Expenditure on the French Navy doubled between 1910 and 1914. Fourteen new battleships were ordered along with cruisers, destroyers and submarines. On the outbreak of the First World War France had 19 battleships, 32 cruisers, 86 destroyers, 34 submarines and 115 torpedo boats. During the Dardanelles operation the French Navy sent four battleships, six destroyers and submarines. The battleship Bovet and four submarines were lost during this campaign. The French Navy also operated its own air service. By the Armistice the French Navy had 1,264 aircraft (mostly seaplanes) and 37 airships. These mainly operated from coastal stations as reconnaissance and for light bombing operations. After 1915 the French Navy was expected to concentrate on protecting French and British shipping in the Mediterranean. Unable to cope with German U-boats, more than 500 French merchant ships were sunk during the war. The French Navy's total losses in action was 4 battleships, 6 cruisers, 23 destroyers and torpedo boats, 14 submarines and 46 various patrol craft.
Bouvet - French Pre Dreadnaught Battleship ...the fifth ship of the Charels Martel type battleships but differed with the hull not being cut down to the main deck and also having two smaller military masts. The Bouvet was the best of the the five battleships - as it had a face-hardened armour. Bouvet built at Lorient - was laid down on the 16th January 1893 and launched on the 27th April 1896, completed in June 1898 .... she served during world war one and was sent to the Dardanelle's in 1915. On the 18th March the Bouvet was hit eight times - all struck above the waterline .... her fore turret was put out of action due to the failure of the the gas extraction apparatus ... she then struck a 176 lb mine which exploded below the starboard 10.8 inch turret and this caused the Bouvet to capsize and sink in under 2 minutes with the loss of around 660 crew ........ she was in poor condition and it is believed that a magazine explosion probably caused the rapid sinking. Despite the loss of the Bouvet, the first such loss of the day, the British remained unaware of the minefield, thinking the explosion had been caused by a shell or torpedo. Subsequently two British pre-Dreadnoughts, the Ocean and Irresistible, were sunk and the battlecruiser HMS Inflexible, as well as the pre-Dreadnoughts Suffren and Gaulois, were damaged by the same minefield. http://www.battleships-cruisers.co.uk/bouvet.htm http://iarchives.library.cornell.edu/collect/y19145/index/assoc/D38.dir/doc5.pdf
Just to supplement Annies information I enclose a more detailed picture of the French behemoth Bouvet...
Following the 1904 Anglo-French Entente Cordiale, French Navy policy was to concentrate its forces in the Mediterranean against a likely Italian-Austrian coalition, while maintaining a mainly defensive position in the north (North Sea, English Channel, Atlantic coast) where the Royal Navy would predominate. French forces in this area initially included seven cruisers and a number of destroyers, torpedo boats and submarines for patrol duty in the western English Channel. In the Mediterranean on the other hand was the 1st Armée Navale under the command of Adm de Lapeyrère with 21 battleships (including four newly-commissioned dreadnoughts and 6 "Danton" class pre-dreadnoughts), 15 cruisers, around 43 destroyers and 15 submarines. The first task of the Mediterranean battle squadrons was to escort troop transports carrying North African divisions to France in time for the Battle of the Marne. By the end of August 1914, 14 battleships, 6 armoured cruisers, destroyers and submarines were based at Malta and patrolling the southern Adriatic Sea to prevent any attack by the Austrian Fleet. They also shelled Cattaro and Lissa. In September 1914, two French pre-dreadnoughts joined the British squadron watching the Turkish Dardanelles to prevent the German battlecruiser "Goeben" breaking out. Once Italy entered the war on the Allied side in May 1915 the French moved to more forward bases at Brindisi on the Italian Adriatic coast and the Greek island of Corfu. By December 1915, the Serbs had been defeated and the Army retreated across the mountains to the Albanian coast. From here the French Navy evacuated the Serbs first to Corfu, then to Bizerta in northern Tunisia, and once reformed to Salonika in north east Greece. An eventual total of 270,000 men were evacuated by mainly French forces without loss. In December 1916 the French played the major role in resolving the confused Greek situation. French warships arrived off Athens, and after landing sailors and bombarding, forced the pro-German Greek government to support Allied policies. A number of Greek warships were seized, commissioned into the French Navy and later made a valuable contribution to Allied anti-U-boat measures. By 1918, the French had come to play an important part in the war against the U-boats - both on patrol and as convoy escorts. Apart from destroyers, anti-submarine forces were organised into nine patrol and escort commands with 111 torpedo boat's, 35 submarines, 63 sloops and gunboats, 153 submarine chasers and 734 armed trawlers. Although the French nations' contribution to the Allied effort lay mainly with their vast Army on the Western Front, they also played their part in the war at sea and paid the price accordingly. Losses included one semi-dreadnought and three pre-dreadnought battleships, four armoured and one protected cruiser, twelve destroyers and fourteen submarines.
