The Marine Impériale in the Crimean War

The French Navy under Emperor Napoleon III had the rank of the world’s second largest, as France was a long standing rivalry with Britain. However, now with appeased relations, it was the instrument of a full colonial expansion. With an Anglophile Napoleon III accessing the throne in 1852, there was no question of surpassing the British Royal Navy, not only because of industrial capabilities, but the necessity to maintain a large and costly land army against notably Austria and Prussia. Napoleon III managed to modernize the French economy and at the same time, helped to renew the French Navy, with a first steamship of the line in 1850, launching a wave of steam conversion of first and second rate sailing ships of the line. But the great test was the Crimean war, the first Franco-British intervention, better known as the war in Crimea (1854-55) taking part also in the Baltic and other theaters, against Russia. This post is about the ships in service prior to the Crimean war, their actions during the war and afterward, with the start of the ironclad age.

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