République class battleship
Painting of Patrie
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Name: | République class |
| Operators: |
 French Navy
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| Preceded by: | Charlemagne class |
| Succeeded by: | Liberté class |
| In commission: | December 1906–1928 |
| Completed: | 2 |
| Scrapped: | 2 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type: | Pre-dreadnought battleship |
| Displacement: | 14,605 t (14,374 long tons) |
| Length: | 133.81 m (439.0 ft) pp |
| Beam: | 24.26 m (79.6 ft) |
| Draft: | 8.41 m (27.6 ft) |
| Installed power: | 24 Niclausse boilers, 18,000 shp (13,400 kW) |
| Propulsion: | 3 shafts, 3 vertical triple-expansion steam engines |
| Speed: | 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph) |
| Complement: | 766–825 |
| Armament: |
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| Armor: |
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The République class was a pair of pre-dreadnought battleships of the French Navy; the ships were République, the lead ship, and Patrie. Built between 1901 and December 1906, they were actually completed at the same time as the British HMS Dreadnought, the revolutionary design of which rendered the French ships obsolete before they entered service. Nevertheless, the design for République and Patrie corrected many of the problems in earlier French battleships.
République and Patrie served in the Mediterranean Fleet for the duration of their careers, including the entirety of World War I. They saw action at the Battle of Antivari in August 1914 and spent most of 1914–15 blockading the Straits of Otranto to prevent Austro-Hungarian warships from breaking out into the Mediterranean. They both contributed some of their crews to the attempt to ensure Greek acquiescence to Allied operations in Macedonia in Athens in late 1916. They spent the rest of the war based in Athens or Salonica. After the end of the war, République was placed in reserve in 1919, disarmed in 1920 and sold for scrapping in 1921; Patrie was placed in reserve as well in 1919 and served as a training ship from 1920, until she was stricken in 1927 and she too was sold to the ship-breakers in 1928.
République and Patrie were authorized in the Fleet Law of 1900, which also called for four additional battleships, which were to be the similar Liberté class. The new battleship design corrected many of the defects in earlier battleships, which was accomplished through increases in the displacement and beam. They also had a significantly reduced tumblehome compared to earlier French battleships.
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