was
laid down at the French Navy shipyard in
Lorient on 16 January 1893, and was
launched on 27 April 1896. After completing
fitting-out work, she began
sea trials on 5 March 1898. The ship was intended to have conducted her trials from
Brest, but she was sent to
Toulon to reinforce the
Mediterranean Squadron due to the
Fashoda crisis with Britain. She was
commissioned into the French Navy in June 1898. The ship was named in honor of Admiral
François Joseph Bouvet. Throughout the ship's peacetime career, she was occupied with routine training exercises that included gunnery training, combined maneuvers with torpedo boats and
submarines, and practicing attacking
coastal fortifications. Since was one of the most modern French battleships in the late 1890s and early 1900s, she spent this time in the Mediterranean Squadron, France's primary fleet. One of the largest of these exercises was conducted between March and July 1900, and involved the Mediterranean Squadron and the Northern Squadron. On 6 March, joined the battleships , , , , and and four
protected cruisers for maneuvers off
Golfe-Juan on the
Côte d'Azur, including night firing training. Over the course of April, the ships visited numerous French ports along the Mediterranean coast, and on 31 May the fleet steamed to
Corsica for a visit that lasted until 8 June. After completing its own exercises in the Mediterranean, the Mediterranean Squadron rendezvoused with the Northern Squadron off
Lisbon, Portugal, in late June before proceeding to
Quiberon Bay for joint maneuvers in July. The maneuvers concluded with a
naval review in
Cherbourg on 19 July for President
Émile Loubet. On 1 August, the Mediterranean Fleet departed for Toulon, arriving on 14 August. was assigned to the 2nd Battle Division of the Mediterranean Squadron, along with and the new battleship , the latter becoming the divisional flagship. departed Toulon on 29 January 1903 in company with the battleships , , and , four cruisers, and accompanying destroyers for gunnery training off Golfe-Juan. At the time, and were the 2nd Division, with in the lead; the other two ships formed the 1st Division. Two days later, when the divisions were ordered to change from two columns to a single
line ahead for shooting drills, failed to take her prescribed position and instead turned too closely to . The latter accidentally struck the former, with losing a ladder and incurring damage to one of the deck-mounted torpedo tubes. had two armor plates torn from her bow. Both ships' captains were relieved of command over the incident. In October, and the rest of the Mediterranean Squadron battleships steamed to
Palma de Mallorca, and on their return to Toulon they conducted training exercises. The year 1904 saw the Mediterranean Squadron visit
Souda Bay in
Crete,
Beirut,
Smyrna, and
Salonika in the
Ottoman Empire,
Messina in Sicily, and
Piraeus, Greece, during a cruise of the eastern Mediterranean in the middle of the year. The following year passed uneventfully for , and on 10 April 1906, she, , and were sent to Italy in the aftermath of the eruption of
Mount Vesuvius. The three ships carried some 9,000 rations and their crews assisted the victims to recover from the disaster. The division returned to France in time for a naval review on 16 September held in
Marseille that included detachments from Britain, Spain, and Italy. and the other French ships then returned to Toulon. The following year, in January 1907, was withdrawn from front-line service with the Mediterranean Squadron. Now part of the Second Squadron, she was retained on active service for the year, but with a reduced crew. In July 1908, the Mediterranean Fleet was reorganized and was attached to the 3rd Battleship Division as its flagship, under the command of ()
Laurent Marin-Darbel, along with and the battleship . Beginning in January 1909, with the commissioning of the six and s, the Mediterranean Squadron was reorganized into two battle squadrons; was at that time assigned to the 3rd Division, part of the 2nd Battle Squadron, still the flagship of Marin-Darbel. Her place was taken the following year by , and she remained out of service that year, with the exception of during the fleet maneuvers conducted in June, which she joined. In January 1911, she returned to service as the flagship of Adam in the 2nd Division of the 2nd Battle Squadron. On 5 October, the fleet was again reorganized and her place in what was now the 3rd Battle Squadron was taken by . On 16 October 1912, , , , , , and were activated for training duties as the 3rd Squadron of the Mediterranean Squadron; in July 1913, they were joined by . The squadron was dissolved on 11 November, and , , and were assigned to the (). Training activities continued into 1914, and in March, the division joined the rest of the Mediterranean Squadron, which was now re-designated as the () for gunnery training off Corsica. Additional maneuvers were conducted beginning on 13 May, during which the fleet visited
Bizerte in
French Tunisia,
Algiers in
French Algeria, and
Ajaccio, Corsica.
World War I Following the outbreak of World War I in July 1914, France announced general
mobilization on 1 August. The next day, Admiral
Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère ordered the entire French fleet to begin raising steam at 22:15 so the ships could sortie early the following morning. The bulk of the fleet, including the (designated as "Group C"), was sent to French North Africa, where they would escort the vital troop
convoys carrying elements of the
French Army from North Africa back to France to counter the expected German invasion. At the time, the division was commanded by
Émile Paul Amable Guépratte, and it was tasked with guarding against a possible attack by the German
battlecruiser , which instead
fled to the Ottoman Empire. and her division mates steamed first to Algiers and then
Oran. There, they rendezvoused with one of the convoys and covered its voyage north to
Sète on 6 August. From there, and the battleships proceeded on to Toulon, before departing again for Algiers for another escort mission. Once the French Army units had completed their crossing by late August, the Group C ships were tasked with patrolling merchant traffic between Tunis and Sicily to prevent
contraband shipments to the
Central Powers. In November, she and the
armored cruiser were sent to relieve the British armored cruisers and as
guard ships at the northern entrance to the
Suez Canal. She remained there only briefly, however, before she was ordered north to the
Dardanelles to relieve the battleship on 20 December. Over the coming months, the
Triple Entente amassed a large fleet tasked with breaking through the Ottoman defenses that guarded the straits. During this period, before the start of major offensive operations, the Anglo-French fleet alternated between anchorages at
Tenedos and
Mudros Bay on the island of
Lemnos, and it was tasked with patrolling the entrance to the straits to ensure that —which had by then been transferred to the
Ottoman Navy as —did not attempt to sortie. On 1 February 1915, the ships sailed to
Sigri on the island of
Lesbos.
Dardanelles campaign By mid-February 1915, the French and British had assembled a fleet of four French and twelve British battleships, including , to lead the assault on the Dardanelles. The plan called for Ottoman defenses to be neutralized to allow the fleet to enter the
Sea of Marmara and attack
Constantinople directly. The first stage of the attack began on 19 February, which saw and , together with the British battlecruiser and the
pre-dreadnought battleships , , and , bombard the coastal defenses protecting the entrance of the straits. During the bombardment, assisted the battleship by sending firing corrections via
radio while provided
counter-battery fire to suppress the Ottoman
coastal artillery. Another attempt was made six days later, with again spotting for ; this attack was more successful, and the French and British battleships silenced the outer fortresses, allowing
minesweepers to enter the area and begin clearing the minefields protecting the straits. The French division steamed into the
Gulf of Saros on the Aegean coast of the
Gallipoli Peninsula on 1 March to scout Ottoman positions in the area. They then covered the British battleships as they bombarded Ottoman positions in the straits on 5 March, before taking their turn the next day, when they attacked the fortification at
Dardanus. On 18 March, the French and British squadrons made another attack on the straits, directed at the inner ring of fortresses that guarded the narrowest part of the Dardanelles. The larger British contingent, commanded by Rear Admiral
John de Robeck, was to make the initial attack at longer range, led by the powerful
dreadnought battleship ; once the batteries were reduced, the French ships, under Guépratte, were to enter the straits and attack at closer range. and were to attack the fortresses on the Asian side of the straits, while and were to silence the batteries on the European side. Mistakenly believing the Ottoman guns to have been largely neutralized by the British bombardment, Guépratte led his ships to within of the inner fortresses and engaged in an artillery duel. and operated as a pair, taking alternating passes at high speed to make it more difficult for the Ottoman gunners to score hits. Nevertheless, by 14:00, had taken several hits and two of her casemate guns had been knocked out. A serious fire had also been started on her
bridge, though she had succeeded in neutralizing the Hamidieh battery. In the course of the attack on the fortresses, sustained eight hits from Turkish artillery fire. Her forward turret was disabled after the propellant gas extractor broke down. At around 13:45, de Robeck had ordered Guépratte to withdraw his ships so their British counterparts could take their turn against the Ottoman fortifications. was at that time battling the fort at
Namazieh, and her commander, (
Ship of the line captain) Rageot de la Touche, initially did not respond to Guépratte's instruction to follow out of the narrows. After Guépratte again ordered him to break off contact, de la Touche turned south to withdraw. Shortly thereafter, was rocked by a major explosion, followed by a large cloud of red-black smoke; observers aboard the other ships could not immediately tell whether she had been hit by an Ottoman shell, torpedoed by a shore-mounted torpedo battery, or if she had struck a mine. The escorting
destroyers and picket boats raced to the scene to pick up her crew, but in the span of just two minutes, capsized and sank. A total of 75 of her crew were pulled from the water; 24 officers and 619 enlisted men died in the sinking. Most of the survivors were rescued by the British destroyer . The ship was in poor condition at the time due to her age, which likely contributed to her rapid sinking, though there was some speculation that her ammunition magazine exploded. Guépratte himself remarked that "that ship must have had poor stability." It was later determined that had struck a mine, which was part of a field that had been freshly laid a week before the attack, and was unknown to the Allies. Despite the sinking of , the first such loss of the day, the British remained unaware of the minefield, thinking the explosion had been caused by a shell or torpedo. Subsequently, two British pre-dreadnoughts, and , were sunk and the battlecruiser
Inflexible was damaged by the same minefield. and were both badly damaged by coastal artillery during the engagement. The loss of and the two British battleships during the 18 March attack was a major factor in the decision to abandon a naval strategy to take Constantinople, and instead opt for the
Gallipoli land campaign. While the Franco-British forces began preparations for the attack, s place in the fleet was filled by . ==Wreck==