Danton
History
France
Name	Danton
Namesake	Georges Danton
Ordered	1906 programme[1]
Builder	Arsenal de Brest
Laid down	February 1906
Launched	4 July 1909
Commissioned	1 June 1911
Fate	Sunk, 19 March 1917
General characteristics
Class & type	Danton-classsemi-dreadnought battleship
Displacement	18,754 t (18,458long tons) (normal)
Length	146.6 m (481 ft) (o/a)
Beam	25.8 m (84 ft 8 in)
Draft	8.44 m (27 ft 8 in)
Installed power	26Belleville boilers 22,500 PS (16,500 kW)
Propulsion	4 ×shafts 4 ×steam turbines
Speed	19.25knots (35.7 km/h; 22.2 mph)
Complement	25 officers and 831 enlisted men
Armament	2 × twin305 mm (12 in) guns 6 × twin240 mm (9.4 in) guns 16 × single75 mm (3 in) guns 10 × single47 mm (1.9 in) guns 2 × 450 mm (17.7 in)torpedo tubes
Armor	Belt: 180–250 mm (7.1–9.8 in) Turrets: 260–340 mm (10.2–13.4 in) Conning tower: 266 mm (10.5 in)

Danton was asemi-dreadnoughtbattleship of theFrench Navy and thelead ship ofher class. She was a technological leap in battleship development for the French Navy, as she was the first ship in the fleet withsteam turbines. However, like all battleships of her type, she was completed after theRoyal Navy battleshipHMS Dreadnought, and as such she was outclassed before she was even commissioned.

During her careerDanton was sent toGreat Britain to honor the coronation of George V, and later served inWorld War I as an escort for supply ships andtroop transports, guarding them from elements of the German Navy. While en route to aid a blockade, she was torpedoed and sunk on 19 March 1917 by a GermanU-boat, leaving 296 men dead. The location of the wreck remained a mystery until an underwater survey team inadvertently discovered the battleship in December 2007. In February 2009, the wreck was confirmed to beDanton. The ship is in remarkably good shape for her age.Danton rests upright on the ocean floor, and most of the original equipment is reported to be intact.

Although theDanton-class battleships were a significant improvement from the precedingLiberté class, especially with the 3,000-ton displacement increase, they were outclassed by the advent of thedreadnought well before they were completed. This, combined with other poor traits, including the great weight in coal they had to carry, made them rather unsuccessful ships, though their numerous rapid-firing guns were of some use in the Mediterranean.^[1]

Danton was 146.6 meters (481 ft 0 in)long overall and had abeam of 25.8 m (84 ft 8 in) and a full-loaddraft of 9.2 m (30 ft 2 in). She displaced 19,736 metric tons (19,424 long tons; 21,755 short tons) at full load and had a crew of 681 officers and enlisted men. She was powered by fourParsonssteam turbines with twenty-sixBelleville boilers, the first French warship to use turbines. They were rated at 22,500shaft horsepower (16,800 kW) and provided a top speed of around 19knots (35 km/h; 22 mph). Coal storage amounted to 2,027 t (1,995 long tons; 2,234 short tons).^[1][2]

Danton's main battery consisted of four305mm/45 Modèle 1906 guns (12-inch) mounted in two twingun turrets, one forward and one aft. Thesecondary battery consisted of twelve240mm/50 Modèle 1902 guns in twin turrets, three on either side of the ship. A number of smaller guns were carried for defense againsttorpedo boats. These included sixteen 75 mm (3.0 in) L/65 guns and ten47-millimetre (1.9 in) guns. The ship was also armed with two 450 mm (17.7 in)torpedo tubes. The ship'smain belt was 270 mm (10.6 in) thick and the main battery was protected by up to 300 mm (11.8 in) of armor. Theconning tower also had 300 mm thick sides.^[1]

Danton was laid down at theArsenal de Brest in February 1906.^[1] Herlaunching was scheduled for May 1909, but socialist activists prevented the ship from leaving the stocks,^[3] and so the launching was delayed until on 4 July 1909. After completingfitting-out work, she wascommissioned into the French Navy on 1 June 1911.^[1] A week after she was completed, she was sent to theUnited Kingdom in honour of theCoronation of George V in 1911.^[4] Upon her return to France,Danton was to the 1st Battleship Squadron in April 1912, along with her five sister ships.^[5] Later that year, while offHyères in the Mediterranean,Danton suffered an explosion in one of her gun turrets, which killed three men and injured several others.^[6] In 1913, the squadron was joined by the two powerful dreadnoughtsCourbet andJean Bart.^[4]

Danton served inWorld War I in theFrench Mediterranean Fleet. At the outbreak of the war in early August 1914, she was assigned to guard convoys bringing French soldiers from North Africa, to protect from attack by the GermanbattlecruiserSMS Goeben andlight cruiserSMS Breslau, which were operating in the area. At the time, she remained in the 1st Battle Squadron alongside her sister ships, under the command of Vice Admiral Chocheprat.^[7] By 16 August, the French naval commander, Admiralde Lapeyrère, took the bulk of the French fleet fromMalta to the entrance of theAdriatic to keep theAustro-Hungarian Navy bottled up.^[8]

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Location of the wreck^[9]

Danton, commanded by Captain Delage, was torpedoed byU-64, commanded byKapitänleutnant Robert Moraht, at 13:17 on 19 March 1917, 22 miles (19 nmi; 35 km) south-west ofSardinia. The battleship was returning to duty from a refit inToulon and was bound for the Greek island ofCorfu to join theAllied blockade of theStrait of Otranto.Danton was carrying more men than normal, as many were crew members of other ships at Corfu, and had been zig-zagging to foil enemy submarines. The ship sank in 45 minutes; 806 men were rescued by the destroyerMassue and nearby patrol boats, but 296, including Captain Delage, went down with the ship.^[10]Massue attackedU-64 withdepth charges, but the U-boat successfully evaded her attacker.^[11]

In February 2009, it was made public that in late 2007 the wreck of the ship was discovered "in remarkable condition" during an underwater survey between Italy and Algeria for theGALSI gas pipeline.^[10][12] The wreck lies at38°45′35″N8°3′30″E / 38.75972°N 8.05833°E /38.75972; 8.05833, a few kilometers away from where it had been thought she sank, sitting upright with many of her gun turrets intact at a depth of over 1,000 meters (550 fathoms; 3,300 ft).^[10]

• Corbett, Julian Stafford & Newbolt, Henry John (1920).Naval Operations: To the Battle of the Falklands, December 1914. London: Longmans, Green and Co.
• Dumas, Robert; Prévoteaux, Gérard (2011).Les Cuirassés de 18 000t. Outreau: Lela Presse.ISBN 978-2-914017-62-6..
• 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.OCLC 12119866.
• Gille, Eric (1999).Cent ans de cuirassés français [A Century of French Battleships] (in French). Nantes: Marines édition.ISBN 2-909-675-50-5.
• Goldstein, David; Avery, Martha M. (1919).Bolshevism: Its Cure. Boston School of Political Economy.
• Greenslade, J. W. (1917).United States Naval Institute Proceedings.43. Annapolis: United States Naval Institute.{{cite journal}}:Missing or empty|title= (help)
• Halpern, Paul G. (2004).The Battle of the Otranto Straits: Controlling the Gateway to the Adriatic in World War I. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press.ISBN 978-0-253-34379-6.
• Ingersoll, R. E. (1898). "Organization of the Fleet for War".Proceedings of the United States Naval Institute.39 (4). Annapolis: Naval Institute Press:1379–1405.
• Journal of the American Society of Naval Engineers.American Society of Naval Engineers. 1909.{{cite journal}}:Missing or empty|title= (help)
• Jordan, John & Caresse, Philippe (2017).French Battleships of World War One. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press.ISBN 978-1-59114-639-1.
• The American Library Annual. New York: R. R. Bowker Co. 1914.{{cite journal}}:Missing or empty|title= (help)
• New International Encyclopedia.Princeton University. 1915.{{cite encyclopedia}}:Missing or empty|title= (help)
• Sondhaus, Lawrence (1994).The Naval Policy of Austria-Hungary, 1867–1918.West Lafayette: Purdue University Press.ISBN 978-1-55753-034-9.

Online sources

• Amos, Jonathan (19 February 2009)."Danton wreck found in deep water".BBC News. Retrieved19 February 2009.
• "Wrecksite, "Danton SS"". Retrieved21 February 2009.
• Krajnak, Deb (19 February 2009)."French battleship intact after nearly a century under water". CNN. Retrieved21 February 2009.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toDanton (ship, 1909).

• The wreck of the Danton on www.wrecksite.eu
• Video of wreck BBC
  • Compressed version of video on original websiteArchived 2011-07-11 at theWayback Machine

• Danton-class battleships
• Ships built in Brest, France
• 1909 ships
• Maritime incidents in 1917
• Ships sunk by German submarines in World War I
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• 2007 archaeological discoveries

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