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95-539: In 1827 the French explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville named the bay after Alexander von Humboldt , after noticing it during his first voyage with an astrolabe. The Dutch Etna expedition of 1858 under Hugo van der Goes was the first to explore and map the bay. Its goal was to find potential locations for the establishment of a permanent government post on New Guinea and this location was found to be superior to others. However, it took until March 1910, prodded by German claims on

190-558: A French protectorate over Cambodia in 1867), allowed freedom of action for French missionaries and gave France a large indemnity for the cost of the war. In China , France took part in the Second Opium War , and in 1860 French troops entered Beijing . China was forced to concede more trading rights, allow freedom of navigation of the Yangtze river, give full civil rights and freedom of religion to Christians, and give France

285-502: A 1962 naval engagement between the Dutch and Indonesians. This Papua location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Jules Dumont d%27Urville Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville ( French pronunciation: [ʒyl dymɔ̃ dyʁvil] ; 23 May 1790 – 8 May 1842) was a French explorer and naval officer who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica . As

380-640: A French presence in the country. An important factor in his decision was the belief that France risked becoming a second-rate power by not expanding its influence in East Asia. Also, the idea that France had a civilizing mission was spreading. This eventually led to a full-out invasion in 1861. By 1862 the war was over and Vietnam conceded three provinces in the south, called by the French Cochinchina , opened three ports to French trade, allowed free passage of French warships to Cambodia (which led to

475-586: A botanist and cartographer, he gave his name to several seaweeds, plants and shrubs, and places such as d'Urville Island in New Zealand. Dumont was born at Condé-sur-Noireau in Lower Normandy . His father, Gabriel Charles François Dumont, sieur d'Urville (1728–1796), Bailiff of Condé-sur-Noireau, was, like his ancestors, responsible to the court of Condé. His mother Jeanne Françoise Victoire Julie (1754–1832) came from Croisilles, Calvados , and

570-409: A city founded in 1584 as part of a failed Spanish colonization attempt to control the passage through the strait. An expedition report recommended that a French colony be established at the strait to support future traffic along the route. The strait was eventually settled by Chile in 1843 . Two weeks after seeing their first iceberg , Astrolabe and Zélée found themselves entangled again in

665-770: A corridor in the pack ice to free them. After reaching the South Orkney Islands , the expedition headed directly to the South Shetland Islands and the Bransfield Strait separating them from Antarctica. In spite of thick fog they located some land only sketched on the maps, which Dumont named Terre de Louis-Philippe (now called Graham Land ), the Joinville Island group and Rosamel Island (now called Andersson Island ). Conditions on board had rapidly deteriorated: most of

760-666: A dreadnought. The first French dreadnoughts did not appear until 1914, and two classes totalling seven ships, the Courbet and Bretagne classes , were completed during World War I . With the alliance with Britain, France's naval assets were concentrated in the Mediterranean, largely to face off the Austro-Hungarian fleet in the Adriatic Sea . Meanwhile, a large cruiser fleet was also built, seeing service in

855-578: A further 12 ships of the line and 10 frigates were under construction and expected to be launched within the year. The crews counted 75,000 sailors, 5,000 gunners, 2,000 officers and 14,000 Fusiliers Marins . Ships were based mostly in Brest, Toulon and Rochefort , and in Lorient , Le Havre, Dunkerque, Bordeaux, Bayonne and Marseille. The French Revolution , in eliminating numerous officers of noble lineage (among them, Charles d'Estaing ), all but crippled

950-636: A huge indemnity. This, combined with the intervention in Vietnam, set the stage for further French influence in China, leading up to a sphere of influence over parts of Southern China. In 1866, French Navy troops made an attempt to colonize Korea . The French Navy also had a small presence in Japan in 1867–1868, around the actions of a French military mission to Japan , and the subsequent Boshin War . The French Navy

1045-524: A lack of harbours fit for very large units, but very heavily armed with large calibre guns; these ships displaced between 300 and 2000 tonnes and bore up to 50 24-pound cannons , firing 150mm- round shots . The first ships were ordered from the Dutch, and French production started with the famous Couronne , a prestige ship typical of this era. In 1627, the Navy was not ready to challenge the English fleet at

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1140-452: A mass of ice on 1 January 1838. The same night the pack ice prevented the ships from continuing to the south. In the next two months Dumont led increasingly desperate attempts to find a passage through the ice so that he could reach the desired latitude. For a while the ships managed to keep to an ice-free channel, but shortly afterwards they became trapped again, after a wind change. Five days of continuous work were necessary in order to open

1235-506: A misunderstanding. On 1 February, Dumont decided to turn to the north heading for Hobart, which the two ships reached 17 days later. They were present for the arrival of the two ships of James Ross 's expedition to Antarctica, HMS Terror and HMS Erebus . On 25 February, the schooners sailed towards the Auckland Islands , where they carried out magnetic measurements and they left a commemorative plate of their visit (as had

1330-547: A multitude of actions around the world. Napoleon III's challenge to Russia's claims to influence in the Ottoman Empire led to France's successful participation in the Crimean War (March 1854–March 1856). During this war Napoleon successfully established a French alliance with Britain , which continued after the war's close. The French line-of-battle ship Henri IV and the corvette Pluton ran aground after

1425-529: A new expedition to the Pacific. King Louis Philippe approved the plan, but he ordered that the expedition aim for the South Magnetic Pole and to claim it for France; if that was not possible, Dumont's expedition was asked to equal the most southerly latitude of 74°34'S achieved in 1823 by James Weddell . Thus France became part of the international competition for polar exploration, along with

1520-657: A new, magnificent statue for the Louvre in Paris. On his return from the voyage of Chevrette , Dumont was sent to the naval archive, where he encountered Lieutenant Louis-Isidore Duperrey , a past acquaintance. The two began to plan an expedition of exploration in the Pacific, an area out of which France had been forced during the Napoleonic Wars . France considered it might be able to regain some of its losses by taking over part of New South Wales . On 11 August 1822,

1615-525: A number of instances where French ships did not manage to score a single hit on dangerously exposed British ships (as happened with the fight of the Ça Ira , or at the beginning of the Battle of Trafalgar ). By contrast, the Royal Navy doctrine was for their well-trained gunners to fire at the enemy's hull, a much easier target, to kill and maim the crew and gradually degrade firepower. Efforts to make

1710-736: A par with its British contemporaries. France's conceptual and technological edge proved attractive to the newly industrialising Japan , when the French engineer Émile Bertin was invited for four years to design a new fleet for the Imperial Japanese Navy , which led to her success in the First Sino-Japanese War in 1894. French yards busily turned out warships for foreign customers, especially Imperial Russia, which copied French styles in designing many of its cruisers and battleships. Despite her leads in some areas of technology (boilers, metallurgy), France did not have

1805-507: A pause near the island of Milos , the local French representative brought to Dumont's attention the rediscovery of a marble statue a few days before (8 April 1820) by a local peasant . The statue, now known as the Venus de Milo , dates from around the year 130 BC. Dumont recognised its value and would have acquired it immediately, but the ship's commander pointed out that there was not enough space on board for an object of its size. Moreover,

1900-547: A scientific voyage of the Pacific inspired by the voyages of James Cook . He never returned and his ships were later found wrecked at the island of Vanikoro , which is part of the isolated Santa Cruz group of islands in the South Pacific. Vessels designed by French engineer Jacques-Noël Sané started being constructed during the American Revolutionary War . He created what were to be, in effect,

1995-515: A storm that destroyed many Allied ships. The remains of Henri IV were used to construct a fortress. The Pluton was a total loss. Napoleon III took the first steps to establishing a French colonial influence in Indochina . He approved the launching of a naval expedition in 1858 to punish the Vietnamese for their mistreatment of French Catholic missionaries and force the court to accept

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2090-587: A successful blockade of Mexico in the Pastry War of 1838 and obliterated the Imperial Chinese Navy at the Battle of Fuzhou in 1884. It also served as an effective link between the growing parts of the French empire. The French Navy were leaders in many areas of warship development, first with incremental improvements upon existing designs with the Commission de Paris , but also pioneering

2185-478: A timid young man, very serious and studious, little interested in amusements and much more interested in studies than in military matters. In 1808, he obtained the grade of first-class candidate. At the time the neglected French navy was of a much lower quality than Napoleon 's Grande Armée , and its ships were blockaded in their ports by the absolute domination of the British Royal Navy . Dumont

2280-450: A young age while his father was aboard La Coquille and the second, also called Jules, on the return of his father after four years away. Dumont d'Urville passed a short period with his family before returning to Paris, where he was promoted to captain and he was put in charge of writing the report of his travels. The five volumes were published at the expense of the French government between 1832 and 1834. During these years d'Urville, who

2375-830: Is also named after him, as is the Rue Dumont d'Urville, a street near the Champs-Élysées in the 8th arrondissement of Paris , and the Lycée Dumont D'Urville in Caen . Dumont d'Urville himself named Pepin Island in New Zealand and Adélie Land in Antarctica after his wife, and Croisilles Harbour for his mother's family. A French naval transport ship employed in French Polynesia is named after him; as

2470-523: Is regarded as one of the most glorious deeds of the French Navy, and Tourville earned a fame which lasts to present times (a number of ships were named Bévezier or Tourville to commemorate the battle). The Battles of Barfleur and La Hougue in 1692 saw a French fleet engage an Anglo-Dutch fleet, with both sides suffering heavily. However, once wind and tide changed, the French suffered heavily as they tried to get back to port for repairs. Some of

2565-604: Is remarkably accurate given the means of the time. In the following days the expedition followed the coast westward then led for the first time some experiments to determine the approximate position of the South magnetic pole . They sighted the American schooner Porpoise of the United States Exploring Expedition commanded by Charles Wilkes on 30 January 1840, but failed to communicate due to

2660-561: The Jeune École doctrine had a more powerful influence within the French Navy than elsewhere. Derived from the traditions of privateer warfare, the Jeune École emphasised small, maneuverable craft such as torpedo boats and cruisers carrying shell-firing guns, and prematurely deemed the battleship obsolete. However, in the early 1890s the pre-dreadnought battleship revived with surprising vigour and new protections against torpedoes and mines, and

2755-593: The Liberté class (completed 1907), French pre-dreadnought design finally caught up with U.S. and British standards; but 1907 also saw the debut of HMS  Dreadnought , which made all the world's capital ships obsolete overnight. Through 1911, while rival navies were turning out new dreadnoughts, all France's available shipyards were dedicated to producing the six-ship Danton class pre-dreadnoughts which, though they featured turbine/quad screw propulsion, still mounted only four heavy guns each, as against at least ten for

2850-518: The Battle of Cádiz (1640) won by France's first Grand Admiral Jean Armand de Maillé-Brézé , son of Marshall Urbain de Maillé-Brézé and nephew of Cardinal Richelieu. The Navy built a French empire, conquering the "Nouvelle-Guyenne" (now Acadia ), "Nouvelle France" (now Canada ), Tortuga , Martinique , Guadeloupe , several other islands in the Caribbean , the Bahamas , and Madagascar . Under

2945-545: The East Indies to Tasmania some of the crew were lost to tropical fevers and dysentery (14 men and 3 officials); but for Dumont the worst moment during the expedition was at Valparaíso , where he received a letter from his wife that informed him of the death of his second son from cholera. Adélie's sorrowful demand that he return home coincided with a deterioration in his health: Dumont was more and more often hit by attacks of gout and stomach pains. On 12 December 1839

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3040-555: The East Indies , the mission would have to round the Cape of Good Hope and return to France. Early in the voyage, part of the crew was involved in a drunken brawl and arrested in Tenerife . A short pause was made in Rio de Janeiro to disembark a sick official. During the first part of the voyage there were also problems of provisioning, particularly rotten meat, which affected the health of

3135-583: The Mediterranean Sea . In 1815, he married Adèle Pepin , daughter of a clockmaker from Toulon. who was openly disliked by Dumont's mother, who thought her inappropriate for her son and refused to meet her. In 1819, Dumont d'Urville sailed on board Chevrette , under the command of Captain Gauttier-Duparc , to carry out a hydrographic survey of the islands of the Greek archipelago. During

3230-505: The Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris with more than 1,200 specimens of insects, covering 1,100 insect species (including 300 previously unknown species). The scientists Georges Cuvier and François Arago analysed the results of his searches and praised Dumont. As a botanist and cartographer, Dumont d'Urville left his mark on New Zealand. He gave his name to the genus of seaweeds Durvillaea , which includes southern bull-kelp;

3325-618: The Siege of La Rochelle , which led to the construction of a seawall to establish a blockade . Fleets of this period were often largely composed of merchant vessels, hastily loaded with cannons, undercrewed and poorly handled. With newly built ships, designed as ships of war and crewed by sailors and trained gunners, fighting experience was gained in the Franco-Spanish War and the Thirty Years' War with notable victories at

3420-666: The Sultan in Constantinople. The French ambassador's representative arrived just as the statue was being loaded aboard a ship bound for Constantinople and persuaded the island's primates (chief citizens) to annul the sale and honour the first offer. This earned Dumont the title of Chevalier ( knight ) of the Légion d'honneur , the attention of the French Academy of Sciences and promotion to lieutenant ; and France gained

3515-697: The Antarctic with Astrolabe only, in order to attempt to reach the South Magnetic Pole around longitude 140°. A deeply wounded Captain Jacquinot urged the hiring of a number of replacements (generally deserters from a French whaler anchored in Hobart) and convinced him to reconsider his intentions; Astrolabe and Zelée both left Hobart on 1 January 1840. Dumont's plan was very simple: to head south, wind conditions permitting. The first days of

3610-534: The British called the Annus Mirabilis of 1759 , the French and British navies had a roughly even record of success in their many conflicts. This changed decisively in that year with a series of disasters for the French, who had begun the year planning to invade Britain . The British responded by blockading the French fleets at both Toulon and Brest ; when the French emerged they were decisively defeated in

3705-562: The French Navy at the outbreak / end of World War I: The invention of the seaplane in 1910 with the French Fabre Hydravion led to the earliest development of ships designed to carry aircraft, float planes . In 1911 the French Navy Foudre became the first seaplane carrier . She was commissioned as a seaplane tender, and carried float-planes in hangars on the main deck, from where they were lowered onto

3800-479: The French Navy began to gain a magnificence matching the symbolism of the Louis XIV era, as well as an actual military significance. The ship of the line Soleil Royal is illustrative of the trend of the time. Colbert is credited with forging a good part of the naval tradition of France. The French Navy of this period was also in the forefront of the development of naval tactics. Paul Hoste (1652–1700) produced

3895-535: The French Navy played a decisive role in supporting the American side. The French Navy was the only standing navy to fight the British, alongside the modest Continental and American state navies and American privateers. In a hard-fought effort, the French under de Grasse managed to repulse a British fleet at the Battle of the Chesapeake in 1781, ensuring that the Franco-American ground forces would win

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3990-493: The French Navy. The National Convention dissolved the Fleet Gunners Corps, which effectively put a halt to the training in gunnery, abysmally degrading the rate of fire and precision of batteries; in addition, the French doctrine was to fire at the rigging of enemy ships to disable them; this doctrine could prove effective with highly trained crews, but was impractical with poorly trained gunners, and resulted in

4085-605: The French tendency to prefer large numbers of smaller but powerful and swift units, rather than large capital ships. In the nineteenth century, the navy recovered to become the second finest in the world after the Royal Navy. During this period, explorer and naval officer Dumont d'Urville contributed to geography in Southern and Western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand, and Antarctica, and brought back previously unknown plants and animal species. The French Navy also conducted

4180-595: The French was the severe defeat they suffered at Sluys , losing almost 200 ships and up to 20,000 killed while the English lost only 2 ships and 600 men. The tears of our sovereigns have the salted taste of the sea that they ignored. During the reign of Henry IV , France was in an unstable state, and striving to guarantee her independence from Spanish and papal influences. This prompted both an emphasis on land forces, which drained resources, and an alliance with England, which would have unfavourably seen France challenging her naval supremacy. When Richelieu became Minister of

4275-848: The Mediterranean, the Channel, and in France's imperial dominions in Indochina, Pacific Islands, West Africa, and the Caribbean. The development of the French Navy slowed down in the beginning of the 20th century, and as a result, it was outnumbered by the German and US Navies. It was late to introduce new dreadnought battleships and light cruisers , and it entered the First World War with relatively few modern vessels: only one dreadnought in commission at war's start, with all four Courbet s by

4370-473: The Navy, he decided on a plan to rebuild a powerful navy, divided into two distinct forces. The Mediterranean force was to be completely composed of galleys , to take advantage of the relatively calm sea. Initially, the plan called for 40 galleys, but was downsized to 24 of them, notably because of a lack of galley slaves — each galley was 400 or 500 slave strong. The oceanic force was to be composed of men-of-war . The designs were moderately large ships, for

4465-416: The Pacific, thanks to his prodigious memory, he would acquire some knowledge of an immense number of dialects of Polynesia and Melanesia . Meanwhile, ashore at Toulon, he learnt about botany and entomology in long excursions in the hills of Provence and he studied in the nearby naval observatory . Finally in 1814, when Napoleon had been exiled to Elba , Dumont undertook his first short navigation of

4560-630: The United States and the United Kingdom. Dumont was initially unhappy with the modifications made to his proposal. He had little interest in polar exploration and preferred tropical routes. But soon his vanity took over and he saw the opportunity for achieving a prestigious objective. The two ships, Astrolabe and Zélée were prepared for the voyage at Toulon. The Astrolabe was commanded by Dumont d'Urville, and Gaston de Roquemaurel as second, and La Zélée by Charles Hector Jacquinot. In

4655-499: The battles of Lagos, Portugal and Quiberon Bay . The French Navy was also unable to prevent the loss of the important colonies of New France ( Quebec ) and Guadeloupe . The year marked the beginning of the period of clear British dominance on the seas. Following the disasters of the Seven Years' War , France was financially incapable of building up a fleet to challenge Britain's Royal Navy . However, efforts were made, and by

4750-649: The city became the capital of Netherlands New Guinea in 1949. It was renamed Kota Baru ("New City") in November 1962 , Sukarnopura (" Sukarno City") in 1963 or 1964, and after the Transition to the New Order Jayapura ("Victory City") in 1968. The name Humboldt Bay was retained until at least that same year, when it was renamed after the Indonesian naval officer Yos Sudarso , who perished in

4845-505: The commander of Porpoise previously), in which they announced the discovery of the South Magnetic Pole. They returned via New Zealand, the Torres Strait , Timor , Réunion , Saint Helena and finally Toulon, returning on 6 November 1840, the last French expedition of exploration to sail. On his return Dumont d'Urville was promoted to rear admiral and was awarded the Gold Medal of the Société de Géographie (Geographical Society of Paris), later becoming its president. He then took over

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4940-465: The course of the preparation Dumont also went to London to acquire documentation and instrumentation, meeting the British Admiralty 's oceanographer , Francis Beaufort and the President of the Royal Geographical Society , John Washington, both strong supporters of the British expeditions to the South Pole. Astrolabe and Zélée sailed from Toulon on 7 September 1837, after three weeks of delay compared to Dumont's plans. His objectives were to reach

5035-414: The crew had obvious symptoms of scurvy and the main decks were covered by smoke from the ships' fires and bad smells and became unbearable. At the end of February 1838, Dumont accepted that he was not able to continue further south, and he continued to doubt the actual latitude reached by Weddell. He therefore directed the two ships towards Talcahuano , in Chile, where he established a temporary hospital for

5130-406: The crew members affected by scurvy. During months of exploration in the Pacific, the ship visited many islands in Polynesia. On their arrival in the Marquesas Islands , the crews found ways "to socialise" with the islanders. Dumont's moral conduct was irreproachable, but he provided a highly summarised description of some incidents of their stay in Nuku Hiva in his reports. During the voyage from

5225-410: The crew. At the end of November, the ships reached the Strait of Magellan. Dumont thought there was sufficient time to explore the strait for three weeks, taking into account the precise maps drawn by Phillip Parker King in HMS  Beagle between 1826 and 1830, before heading south again. In the Strait of Magellan Dummont surveyed the coast trying to find out the ruins of Ciudad Rey Don Felipe ,

5320-494: The damaged French ships were forced to beach themselves at Cherbourg , where they were annihilated by English long boats and with fire ships . The crews were saved, but the lost fifteen ships of the line were not replaced and France did not seriously challenge the combined English and Dutch fleet for decades. France turned to commerce-raiding rather than large fleet actions with great success under such captains as Jean Bart , Claude de Forbin and René Duguay-Trouin . Until what

5415-506: The end of 1914 and three improved dreadnoughts by mid-1916. During the war, the main French effort was on land. While capital ships already on the ways were completed, few new warships were laid down. Despite its dated roster, the Marine Nationale performed well in World War I. The main operation of the French Navy was the Dardanelles Campaign . France's most significant losses during the war were four pre-dreadnought battleships, victims of mines and U-boat torpedoes. A number of major ships of

5510-614: The end of the practice in France of locking passengers in their train compartments. He is the author of The New Zealanders: A story of Austral lands – likely to be the first novel written about fictional Maori characters. Later, in honour of his many valuable chartings, the D'Urville Sea off Antarctica; D'Urville Island in the Joinville Island group in Antarctica; D'Urville Wall on the David Glacier in Antarctica, Cape d'Urville, Irian Jaya , Indonesia; Mount D'Urville , Auckland Island; and D'Urville Island in New Zealand were named after him. The Dumont d'Urville Station on Antarctica

5605-419: The expedition was likely to proceed through stormy seas that could damage it. Dumont then wrote to the French ambassador to Constantinople about its discovery. Chevrette arrived in Constantinople on 22 April and Dumont succeeded in convincing the ambassador to acquire the statue. Meanwhile, the peasant had sold the statue to a priest, Macario Verghis, who wished to present it as a gift to an interpreter for

5700-426: The first major work on naval tactics. Before the Nine Years' War, in the Franco-Dutch War , the French Navy managed to score a decisive victory over a combined Spanish-Dutch fleet at the Battle of Palermo (1676). During the War of the Grand Alliance, Admiral Tourville won a significant victory in the Battle of Beachy Head (1690, Bataille de Bévezier ). France gained control of the English Channel . The event

5795-622: The first relief maps of the Loyalty Islands (part of French New Caledonia ) and explored the coasts of New Guinea . He identified the site of La Pérouse's shipwreck in Vanikoro (one of the Santa Cruz Islands , part of the archipelago of the Solomon Islands ) and collected numerous remains of his boats. The voyage continued with the mapping of part of the Caroline Islands and the Moluccas . Astrolabe returned to Marseille on 25 March 1829, with an impressive load of hydrographical papers and collections of zoological , botanical and mineralogical reports, which were destined to strongly influence

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5890-427: The following eras: The French Navy is affectionately known as La Royale ("the Royal"). The reason for this nickname is uncertain. Speculation includes: it might be for its traditional attachment to the French monarchy ; because, before being named "nationale", the Navy had been named "royale" (the navy did not sport the royal titles common with other European navies like the British Royal Navy ); or simply because of

5985-406: The introduction of several new technologies: steam propulsion, the screw propeller, armour plate protection, steel construction, and protected gun mounts. In a speech in 1852, Napoleon III famously proclaimed that "The Empire means peace" (" L'Empire, c'est la paix "), although he was determined to follow a strong foreign policy to extend France's power and glory. The French Navy was involved in

6080-409: The library of Caen, he read the Encyclopédistes and the reports of travel of Bougainville , Cook and Anson , and he became passionate about these matters. At the age of 17 years he failed the physical tests of the entrance exam to the École polytechnique and he therefore decided to enlist in the navy. In 1807, Dumont was admitted to the École navale at Brest where he presented himself as

6175-472: The location of its headquarters, rue Royale in Paris. Medieval fleets, in France as elsewhere, were almost entirely composed of merchant ships enlisted into naval service in time of war. But the early beginning of the French Navy goes back to the Middle Ages, when it defeated the English Navy at the Battle of Arnemuiden , on 23 September 1338. The Battle of Arnemuiden was also the first naval battle using artillery. The most notable naval battle involving

6270-407: The loss of a daughter from cholera) and happy events (notably the birth of another son, Émile) but with the constant and nearly obsessive thought of a third expedition to the Pacific, analogous to James Cook's third voyage. He looked again at Astrolabe ' s travel notes, and found a gap in the exploration of Oceania and, in January 1837, he wrote to the Navy Ministry suggesting the opportunity for

6365-404: The middle of a mass of ice. On 20 January the expedition crossed the Antarctic Circle , with celebrations similar to crossing of the Equator ceremonies , and they sighted land the same afternoon. The two ships slowly sailed to the West, skirting walls of ice, and on 22 January, just before 9 in the evening, some members of the crew disembarked on the north-westernmost and highest islet of

6460-432: The most southerly point possible at this time in the Weddell Sea ; to pass through the Strait of Magellan ; to travel up the coast of Chile in order to head for Oceania with the objective of inspecting the new British colonies in Western Australia; to sail to Hobart ; and to sail to New Zealand to find opportunities for French whalers and to examine places where a penal colony might be established. After passing through

6555-402: The narrow and treacherous French Pass and mapped d'Urville Island , which James Cook had mapped as being part of the mainland. Astrolabe sailed up the east coast of the North Island , creating comprehensive coastline maps of New Zealand. The ship spent six days in the Bay of Islands taking on food and water before sailing for Tonga . Astrolabe visited Fiji , then Dumont executed

6650-416: The narrow upper decks. France built a considerable fleet of these vessels, though seldom with such uniform class characteristics as seen in Britain and Germany. The Bouvet , Masséna , and Jauréguiberry were built as "sample battleships", as the design for a true class of battleships was fiddled with. It eventually materialised with the 3-ship Charlemagne class , which introduced armament nearly on

6745-408: The navy into a powerful force under Napoleon were dashed by the death of Latouche Tréville in 1804, and the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, where the British all but annihilated a combined Franco-Spanish fleet. This disaster guaranteed British naval domination during the Napoleonic Wars . From then on, the French Navy was limited to frigate actions and privateers such as Robert Surcouf . This started

6840-662: The northern coast of New Guinea, before the Dutch established a city on the bay, Hollandia . During World War II , the area was occupied by the Japanese in April 1942, was liberated by U.S. forces on April 22, 1944, and became home to a massive U.S. naval base, Naval Base Hollandia . The base served as General Douglas MacArthur's headquarters until the conquest of the Philippines in March 1945. After Indonesian independence,

6935-471: The ongoing Battle of Yorktown . The career of de Grasse ended when he was captured during the decisive French defeat at the 1782 Battle of the Saintes . In India, Suffren fought in a series of campaigns against the British (1770–1780), contending for supremacy against Vice-Admiral Sir Edward Hughes . In 1789, the French Navy had 71 ships of the line , 64 frigates , 45 corvettes and 32 smaller units;

7030-418: The productive capacity of her rival across the Channel, or her new nemesis, Germany. Right at the turn of the century, French design absorbed influences from foreign practice. Her newer battleships had two twin-300mm gun turrets instead of single mounts, less exaggerated tumble-home of the hull, and abandonment of the ram bow. This led to improved seakeeping characteristics, though the ships remained small. In

7125-493: The return to France in March 1825, Lesson and Dumont brought an imposing collection of animals and plants collected on the Falkland Islands , on the coasts of Chile and Peru , in the archipelagos of the Pacific and New Zealand , New Guinea , and Australia . Dumont was now 35 and in poor health. On board Coquille , he had behaved as a competent official, but disinclined to military discipline and subordination. On

7220-425: The return to France, Duperrey and Dumont were promoted to commander . On Coquille , Dumont tried to reconcile his responsibilities as second in command with his need to carry out scientific work. He was in charge of carrying out research in the fields of botany and entomology. La Coquille brought back to France specimens of more than 3,000 species of plants, 400 of which were previously unknown, enriching moreover

7315-618: The rocky group of Dumoulin Islands , at 500–600 m from the icy coast of the Astrolabe Glacier Tongue of the time, today about 4 km north from the glacier extremity near Cape Géodésie , and hoisted the French tricolour . Dumont named the archipelago Pointe Géologie and the land beyond, Terre Adélie The map of the coast drawn under sail by the hydrographer Clément Adrien Vincendon-Dumoulin  [ fr ]

7410-486: The scientific analysis of those regions. Following this expedition, he invented the terms Malaisia, Micronesia and Melanesia , distinguishing these Pacific cultures and island groups from Polynesia . Dumont's health was by now weakened by years of a poor diet. He suffered from kidney and stomach problems and from intense attacks of gout. During the first thirteen years of their marriage, half of which passed far apart, Adélie and Jules had two sons. The first one died at

7505-399: The sea with a crane. Foudre was further modified in November 1913 with a 10-metre flat deck to launch her seaplanes. As heavier-than-air aircraft developed in the early 20th century, various navies began to take an interest in their potential use as scouts for their big gun warships. In 1909 the French inventor Clément Ader published in his book L'Aviation Militaire the description of

7600-476: The seaweed Grateloupia urvilleana ; the species of grass tree Dracophyllum urvilleanum ; the shrub Hebe urvilleana and the buttercup Ranunculus urvilleanus . Two months after Dumont d'Urville returned on La Coquille , he presented to the Navy Ministry a plan for a new expedition, which he hoped to command, as his relationship with Duperrey had deteriorated. The proposal was accepted and La Coquille

7695-474: The ship Coquille sailed from Toulon with the objective of collecting as much scientific and strategic information as possible on the area to which it was dispatched. Duperrey was named Commander of the expedition because he was four years older than Dumont. Dumont discovered the Adélie penguin , which is named after his wife. René-Primevère Lesson travelled on Coquille as a naval doctor and naturalist. On

7790-777: The time of Louis XV's death in 1774, the Marine Royale was somewhat larger than it had been in 1763, and, crucially, had replaced numerous old vessels with more effective modern designs. Also worthy of note: in 1766, Bougainville led the first French circumnavigation of the world. King Louis XVI was keen on technical subjects and geography, and encouraged explorations including the commissioning of Jean-François de Galaup, comte de Lapérouse to undertake far reaching voyages of discovery. (L’expédition de Lapérouse, 1785–1788, réplique française au voyage de Cook ). Upon King Louis XVI's orders, Lapérouse departed Brest, France, in command of L'Astrolabe and La Boussole on 1 August 1785 on

7885-456: The torpedo boats proved to have inadequate nautical qualities for the open ocean. French capital ships of this time were instantly identifiable by their small size (10,000 tons), huge spur rams, great height and pronounced tumble-home . Often carrying only half the main armament of their British contemporaries, French battleships had armoured masts with electric elevators inside, outsized funnels, and elaborate davit systems to swing out boats from

7980-517: The tutelage of the "Sun King," the French Navy was well financed and equipped, managing to score several early victories in the Nine Years' War against the Royal Navy and the Dutch Navy . Financial troubles, however, forced the navy back to port and allowed the English and the Dutch to regain the initiative. Under the impulsion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert 's ambitious policy of ship building,

8075-599: The two corvettes landed at Hobart , where the sick and the dying were treated. Dumont was received by John Franklin , Governor of Tasmania and an Arctic explorer who later perished on the infamous Franklin Expedition , from whom he learned that the ships of the American expedition led by Charles Wilkes were berthed in Sydney waiting to sail south. Seeing the consistent reduction of the crews, decimated by misfortunes, Dumont expressed his intention to leave this time for

8170-520: The ultimate designs of wind-powered fighting ship, with standard frigates carrying 18-pounder guns, and standard ships of the line of 64, 74, 80 and 118 guns; his 74-gun ship of the line became the backbone of the French and British navies. The largest units, the 118-guns, were said to be "as manoeuvrable as a frigate" (the Océan class is a typical example). During the American War of Independence

8265-490: The voyage mainly involved the crossing of twenty degrees and a westerly current; on board there were further misfortunes, including the loss of a man. Crossing the 50°S parallel, they experienced unexpected falls in the air and water temperatures. After completing the crossing of the Antarctic Convergence , on 16 January 1840, at 60°S they sighted the first iceberg and two days later the ships found themselves in

8360-550: The wagons rolled and the tender 's coal ended up on the front of the train and caught fire. Dumont's whole family died in the flames of the first French railway disaster , generally known as the Versailles rail accident . Dumont's remains were identified by Pierre-Marie Alexandre Dumoutier, a doctor on board the Astrolabe and a phrenologist . Dumont was buried in the cemetery of Montparnasse in Paris. This tragedy led to

8455-424: The writing of the report of the expedition, Voyage au pôle Sud et dans l'Océanie sur les corvettes l'Astrolabe et la Zélée 1837–1840 , which was published between 1841 and 1854 in 24 volumes, plus seven more volumes with illustrations and maps. On 8 May 1842, Dumont and his family boarded a train from Versailles to Paris after seeing water games celebrating the king. Near Meudon the train's locomotive derailed,

8550-664: Was a 1931 sloop which served in World War II . History of the French Navy Although the history of the French Navy goes back to the Middle Ages, its history can be said to effectively begin with Richelieu under Louis XIII . Since the establishment of her present territory, France had to face three major challenges on the naval level: The history of the French Navy can be divided into

8645-486: Was a rigid and formal woman from an ancient family of the rural nobility of Lower Normandy. The child was weak and often sickly. After the death of his father when he was six, his mother's brother, the Abbot of Croisilles , played the part of his father and from 1798 took charge of his education. The Abbot taught him Latin , Greek , rhetoric and philosophy . From 1804 Dumont studied at the lycée Impérial in Caen . In

8740-547: Was already a poor diplomat, became more irascible and rancorous as a result of his gout, and lost the sympathy of the naval leadership. In his report, he criticised harshly the military structures, his colleagues, the French Academy of Sciences and even the King – none of whom, in his opinion, had given the voyage of Astrolabe due acknowledgment. In 1835, Dumont was directed to return to Toulon to engage in "down to earth" work and spent two years, marked by mournful events (notably

8835-645: Was confined to land like his colleagues and spent the first years in the navy studying foreign languages. In 1812, after having been promoted to ensign and finding himself bored with port life and disapproving of the dissolute behaviour of the other young officers, he asked to be transferred to Toulon on board the Suffren ; but this ship was also blockaded in port. During this period, Dumont built on his already substantial cultural knowledge. He already spoke, in addition to Latin and Greek, English, German, Italian, Russian, Chinese and Hebrew. During his later travels in

8930-586: Was heavily involved in French intervention in Mexico (January 1862–March 1867). Napoleon III, using as a pretext the Mexican Republic's refusal to pay its foreign debts, planned to establish a French sphere of influence in North America by creating a French-backed monarchy in Mexico, a project which was supported by Mexican conservatives tired of the anti-clerical Mexican republic. In the 1880s,

9025-686: Was renamed the Astrolabe in honour of one of the ships of La Pérouse , and sailed from Toulon on 22 April 1826, towards the Pacific Ocean, for a circumnavigation of the world that was destined to last nearly three years. The new Astrolabe skirted the coast of southern Australia, carried out new relief maps of the South Island of New Zealand, including improved surveys of the Marlborough Sounds in which he navigated through

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