![]() The combination of dealing with both the reasons behind the ships and the French build policy, as well as their actual actions, is an effective one, which enables the book to treat rapidly and easily with its subject. Some of what it writes could be easily found on wikipedia, but it manages to integrate together its subject into a cohesive story and one which could not be easily replaced by simply using online sources since none provide its cohesive look at the French battlefleet as a whole. It has a huge number of shortcomings and omissions, but most of what it treats with directly is reasonably well done. The shortness of French Battleships 1914-1945 is both its strength and its weakness. The conclusion summarizes the fate of the rest of the French battleships, destroyed by bombing, uses as training and depot ships, or scuttled as breakwaters, and the post-war decommissioning of French battleships. Jean Bart's battle at Casablanca against American forces during Operation Torch and the scuttling of the French fleet at Toulon as well as Richelieu's service in the Allied navies after refit end the chapter. "French Battleship Operations 1939-1945" looks at how French battleships served in WW2, devoting substantial attention to the Attack on Mers-el-Kebir and subsequent British attempts to destroy the French fleet in Dakar, Mers-el-Kebir, Egypt, and Britain. ![]() "Fast Battleships of the Marine Nationale" continues on with the post-WW1 era and the construction of the French Dunkerque-class battlecruisers, highly innovative and radical designs to counter German pocket battleships, and the Richelieus, essentially scaled-up Dunkerques. ![]() French battleships would only finally return to France however, in 1919, after being used to support the White Russians in the Russian Civil War until their crews mutinied and forced their return. After the brief pursuit of the Goeben and Breslau, the French battleships largely played no role against enemy surface warships, other than a few brushes with the Austro-Hungarians, and only really saw use in providing gunnery support to forces landing in Greece. ![]() "French Battleship Operations 1914-1919" looks at the rather disappointing nature of the struggle for the French, who had to contend with the passive fleet-in-being strategy of the Austrian navy, which the French were unable to take the offensive against. ![]()
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