French cruiser Jules Michelet
Jules Michelet at Tanjung Priok, Dutch East Indies, while serving as transport for the Governor-General of Indochina, 1929
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| Class overview | |
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| Operators: |
 French Navy
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| Preceded by: | Léon Gambetta class |
| Succeeded by: | Ernest Renan |
| History | |
| Name: | Jules Michelet |
| Namesake: | Jules Michelet |
| Builder: | Lorient |
| Laid down: | June 1904 |
| Launched: | August 1908 |
| Commissioned: | November 1908 |
| Fate: | Sank as target 1937 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Armored cruiser |
| Displacement: | 13,105 tonnes (12,898 long tons) |
| Length: | 146.53 m (480 ft 9 in) overall |
| Beam: | 21.41 m (70 ft 3 in) |
| Draught: | 8.41 m (27 ft 7 in) |
| Propulsion: | 3 vertical triple expansion steam engines, 28 Guyot du Temple boilers, 30,000 ihp (22,371 kW) |
| Speed: | 22.5 knots (41.7 km/h; 25.9 mph) |
| Capacity: | 2,070 tonnes of coal |
| Complement: | 728 |
| Armament: |
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| Armour: |
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Jules Michelet was an armoured cruiser of the French Navy, laid down in 1904 and completed in 1908. It was a development of the Léon Gambetta class of armoured cruisers, and was the sole representative of its type. It served during the First World War being eventually sunk as a target in 1937.
Jules Michelet was laid down in June 1904 as a modified version of the Leon Gambetta class of armoured cruisers. It was slightly longer and heavier than the previous class, and while it had a similar machinery layout, with 28 boilers supplying vertical triple expansion steam engines which drove three propeller shafts, the engines delivered 1,500 ihp (1,100 kW) more power, allowing the ship to reach a design speed of 22.5 knots (41.7 km/h; 25.9 mph). The ship was fitted with four funnels.
The main armament was four 193 mm (7.6 in) guns in twin turrets, one each fore and aft, while secondary armament was twelve 164 mm (6.5 in) guns, eight of which were in single turrets and the remaining four in casemates. Although Jules Michelet had four fewer 164 mm guns than the Leon Gambetta class, with single turrets instead of twin turrets, both the main and secondary guns were more powerful models than those carried in the earlier ships. A tertiary anti-torpedo-boat battery of twenty four 47 mm guns was mounted in casements, while the ship's armament was completed by two submerged 450 mm (18 in) torpedo tubes.
The ship was launched in August 1905 and completed in November 1908, reaching a speed of 22.9 knots (42.4 km/h; 26.4 mph) in trials.
After entering service, Jules Michelet was assigned to the cruiser squadron of the Mediterranean Fleet, based in Toulon. On 27 June 1912, Jules Michelet suffered two gun explosions during firing practice at Toulon, killing four and wounding 21. These explosions were blamed on defective powder.
During First World War, Jules Michelet was part of the French Mediterranean Fleet, spending the whole of the war in the Mediterranean. At the start of the conflict, Jules Michelet and the armored cruisers Ernest Renan and Edgar Quinet were mobilized as the First Light Division and tasked with hunting down the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben and her consort Breslau. These ships, along with a flotilla of twelve destroyers, was to steam to Philippeville no 4 August, but the German cruisers had bombarded the port the previous day. This attack, coupled with reports that suggested the Germans would try to break out of the Mediterranean into the Atlantic, prompted the French high command to send Jules Michelet and the First Light Division further west, to Algiers.
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