The ''Suffren'' was a 90-gun Ship of the line of the

French Navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...

, lead ship of her class. She was the third ship in French service named in honour of

Pierre André de Suffren de Saint Tropez Pierre is a masculine given name. It is a French form of the name Peter. Pierre originally meant "rock" or "stone" in French (derived from the Greek word πέτρος (''petros'') meaning "stone, rock", via Latin "petra"). It is a translation ...

Career

The ''Suffren'' was the first ship of the line built with straight sides, after the specifications of the

Commission de Paris The Commission de Paris was a body of French naval engineers gathered in 1821 to design the future frigates and ships of the line of the French Navy for the post-Empire era. Presided by Jacques-Noël Sané, the Commission comprised Jean-Marguerite ...

, instead of the traditional

tumblehome Tumblehome is a term describing a hull which grows narrower above the waterline than its beam. The opposite of tumblehome is flare. A small amount of tumblehome is normal in many naval architecture designs in order to allow any small projecti ...

common on ships of the line. She took part in the Battle of Tagus on 11 July 1831, under Captain Trotel, as

Albin Roussin Albin Reine Roussin (21 April 1781 – 21 February 1854) was a French admiral and statesman. Republic and Empire His father was a lawyer who was arrested during the French Revolution when Roussin was aged twelve. He left home in Dijon and tra ...

's flagship, and stayed off Lisbon for one month thereafter, leaving Portugal on 14 August. The next year, she took part in the

Battle of Ancona The Battle of Ancona was a battle involving forces from Poland serving as part of the British Army against German forces that took place from 16 June–18 July 1944 during the Italian campaign in World War II. The battle was the result of an All ...

, on 22 February, ferrying 1500 infantrymen. In 1838 she ran aground near

Cádiz Cádiz (, , ) is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the Province of Cádiz, one of eight that make up the autonomous community of Andalusia. Cádiz, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Western Europe, ...

after a tempest. She was refloated by the steam ships ''Iéna'' and ''Phare''. She took part in the war against Morocco in August 1844, bombing

Tangier Tangier ( ; ; ar, طنجة, Ṭanja) is a city in northwestern Morocco. It is on the Moroccan coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel. The town is the capi ...

on the 6 August and landing troops in

Mogador Essaouira ( ; ar, الصويرة, aṣ-Ṣawīra; shi, ⵜⴰⵚⵚⵓⵔⵜ, Taṣṣort, formerly ''Amegdul''), known until the 1960s as Mogador, is a port city in the western Moroccan region of Marakesh-Safi, on the Atlantic coast. It ha ...

on 16. In 1854, ''Suffren'' was involved in the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...

. In July, an epidemic of cholera in the fleet in the Black Sea killed 20 and sickened 100 aboard. On 17 October, ''Suffren'' took part in the siege of Sevastopol. The next year, she was converted to a troop ship. From 1857 to 1860, she was used as a gunnery school by the

École Navale École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

, before being stricken on 4 April 1861 and converted to a hulk. She was renamed ''Ajax'' on 8 April 1865, and scrapped in 1874. Image:Suffren mp3h9467.jpg Image:Suffren mp3h9466.jpg

External links

90-guns ships-of-the-line
{{DEFAULTSORT:Suffren (1824) Ships of the line of the French Navy Ships built in France 1829 ships Crimean War naval ships of France Suffren-class ships of the line