The Life of Bretagne #history #ww1 #ww2 #ship #battleship #frenchnavy #bretagne #france #navalbattle
Launched: 21 April 1913 Commissioned: 10 February 1916 Fate: Sunk during the attack on Mers-el-Kébir on 3 July 1940. Later salvaged & scrapped in 1952. Bretagne was the lead ship of her class of 3 dreadnought battleships built in the 1910s for the French Navy. Bretagne entered service in February 1916, after the start of World War I. She spent the bulk of her nearly 25-year-long career with the Mediterranean Squadron & sometimes served as its flagship. During World War I she provided cover for the Otranto Barrage that blockaded the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the Adriatic Sea, but saw no action. The ship was significantly modernised in the interwar period & when she was on active duty, conducted normal peacetime cruises & training manoeuvres in the Mediterranean & the Atlantic Ocean. After World War II broke out in September 1939, Bretagne escorted troop convoys & was briefly deployed to the Atlantic in search of German blockade runners & commerce raiders. Germany invaded France on 10 May 1940 & the French surrendered only 6 weeks later, at which time the battleship was stationed in Mers-el-Kébir, French Algeria. Fearful that the Germans would seize the French Navy, the British attacked the ships there on 3 July 1940 after the French refused to surrender or demilitarise the fleet; Bretagne was hit 4 times & exploded, killing the majority of her crew. Her wreck was salvaged in 1952 and broken up for scrap.