Port of Toulon.
The French battleship Bouvet, in the Dardanelles.
It was assigned to escort troop convoys through the Mediterranean at the
start of the war. In early 1915, part of a larger group of combined
British and French ships sent to clear Turkish defenses of the
Dardanelles, Bouvet was hit by at least eight Turkish shells, then
struck a mine, which caused so much damage, the ship sank within a few
minutes. While a few men survived the sinking and were rescued, nearly
650 went down with the ship.Photograph: Bibliotheque nationale de France
Bouvet Memorial Window.
Bouvet was a pre-dreadnought battleship of the French Navy that was built in the 1890s. She was a member of a group of five broadly similar battleships, along with Charles Martel, Jauréguiberry, Carnot, and Masséna.
The ship in World War One joined the naval operations off the Dardanelles, where she participated in a series of attacks on the Ottoman fortifications guarding the straits. These culminated in a major assault on 18 March 1915; during the attack, she was hit approximately eight times by shellfire but was not seriously damaged. While turning to withdraw, she struck a mine and sank within two minutes; only 75 men were rescued from a complement of 710.
Battleship Bouvet
Cuirassé Bouvet
Battleship Bouvet head on.
Battleship Bouvet, Toulon 1898