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Here at LSOZI, we are going to take off every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all of their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places. – Christopher Eger

Warship Wednesday Feb. 18, 2015 Marshal Massena of Gallipoli

Here we see the Charles Martel-class pre-dreadnought battleship of the Navy of the French Republic, Marshal André Masséna. Just about one of the coolest late-19th century warwagons, she is a classic of Edwardian naval tumblehome hull architecture.

This 11,000-ton, 369-foot warship today would be classified as a cruiser or even a Zumwalt-class destroyer, but in 1892, she was an ass kicker. An incredibly complicated system of two dozen Lagrafel d’Allest water-tube boilers fed manually by coal pushed three triple expansion engines that could propel her and her near sisters at about 17-ish knots, which was pretty good for the day.

If she had to fight, a pair of 12”/40 caliber (305mm) Modèle 1893 guns, mounted in single turrets fore and aft, could hole an enemy ship with a 770-pound AP shell out to 13,00 yards. These were backed up by another pair of 10-inch guns, 16 smaller mounts and, like most battleships of the era, had submerged torpedo tubes. She was made to be able to slug it out, being fitted with up to 18-inches of steel plate armor.

Laid down at Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire in 1892, she was named after André Masséna, Duc de Rivoli, Prince d’Essling, one of Napoleon’s original 18 Marshals. Of course Massena turned his back in little N when the Bourbons came back to power and kept it turned during the 100 Days, but hey nobody is perfect.

The namesake battleship was commissioned in June 1898, after five years on the builder’s ways. Coming out during the Spanish-American War, in which most of the ships in combat were armored cruisers smaller and less heavily armed than Masséna, her design was felt validated.

She spent the next decade in happy peacetime maneuvers, gunnery trials, and practice. However, by 1908 a funny thing happened. You see after the Russo Japanese War of 1904-05, dreadnoughts of her type were hamburger. In fact, four Russian Borodino-class battleships, themselves actually more modern versions of the Masséna and her sisters, lasted just minutes in combat. With the all-big-gun HMS Dreadnought being commissioned in 1906, she was further made obsolete.

Masséna was sitting in French mothballs when World War One erupted and she was eventually dusted off. Even old battleships are useful in a Great War after all. She was to be used to help force the straits to the Bosporus during the Gallipoli Campaign in late 1914 along with her recently recalled sisters.

There, Bouvet, one of these sisterships struck a mine and sunk in just two minutes during operations off the Dardanelles on 18 March 1915. That was indicative of campaign. When that whole thing unraveled, Massena, the 17-year-old bruiser was scuttled in shallow water and used as a breakwater to help evac the ANZAC/French forces in 1916. In 1923, the postwar French Naval Bureau sold the hulk, which they still technically owned, to breakers for scrap.

Her three surviving near sisters in French service, Charles Martel, Jauréguiberry, and Carnot, were out of front line service after Gallipoli and scrapped before the next war, the class forgotten.

As for Masséna himself, his sabre is on display at the musée d’Art et d’Histoire de Neuchâte

Specs

Displacement: 11,735 tons (11,550 long tons)
Length: 112.65 m (369 ft. 7 in)
Beam: 20.27 m (66 ft. 6 in)
Draft: 8.84 m (29 ft. 0 in)
Propulsion: Three triple expansion engines
Speed: 17 kn (31 km/h; 20 mph)
Complement: 667
Armament:
2 × 305 mm/40 (12 in) Modèle 1893 guns
2 × 274 mm/45 (10.8 in) Modèle 1893 guns
8 × 138 mm/45 (5.5 in) Modèle 1888 guns
8 × 100 mm (3.9 in) guns
4 × 450 mm torpedo tubes (submerged)
Armor:
Belt: 450 mm (18 in)
Turrets: 400 mm (16 in)
Conning tower: 350 mm (14 in)

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