The ships carried enough coal to give them a range of 3,776 nautical miles (6,993 km 4,345 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h 12 mph). During her sea trials, Gaulois reached a top speed of 18 knots (33 km/h 21 mph) from 14,220 metric horsepower (10,459 kW 14,025 ihp). These boilers were coal-burning with auxiliary oil sprayers and were designed to produce 14,200 metric horsepower (10,444 kW 14,006 ihp) to give the Charlemagne class a speed of 17 knots (31 km/h 20 mph). The ships were powered by three vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one shaft, using steam generated by 20 Belleville boilers. When serving as flagships, their crew numbered 750 men, but had 32 officers and 660 ratings as private ships. They displaced 11,260 tonnes (11,080 long tons) normally, and 11,415 tonnes (11,235 long tons) at deep load. At deep load, the ships had a draught of 7.4 metres (24 ft 3 in) forward and 8.4 metres (27 ft 7 in) aft. They were 117.7 metres (386 ft 2 in) long overall and had a beam of 20.26 metres (66 ft 6 in). The Charlemagne-class ships were smaller versions of the preceding Bouvet, albeit with an improved armament. She was en route to the Dardanelles after a refit in France when she was torpedoed and sunk on 27 December by a German submarine four crewmen were lost. Gaulois returned to the Dardanelles and covered the Allied evacuation in January 1916. She was refloated and sent to Toulon for permanent repairs. She was badly damaged during one such bombardment in March and had to beach herself to avoid sinking. In 1915, Gaulois joined British ships in bombarding Ottoman fortifications. She was ordered to the Dardanelles in November 1914 to guard against a sortie into the Mediterranean by the ex-German battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim. The ship accidentally rammed two other French warships early in her career, although neither was seriously damaged, nor was Gaulois.įollowing the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, Gaulois escorted troop convoys from French North Africa to France for a month and a half. Completed in 1899, she spent most of her career assigned to the Mediterranean Squadron ( Escadre de la Méditerranée). Gaulois was one of three Charlemagne-class pre-dreadnought battleships built for the French Navy ( Marine Nationale) in the mid-1890s.
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