In the
list of French fighting ships there are in addition two protected
cruisers, the _D'Entrecasteaux_ and the _Guichen_, together with
ten light cruisers. But the French "mosquito fleet," consisting of
destroyers, torpedo boats and submarines, is comparatively large.
Of these she had 84, 135, and 78, respectively.
After the Russo-Japanese War the battle fleets of Russia were entirely
dissipated, so that when the present conflict came she had no ships
which might have been accounted worthy aids to the navies of England
and France. In so far as is known, her heaviest ships were the
_Andrei Pervozvannyi_ and the _Imperator Pavel I_, each displacing
only 17,200 tons, and of the design of 1911.
Against these fighting naval forces of the allied powers were ranged
the navies of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The former had, at the
outbreak of hostilities, 36 battleships, 5 battle cruisers, 9 armored
cruisers, and 43 cruisers. Instead of giving attention to torpedo boats
she gave it to destroyers, of which she had 130. And of submarines
she had 27.
In detail her naval forces consisted, first, of the _Kaiser Friedrich
III, Kaiser Karl der Grosse, Kaiser Barbarossa, Kaiser Wilhelm
II_, and _Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse_, all built as a result of
the first agitation of Von Tirpitz, between the years 1898 and
1901. They each displaced 10,614 tons, had a speed of 18 knots,
required 13,000 horsepower, were protected with from 10 to 12 inches
of armor, and carried four 9.
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