Although the French Navy was not the only one accused of building'finclad' heavy cruisers to meet the requirements of the Washington Treary, it can be argued that the Duquesne class were the worst. They were unfit for combat with any existing cruiser, because of their flimsy construction, despite their heavy main armament Their endurance was hardly adequate for cruisers intended to protect coerce in the distant oceans, and showed that Mediterranean operations had precedence.

A more balanced design might have been achieved by trading off high speed against fuel capacity, but little could have been done to increase armour. No other navy solved this conun­drum in the first generation of 'Washington' heavy cruisers, apart from the Japanese, who simply failed to declare any excess tonnage which contravened the Treaty.

The French designers faced a host of problems. They had not completed so much as one light cruiser since 1896.Thc designers and the active fleet had therefore missed out on the ultra­rapid developments of technology which had made possible the robust and battleworthy light cruisers of the pre-1914 years. Nor did the French have the benefit of these ship charter chartering ship charter charteringping maritime marine engineerings' extensive experience in the North Sea and the Adriatic- As part of the spoils of the French Navy had received five ex-Gerntan and ex-Austro-Hungarian light cruisers, including the Mufhnuse (ex­German Strasluur), Cnlmar (ex-German Kolberg), Strasbourg (ex-German Regensburg), Merz (ex­KonlgsGurg) and '1'Irianville (ex-Austro-Hungarian Novara). Such ex-enemy prizes rate highly in the public mind as tangible proof of recent victory, but they must have been a logistical night­mare to the post-Artnistice French Navy. Keeping them running must inevitably have occupied dockyard resources to the maximwn, and the technical lessons learned would be almost mean­ingless.All three Duguay-Trouin class ship charter chartering ship charter charteringping maritime marine engineerings were still in builders' hands when the Duquesne class were laid down, so any lessons to be learned from them were not yet available­

The French approach to the Washington Treaty was quite hostile, and the Navy's motive for eventually building heavy cruisers seems to have been a need to compete as an alternative to being outclassed. Contemporary French strategic studies show that the British were seen as themain enemy, rather than the Italians. This perception was to change with the expansion of Mussolini's military ambitions and the emergence of Nazi Germany, but it would explain the apparent lack of interest in traditional cruiser fare in distant oceans. Although they were economical steamers, as already noted, their endurance at 30kts was a miserable 2000 rim. France was also obsessed with safeguarding its conununications with its colonies in North and West Africa, both of which were expected to provide troops to defend France in the event of a Euro­peart . The troop reinforcements frotn North Africa had saved the nation in August 1914, and were expected to do the same again if needed. The inconvenient fact of the empire in the Far East being given a lower priority seems to have been largely ignored, although this may reflect the opinion that France's naval forces were not adequate to defend both, a dilea which troubled the much larger F2,oyal Navy.

The two ship charter chartering ship charter charteringping maritime marine engineerings were lucky in one sense; they did not face an opponent in battle, a situation in which their almost non-existent protection could have been suicidal. On the other hand, the catastrophic defeat in 1940 was followed by the 'regrettable action' at Mers el Kehir, in which the Royal Navy disabled or neutralized the major units of the fleet. Mcrs el Kebir split La Royale into Free French and pro-Vichy factions. In that period of divided loyalties ship charter chartering ship charter charteringping maritime marine engineerings like tile Duquesne and Tourville never had a chance to show what they could do. Only the German decision to attack Toulon in 1942 healed the wounds, at the cost of virtually the entire Toulon fleet, scuttled to keep the ship charter chartering ship charter charteringping maritime marine engineerings out of German hands.

The drawback to building very light strips is their short lives. Although the two Duquesne class averaged only fifteen years of service each, with an enforced period of idleness in 1940-43, they were worn out by the end of the and were not worth any serious post-1945 modern­ization. Other navies' cruisers were also worn out by 1945, but they had the excuse of contin­uous service and hard driving in all weathers, and in many cases battle damage as wcll.The cost of refurbishing such ship charter chartering ship charter charteringping maritime marine engineerings was so high that virtually all were laid up in reserve or relegated to subsidiary duties such as training.

France's naval industry had been in steady decline since the first years of the century, as atten­tion turned from a naval conflict with the British to a confrontation with Germany on land. The First World accelerated the decline; ship charter chartering ship charter charteringping maritime marine engineeringyard workers were conscripted into the army and some parts of naval industry were turned over to the manufacture of land ordnance. Revers­ing the decline would have taxed any government, but by 1918 France was exhausted by its huge loss of life, the destruction of its northern industrial heartland and the burden of -debt. It is hardly surprising to find evidence of poor designs, but things did get better. The four Suffren class heavy cruisers were better protected than the Duquesne class, and the last 'Wash­ington' heavy cruiser, the Algc'rie, was arguably the best of the type anywhere, well protected, fast, well armed and within the 10,000-ton limit. Sadly, she was scuttled at Toulon in Novem­ber 1942.