French cruiser Protet

In response to a war scare with Italy in the late 1880s, the French Navy embarked on a major construction program in 1890 to counter the threat of the Italian fleet and that of Italy's ally Germany. The plan called for a total of seventy cruisers for use in home waters and overseas in the French colonial empire. The Catinat class was ordered as part of the program, and they were based on the earlier Descartes class.[1][2]

Protet was 98.09 m (321 ft 10 in) long between perpendiculars, with a beam of 13.59 m (44 ft 7 in) and a draft of 6.43 m (21 ft 1 in). She displaced 4,001 long tons (4,065 t). Her crew numbered 400 officers and enlisted men. The ship's propulsion system consisted of a pair of triple-expansion steam engines driving two screw propellers. Steam was provided by sixteen coal-burning Belleville-type water-tube boilers that were ducted into two funnels. Her machinery was rated to produce 9,500 indicated horsepower (7,100 kW) for a top speed of 19.5 to 20 knots (36.1 to 37.0 km/h; 22.4 to 23.0 mph).[3] She had a cruising range of 6,000 nautical miles (11,000 km; 6,900 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph); at maximum speed, this fell to 1,000 nmi (1,900 km; 1,200 mi).[4]

The ship was armed with a main battery of four 164 mm (6.5 in) guns. They were placed in individual sponsons clustered amidships, two guns per broadside. These were supported by a secondary battery of ten 100 mm (3.9 in) guns, which were carried in sponsons, casemates, and pivot mounts. For close-range defense against torpedo boats, she carried ten 47 mm (1.9 in) 3-pounder Hotchkiss guns and four 37 mm (1.5 in) 1-pounder guns. She was also armed with two 350 mm (14 in) torpedo tubes in her hull above the waterline. Armor protection consisted of a curved armor deck that was 25 to 60 mm (0.98 to 2.36 in) thick, along with 70 mm (2.8 in) plating on the conning tower.[3]

Protet sometime before 1905

Protet was built at the Forges et Chantiers de la Gironde shipyard near Bordeaux; her keel was laid down in March 1896. The ship was launched on 6 July 1898 and she was completed in February 1899.[3][5] During her sea trials that year, she reached a speed of 20.22 knots (37.45 km/h; 23.27 mph) from 9,300 ihp (6,900 kW) using forced draft.[6] After completing her trials later in 1899, she was commissioned on 20 April to replace the old unprotected cruiser Duguay-Trouin in the Pacific.[7] After completing preparations by September, she sailed from Rochefort to begin a lengthy deployment to the region.[8] The following year, she was joined there by the protected cruiser Infernet and the transport vessel Aube.[9] Protet was in San Francisco in the United States in 1900 when a fire broke out in the harbor; Protet sent men ashore to help suppress the blaze, prompting the city's mayor to send a note of thanks to the French government.[10]

Protet was still serving in the Naval Division of the Eastern Pacific by January 1901, which also included the gunboat Zélée and four transport vessels.[11] In October that year, she went to Panama City, then still part of Colombia, to protect French interests during the Thousand Days' War; she met vessels from other navies, including the United States pre-dreadnought battleship USS Iowa and the British sloop HMS Icarus. On the Caribbean side of the isthmus of Panama, at Colón, the French cruiser Suchet and the United States gunboat USS Machias also awaited developments in the conflict.[12] In December, Protet steamed north to the United States' Mare Island Naval Shipyard in California to replenish coal and supplies.[13]

The ship remained on the Pacific station in 1902.[14] In January, she returned to Panama City, where she met the British cruiser HMS Amphion and the United States cruiser USS Philadelphia. Protet and Amphion remained there through June.[13] By 1903, the station had been reduced to Protet and a gunboat.[15] Protet remained on station in the Pacific in 1904, along with the gunboat Zélée and one transport aviso.[16] Protet continued to operate in the Pacific in 1905, and in January, she stopped in San Francisco to take on coal.[17] Later that year, her sister ship Catinat arrived in the Pacific to relieve Protet, allowing her to return to France.[18] In 1908, Protet was attached to the Gunnery Training School, along with the armored cruiser Latouche-Tréville.[19] The ship was struck from the naval register in 1910 and she was thereafter broken up for scrap.[5]

• Brassey, Thomas A. (1902). "Chapter III: Relative Strength". The Naval Annual. Portsmouth: J. Griffin & Co.: 47–55. OCLC 496786828.
• Brassey, Thomas A. (1903). "Chapter III: Relative Strength". The Naval Annual. Portsmouth: J. Griffin & Co.: 57–68. OCLC 496786828.
• Garbett, H., ed. (May 1899). "Naval Notes: France". Journal of the Royal United Service Institution. London: J. J. Keliher & Co. XLIII (255): 550–570. OCLC 1077860366.
• Garbett, H., ed. (September 1899). "Naval Notes: France". Journal of the Royal United Service Institution. London: J. J. Keliher & Co. XLIII (259): 1024–1027. OCLC 1077860366.
• Garbett, H., ed. (June 1904). "Naval Notes: France". Journal of the Royal United Service Institution. London: J. J. Keliher & Co. XLVIII (316): 707–711. OCLC 1077860366.
• Garbett, H., ed. (March 1905). "Naval Notes: France". Journal of the Royal United Service Institution. London: J. J. Keliher & Co. XLIX (325): 321–325. OCLC 1077860366.
• Garbett, H., ed. (June 1908). "Naval Notes: France". Journal of the Royal United Service Institution. London: J. J. Keliher & Co. LII (364): 861–864. OCLC 1077860366.
• Gardiner, Robert, ed. (1979). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 978-0-85177-133-5.
• Gardiner, Robert & Gray, Randal, eds. (1985). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships: 1906–1921. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-907-8.
• Hay, John (1902). "Assistance Rendered by French Cruiser Protet in Extinguishing a Fire in San Francisco Harbor". Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States with the Annual Message of the President. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office: 478.
• Jordan, John & Caresse, Philippe (2017). French Battleships of World War One. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-59114-639-1.
• Leyland, John & Brassey, Thomas A. (1898). "Chapter II: The Progress of Foreign Navies". The Naval Annual. Portsmouth: J. Griffin & Co.: 32–69. OCLC 496786828.
• "Movement of Vessels". Report of the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, Navy Department. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office: 28–81. 1902. OCLC 10396853.
• "Movement of Vessels". Report of the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, Navy Department. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office: 32–77. 1905. OCLC 10396853.
• Ropp, Theodore (1987). Roberts, Stephen S. (ed.). The Development of a Modern Navy: French Naval Policy, 1871–1904. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-141-6.
• "Service Performed by French Vessels Fitted with Belleville Boilers". Notes on Naval Progress. Washington, D.C.: United States Office of Naval Intelligence. XX: 299. July 1901. OCLC 699264868.
• "South America: An Irrepressible Conflict". The Cyclopedic Review of Current History. Boston: Current History Company. XI (10): 614–617. 1902. OCLC 977668285.