French cruiser Chanzy

File:Amiral-Charner Brassey's1902.png 1902]]

The Amiral Charner-class ships were designed to be smaller and cheaper than the preceding armored cruiser design, the {{ship|French cruiser|Dupuy de Lôme||2}}. Like the older ship, they were intended to fill the commerce-raiding strategy of the Jeune École.Feron, pp. 8–9

Chanzy measured {{convert|106.12|m|ftin|sp=us}} between perpendiculars, with a beam of {{convert|14.04|m|ftin|sp=us}}. The ship had a forward draft of {{convert|5.55|m|ftin|sp=us}} and drew {{convert|6.06|m|ftin|sp=us}} aft. She displaced {{convert|4748|t|LT|sp=us}} at normal load and {{convert|4990|t|LT|sp=us}} at deep load.Feron, p. 15

The Amiral Charner class had two triple-expansion steam engines, each driving a single propeller shaft. Steam for the engines was provided by 16 Belleville boilers and they were rated at a total of {{convert|8300|PS|lk=on}} using forced draft. Amiral Charner had a designed speed of {{convert|19|knots|lk=in}} and carried up to {{convert|535|t|sp=us}} of coal that allowed her to steam for {{convert|4000|nmi|lk=in}} at a speed of {{convert|10|kn}}.Feron, pp. 15, 17

The ships of the Amiral Charner class had a main armament that consisted of two Canon de 194 mm Modèle 1887 guns that were mounted in single gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure. Their secondary armament comprised six Canon de 138.6 mm Modèle 1887 guns, each in single gun turrets on each broadside. For anti-torpedo boat defense, they carried four Canon de 65 mm Modèle 1891 guns, four QF 3-pounder Hotchkiss and eight {{convert|37|mm|in|adj=on|sp=us}} five-barreled revolving Hotchkiss guns. They were also armed with four {{convert|450|mm|in|adj=on|1|sp=us}} pivoting torpedo tubes; two mounted on each broadside above water.Feron, pp. 11, 15

The side of the Amiral Charner class was generally protected by {{convert|92|mm|sp=us}} of steel armor, from {{convert|1.3|m|ftin|sp=us}} below the waterline to {{convert|2.5|m|ftin|sp=us}} above it. The bottom {{convert|20|cm|in|1|sp=us}} tapered in thickness and the armor at the ends of the ships thinned to {{convert|60|mm|sp=us}}. The curved protective deck of mild steel had a thickness of {{convert|40|mm|sp=us}} along its centerline that increased to {{convert|50|mm|sp=us}} at its outer edges. Protecting the boiler rooms, engine rooms, and magazines below it was a thin splinter deck. A watertight internal cofferdam, filled with cellulose, ran the length of the ship from the protective deckFeron, pp. 12, 15 to a height of {{convert|4|ft|m|1|disp=flip|sp=us}} above the waterline.Chesneau & Kolesnik, p. 304 Below the protective deck the ship was divided by 13 watertight transverse bulkheads with five more above it. The ship's conning tower and turrets were protected by 92 millimeters of armor.

Chanzy, named after General Antoine Chanzy,Silverstone, p. 92 was ordered from Chantiers et Ateliers de la Gironde on 18 December 1899 and laid down the following month at their shipyard in Bordeaux. She was launched on 24 January 1894 and initially was commissioned for her sea trials on 6 February. These began two days later and revealed so many problems with her engines and boilers that Chanzy was decommissioned for repairs on 6 December. Recommissioned on 1 May 1895 to test the repairs, she entered service on 20 July.Feron, pp. 22–23

The ship was initially assigned to the 1st Light Division of the Mediterranean Squadron before she was transferred to the 4th Light Division on 18 May 1896. Chanzy participated in the annual fleet maneuvers that summer before she was placed in reserve for repairs at Toulon in August. The ship began trials on 28 December 1896.Feron, pp. 23–24

On 16 February 1897, Chanzy arrived off Crete to serve in the International Squadron, a multinational force made up of ships of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, French Navy, Imperial German Navy, Italian Royal Navy (Regia Marina), Imperial Russian Navy, and British Royal Navy that intervened in the 1897–1898 Greek uprising on Crete against rule by the Ottoman Empire. In early March 1897, she steamed with other ships of the squadron to Selino Kastelli on the southwest coast of Crete to put an international expedition ashore that rescued Ottoman troops and Cretan Turk civilians from KandanosMcTiernan, p. 19.Clowes, pp. 445–446.[https://britishinterventionincrete.wordpress.com/2016/03/10/kandanos-paleochora-1897/ The British in Crete, 1896 to The evacuation of Kandanos, 1897]{{Cite web |url=http://mickmctiernan.com/history/the-battle-of-paleochora/ |title=McTiernan, Mick, "The Battle of Paleochora – 1897," mickmctiernan.com, 18 March 2012. |access-date=17 January 2018 |archive-date=7 January 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180107061908/http://mickmctiernan.com/history/the-battle-of-paleochora/ |url-status=dead }} Although the International Squadron operated off Crete until December 1898, Chanzy departed Cretan waters on 25 February 1898 and returned to France. Upon arriving in France, she was assigned to the reserve squadron and did little for the rest of 1898 other than participate in the annual naval maneuvers.

On 1 January 1899 Chanzy was reassigned to the 1st Light Division and her most notable activities for the year were visits to the Balearic Islands and ports in the Aegean Sea and Middle East. Her main steam pipe fractured on 20 February and injured three crewmen. Chanzy was repaired in time to participate in the annual maneuvers and spent three weeks in September attached to the elderly gunnery ship {{ship|French ironclad|Couronne||2}} before making a cruise to French North Africa. The ship began a brief deployment to the Levant on 1 February 1901 and returned on 4 April for the annual maneuvers before returning to the Levant on 30 October. She arrived back at Toulon on 1 February 1902 and began a long period of relative inactivity that lasted until she was formally placed in reserve when the new armored cruiser {{ship|French cruiser|Marseillaise|1900|2}} replaced her in the squadron in May 1904.Feron, p. 24

File:Chanzy NH 102676.jpg

Chanzy was recommissioned on 15 September 1906 for service with the Far Eastern Squadron and departed on 15 November. She arrived at Saigon, French Indochina, on 10 January 1907 and visited Hong Kong and ports in China, and Japan in April and May. While departing from Shanghai on 20 May in thick fog, she ran aground on rocks off Ballard Island in the Chusan Islands. Her sister ship {{ship|French cruiser|Bruix||2}} and the protected cruisers {{ship|French cruiser|D'Entrecasteaux||2}} and {{ship|French cruiser|Alger||2}} attempted to pull her off, but could not do so in the heavy seas. Her crew remained aboard attempting to get her off until they were evacuated without loss on 1 June when the ship began to founderNaval Notes and the wreck was demolished by the other cruisers on 12 June.Feron, pp. 24–25

{{Reflist|2}}

{{Commons category}}

• {{cite book|last=Feron|first=Luc|chapter=The Armoured Cruisers of the Amiral Charner Class|editor=Jordan, John|publisher=Conway|location=London|year=2014|title=Warship 2014|isbn=978-1-84486-236-8}}
• {{cite book|title=Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905|editor1-last=Chesneau|editor1-first=Roger|editor2-last=Kolesnik|editor2-first=Eugene M.|publisher=Conway Maritime Press|location=Greenwich|year=1979|isbn=0-8317-0302-4|name-list-style=amp|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/conwaysallworlds0000unse_l2e2}}
• {{cite book |last1=Jordan |first1=John |last2=Caresse |first2=Philippe |title=French Armoured Cruisers 1887–1932 |date=2019 |publisher=Seaforth Publishing |location=Barnsley, UK |isbn=978-1-5267-4118-9|name-list-style=amp}}
• {{cite journal|date=February 1908|title=Naval Notes|journal=Royal United Services Institution Journal|publisher=Royal United Services Institution|location=London|volume=52|issue=360|pages=259–60|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wRhjCSPB348C&q=cruiser+chanzy&pg=PA259}}
• {{cite book|last=Silverstone|first=Paul H.|title=Directory of the World's Capital Ships|year=1984|publisher=Hippocrene Books|location=New York|isbn=0-88254-979-0}}

{{Amiral Charner-class cruiser}}

{{1907 shipwrecks}}

{{coord missing|Zhejiang}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chanzy}}

Category:Amiral Charner-class cruisers

Category:Ships built in France

Category:1894 ships

Category:Maritime incidents in 1907

Category:Shipwrecks in the East China Sea