Clayton, Anthony Three Republics, one Navy

A Naval History of France 1870-1999

In the 1870s, French warships were still equipped with sails to supplement their early steam engines. In the 1970s, the navy's ships included aircraft carriers with supersonic jets and submarines with intercontinental missiles powered by nuclear reactors. Within these hundred years, the navy played an important role in the conquest of colonies in Asia and Africa, until 1900 when it played a leading role in a maritime Cold War against Great Britain, 19041920 in the preparation, especially in the Mediterranean, and participation in a Paris agenda in the First World War, a spectacular modernisation that remained unfinished in the interwar period, the division, tragic self-destruction and rebirth in the Second World War, important roles in the two major decolonisation campaigns in Indochina and Algeria, and finally the maintenance of its status as a world power with power projection capabilities in the late 20th century, which required a navy with capabilities in both the nuclear age and traditional amphibious operations. The enormous costs led to cutbacks and a new relationship with Great Britain in the naval sphere at the end of the 20th century. These successive radical changes were linked to political disputes, unrest and, in the years 1940 to 1942, violent divisions. Political leaders from 19th-century imperialism to the Fifth Republic sought a leading role for France or, if that was not possible, sufficient naval power to effectively influence allies and world affairs. Domestic economic difficulties led more than once to ill-advised cheap fleet policies and construction programmes. The great division in French society after 1789 was occasionally reflected among the crews on board ships, in shipyards and shipbuilding yards, and in 19191920 in open mutinies at sea. In this work, the author has attempted to weave these very different strands into a history of a navy whose priorities have always been more in the defence of the country's borders, with the navy being underestimated and its justified pride in its achievements hardly recognised.