The Jeune École ("Young School") was a strategic naval concept developed during the 19th century. It advocated the use of small, heavily armed vessels to combat larger battleships , and the use of commerce raiders to cripple the trade of the rival nation. The idea was developed among French naval theorists: the French government had the second largest navy of the time, and the theorists desired to counteract the strength of the larger British Royal Navy .
14-542: One of the first proponents of the Jeune École was the artillery general Henri-Joseph Paixhans , who invented explosive shell guns for warships during the 1820s. He advocated the use of these powerful guns on numerous small steam warships that could destroy much larger battleships. Later, the French Navy developed the concept more elaborately as it experimented with torpedoes and torpedo boats . The French Navy became one of
28-435: A delaying mechanism which, for the first time, allowed shells to be fired safely in high-powered flat-trajectory guns. The effect of explosive shells hitting wooden hulls and setting them aflame was devastating, and was demonstrated in trials against the two-decker Pacificateur in 1824. The first Paixhans guns were founded in 1841. The barrel of the guns weighed about 10,000 pounds, and proved accurate to about two miles. In
42-573: A gun that should generally throw shells far and accurately, with the capacity to fire solid shot when needed. Also to compose the whole battery entirely of such guns." A class of floating batteries named after Paixhans was developed by Henri Dupuy de Lôme . Four of these ships were launched between 1861 and 1862. Originally designed for use in Cochinchina , they were built in wood and equipped with 4 ft batteries. Paixhans wrote, among others: French ship Pacificateur (1811) The Pacificateur
56-489: The Jeune École concept consisted of planning to raid the commercial ships of the enemy so as to curtail its trade and economy, again a tactic designed especially against Great Britain. Raiding ships, such as the Dupuy de Lôme , were designed for this role. Dupuy de Lôme , an armored cruiser laid down in 1888, was capable of 23 knots and was designed to raid enemy commerce ships during extended forays. The Jeune École system
70-595: The École Polytechnique . He fought in the Napoleonic Wars , was the representative ( Député ) for the Moselle department between 1830 and 1848, and became "General de Division" in 1848. In 1823, he invented the first shell guns , which came to be called Paixhans guns (or " canon-obusiers " in the French Navy). Paixhans guns became the first naval guns to combine explosive shells and a flat trajectory, thereby triggering
84-630: The 1840s, France, England, Russia and the United States had adopted the new naval guns. The effect of the guns in an operational context was first demonstrated during the actions at Eckernförde in 1849 during the First Schleswig war , and especially at the Battle of Sinop in 1853 during the Crimean War . Wooden boats became so vulnerable that the only possible response could come with the introduction of
98-598: The beginning of the 20th century, France was "undoubtedly the first navy to have an effective submarine force". Counter measures against the Jeune École system consisted largely of destroyers , designed to deter and destroy small torpedo units (in French, "destroyer" is contre-torpilleur , and in English, "destroyer" is a contraction of "torpedo boat destroyer"), the first of which was the Destructor . The other constitutive part of
112-537: The demise of wooden ships, and the iron hull revolution in shipbuilding . Paixhans also invented a "Mortier monstre" (" Monster Mortar "), using 500 kg bombs, which was used to terrible effect in the Siege of Antwerp in 1832. He was also a naval theorist claiming that a few aggressively armed small units could destroy the largest naval units of the time, making him a precursor of the French " Jeune École " school of thought. The poet Victor Hugo wrote: Paixhans developed
126-505: The explosive element, he had sacrificed accuracy and range.... The difference between the system of Paixhans and my own was simply that Paixhans guns were strictly shell guns, and were not designed for shot, nor for great penetration or accuracy at long ranges. They were, therefore, auxiliary to, or associates of, the shot-guns. This made a mixed armament, was objectionable as such, and never was adopted to any extent in France... My idea was, to have
140-543: The iron-hulled warship . The first of them was the French La Gloire , which was a wooden ship with iron sheathing. She was soon followed by HMS Warrior , which was iron-hulled with wooden backing. Paixhans's design was later improved by the American John A. Dahlgren , who wrote: "Paixhans had so far satisfied naval men of the power of shell guns as to obtain their admission on shipboard; but by unduly developing
154-616: The strongest proponents of this combat system by the end of the 19th century, particularly during the ministry of Admiral Théophile Aube . The naval successes of the French Navy against China during the Sino-French War of 1883–85 also tended to validate the potential of torpedo boats against conventional navies. France was also very active in the development of a submarine fleet, again trying to rely on technical development to compensate for British numerical superiority of battleships. By
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#1733114793965168-444: The traditional battleship too unwieldy. He argued that the future lay with fast ships with light armor and big guns, which would become known as the battlecruiser . Henri-Joseph Paixhans Henri-Joseph Paixhans ( French pronunciation: [pɛksɑ̃] ; January 22, 1783, Metz – August 22, 1854, Jouy-aux-Arches ) was a French artillery officer of the beginning of the 19th century. Henri-Joseph Paixhans graduated from
182-581: Was a Bucentaure -class 80-gun ship of the line of the French Navy , designed by Sané . She was the first ship to sustain damage from Paixhans shells, during test-firing of Paixhans' canon-obusiers . Commissioned in Antwerp in 1814, Pacificateur remained anchored at the entrance of the harbour to protect it until the Bourbon Restoration . In September 1814, she arrived in Brest, where she stayed until she
196-527: Was particularly influential on the development of smaller navies, including the Imperial Japanese Navy during the 19th century, which tried to compensate for weaknesses in battleships. British admiral "Jackie" Fisher , who would later become the First Sea Lord in 1904, was especially impressed by the ideas of Jeune École and felt that the threats of fast raiders and swarms of torpedo boats made
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