ships during 'their time'. I collect such books, but really would like them to be more enjoyable to read.One final comment: enthusiasts must thank Seaforth Publishing for promoting this book (published to their usual high standard). Without Seaforth we would not have much new material to read!

fantastic excellent pictures through out

Der Überschrift lässt sich nicht viel hinzufügen.Neben zahlreichen Originalfotos von exzellenter Qualität, die nicht nur Gesamtansichten, son-dern auch viele Details an Bord zeigen (für den Modellbauer sehr nützlich), werden nach den Werftzeichnungen gefertigte Risse geboten, die die Anordnung in den Kommandozentralen und Geschütztürmen veranschaulichen.Die technischen Daten sind sehr ausführlich, einziger Wermutstropfen: Im Laufe der Dienstzeit erfolgte Umrüstungen werden nicht vollständig dokumentiert. Soweit erforderlich erfolgt eine überzeugend begründete kritische Beurteilung der Mängel verschiedener Konstruktionen.Auch der Werdegang der Schiffe wird anschaulich zusammengefasst.In Summe ein in jeder Hinsicht ausgezeichnetes Werk, das man gerne zur Hand nimmt. Der Preis ist absolut gerechtfertigt.

Another great collaboration between John Jordan and a French naval writer. In depth look at the French pre-dreadnoughts and dreadnoughts of WW1: how and why they were designed and built, details of construction, and operational history. I'd recommend this to anyone interested in warship history, warship technical details, and scale model builders. May seem expensive but well worth it.

Ein wahrhaft großartiges Werk zu dem gerne vergessenen Thema der französischen Marine, insbesondere des ersten Weltkrieges! Das Werk wird sicherlich für die nächsten Jahrzehnte ein Standardwerk in dieser Thematik bleiben! Ein absolutes Muss zu diesem Thema!