''Saphir'' was one of six s built for 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 ...

() in the first decade of the 20th century.

Design and description

The ''Émeraude'' class were built as part of the French Navy's 1903 building program to a Maugas single-hull design.Gardiner & Gray, p. 208 The submarines displaced surfaced and submerged. They had an

overall length The overall length (OAL) of an ammunition cartridge is a measurement from the base of the brass shell casing to the tip of the bullet, seated into the brass casing. Cartridge overall length, or "COL", is important to safe functioning of reloads i ...

of , a beam of , and a

draft Draft, The Draft, or Draught may refer to: Watercraft dimensions * Draft (hull), the distance from waterline to keel of a vessel * Draft (sail), degree of curvature in a sail * Air draft, distance from waterline to the highest point on a vesse ...

of . They had an operational diving depth of . Their crew numbered 2 officers and 23 enlisted men. For surface running, the boats were powered by two Sautter-Harlé

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-ca ...

s, each driving one

propeller shaft A drive shaft, driveshaft, driving shaft, tailshaft (Australian English), propeller shaft (prop shaft), or Cardan shaft (after Girolamo Cardano) is a component for transmitting mechanical power and torque and rotation, usually used to connect ...

. When submerged each propeller was driven by a 300-metric-horsepower

electric motor An electric motor is an electrical machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a wire winding to generate for ...

. They could reach a maximum speed of on the surface and underwater. The ''Émeraude'' class had a surface endurance of at and a submerged endurance of at . The boats were armed with four internal

torpedo tube A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...

s, two in the bow and two in the stern, for which they carried six

torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, s ...

es.

Construction and career

''Saphir'' was

laid down Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one o ...

in October 1903 at the

Arsenal de Toulon The military port of Toulon (french: arsenal de Toulon) is the principal base of the French Navy and the largest naval base in the Mediterranean, sited in the city of Toulon. It holds most of France's force d'action navale, comprising the aircr ...

, launched on 6 February 1909 and commissioned on 10 December 1910.Garier 1998, p. 12 Upon her completion, ''Saphir'' was assigned to the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western Europe, Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa ...

. In 1913, she joined a squadron based in Bizerte,

French Tunisia The French protectorate of Tunisia (french: Protectorat français de Tunisie; ar, الحماية الفرنسية في تونس '), commonly referred to as simply French Tunisia, was established in 1881, during the French colonial Empire era, ...

, to defend the region. In late 1914, she moved to a base at

Tenedos Tenedos (, ''Tenedhos'', ), or Bozcaada in Turkish, is an island of Turkey in the northeastern part of the Aegean Sea. Administratively, the island constitutes the Bozcaada district of Çanakkale Province. With an area of it is the third l ...

so as to be closer to the

Dardanelles The Dardanelles (; tr, Çanakkale Boğazı, lit=Strait of Çanakkale, el, Δαρδανέλλια, translit=Dardanéllia), also known as the Strait of Gallipoli from the Gallipoli peninsula or from Classical Antiquity as the Hellespont (; ...

and to participate in monitoring and blockading of Turkish Straits. On 13 December 1914, a British submarine, , entered the straits and sank the Ottoman Navy central battery ironclad '' Messudiyeh''. On 15 January 1915, to follow the example of ''B11'' and without prior orders, the commanding officer of ''Saphir'',

Lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...

Henri Fournier, tried to force the entrance of the straits. As ''Saphir'' dived under a minefield off

Çanakkale Çanakkale (pronounced ), ancient ''Dardanellia'' (), is a city and seaport in Turkey in Çanakkale province on the southern shore of the Dardanelles at their narrowest point. The population of the city is 195,439 (2021 estimate). Çanakkale is ...

, she sprang a leak. The flooding forced ''Saphir'' to surface under fire from Ottoman guns, and Fournier gave the order to destroy ''Saphir''′s code documents and scuttle the submarine 1,500 meters (1,640 yards) from the coast. The crew tried to gain ground by swimming. Thirteen of 27 enlisted men and the two officers did not survive the swim to shore, perishing from the cold; the 14 survivors were recovered by two

Ottoman Army The military of the Ottoman Empire ( tr, Osmanlı İmparatorluğu'nun silahlı kuvvetleri) was the armed forces of the Ottoman Empire. Army The military of the Ottoman Empire can be divided in five main periods. The foundation era covers the ...

boats and transferred, after interrogation, to prisons, including the one in

Afyonkarahisar Afyonkarahisar (, tr, afyon "poppy, opium", ''kara'' "black", ''hisar'' "fortress") is a city in western Turkey, the capital of Afyon Province. Afyon is in the mountainous countryside inland from the Aegean coast, south-west of Ankara along t ...

. Some soon after were transferred to prisoner-of-war camps in

Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

, where they managed to escape.

Citation

A French citation read:

Citations

Bibliography

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Saphir Émeraude-class submarine (1906) World War I submarines of France 1908 ships Maritime incidents in 1915 Scuttled vessels World War I shipwrecks in the Dardanelles