![]() Patrie at her mooring
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History | |
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Name | Patrie |
Laid down | 1 April 1902 |
Launched | 17 December 1903 |
Commissioned | 1 July 1907 |
Fate | Broken up for scrap, 1937 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type | République-class pre-dreadnought battleship |
Displacement | 14,870 metric tons (14,640 long tons) |
Length | 135.25 meters (443 ft 9 in) loa |
Beam | 24.25 m (79 ft 7 in) |
Draft | 8.2 m (26 ft 11 in) |
Installed power |
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Propulsion | |
Speed | 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph) |
Range | 8,400 nautical miles (15,600 km; 9,700 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
Complement |
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Armament |
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Armor |
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Patrie was the second and final member of the République class of pre-dreadnought battleships of the French Navy built between her keel laying in April 1902 and her commissioning in July 1907. Armed with a main battery of four 305 mm (12.0 in) guns, she was outclassed before even entering service by the revolutionary British battleship HMS Dreadnought, that had been commissioned the previous December and was armed with a battery of ten guns of the same caliber. Though built to an obsolescent design, Patrie proved to be a workhorse of the French fleet, particularly during World War I.
During the ship's peacetime career, Patrie served with the Mediterranean Squadron; this period was occupied with training exercises and cruises in the western Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic. She served as the squadron's flagship until replaced by newer vessels in 1911. Following the outbreak of war in July 1914, Patrie was used to escort troopship convoys carrying elements of the French Army from French North Africa to face the Germans invading northern France. She thereafter steamed to contain the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the Adriatic Sea, taking part in the minor Battle of Antivari in August. The increasing threat of Austro-Hungarian U-boats and the unwillingness of the Austro-Hungarian fleet to engage in battle led to a period of inactivity that ended with a transfer of the vessel to the Dardanelles Division fighting in the Gallipoli Campaign, where she bombarded Ottoman forces.
Following the Allied withdrawal from Gallipoli in 1916, Patrie became involved in events in Greece, being stationed in Salonika to put pressure on the Greek government to enter the war on the side of the Allies. She contributed men to a landing party that went ashore in Athens to support a pro-Allied coup. She saw little activity in 1917 and 1918 after the coup succeeded. Following the end of the war in late 1918, she was sent to Constantinople to support the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, though she took no active role and served as a barracks ship. She then became a training ship, a role she filled in one capacity or another until 1936, when she was withdrawn from service and sold for scrap the following year.