Here we have a set which is very similar to "L`Electricitie", issued in 1906. And there is also a sister which we have not yet featured, called "La Navigation Aerienne", which deals with aerial navigation, or aeroplanes.
Our submarine is named as "La Pluviose", which you will often read means "rainy", but it also used to be the name of a month, the fifth in the calendar used by the Republic during the French Revolution, and it ran from the end of January to the end of February. What we do not know is why she was so named, as she was first ordered in August 1905, launched in June 1907, and put into service in October 1908.
She was the submarine equivalent of the flagship, and the class was named after her. Her siblings all had double hulls and carried a pair of officers, up to twenty-three enlisted men, and eight torpedoes. Originally she, and several of those siblings, had the torpedo tube inside her bow, but there was what is referred to as "an accident" with one of those other ships, and the ones who had been set up in that way, including our submarine, were all brought back in to be refitted with external launchers. I have not been able to find out about the accident, which suggests a bit of a cover up.
Our boat also had another accident, in May 1910, when she was hit by the liner Pas de Calais as she resurfaced. This was whilst her and two siblings were on what is reported as "a diving exercise", just outside their home base in Calais. She was ripped completely open and plunged to the bottom of the sea, with all hands. Oddly, it is reported that either twenty seven or thirty men were killed, reports vary - but we know her complement was only twenty five, so were there other men on board, observing, which added to her weight and made her less manoueverable, or were the other men on the liner, and just added in to the total ?
Anyway, the submarine was raised, and brought back to Calais Our card shows her after this, because it mentions this event, "Coule en 1910 a Calais puis repare" - which means "sank in 1910 in Calais then repaired". It also calls her "Marin du Guerre", which means war ship, so this dates the set as after 1910 but before 1918. (Another card, no.35, gives us the date of 1913, so narrowing the date still further.)
In fact she was damaged again in 1919, and then there is another mystery, for she was sent to undergo "compression testing". This sounds like a test before she was returned to service, but sadly it seems more likely that she was subjected to repeated crushings, in the name of research for other submarines of the future, because in 1925 she was sold, for scrap.
This is a set of eighty-four subjects, so we have a list, or the beginnings of one. I have also included the most recent of any dates printed on these cards as I go along so we may get closer to the date of issue. And if anyone can add any new names, please let us know via webmaster@card-world.co.uk
- Marine de Guerre, Trireme Carthaginoise, 11e Siecle
- Marine de Guerre, Pirogue Afrique
- Marine de Guerre, Le Protecteur, 1790
- Marine de Guerre, Le Borda, 1908
- Marine du Guerre, Baleiniere
- Marine de Guerre, Grand canot
- Marine de Guerre, L`Edgar-Quinet, 1908
- Marine de Guerre, Pluviose, 1910
- Marine de Guerre, Le Gustave Zede, 1913
- Marine Marchande, Galion XVe Siecle
- Marine Marchande, Bac a corde XVIe Siecle
- Maine Marchande, Bateau marchand marseillais
- Marine Marchande, Le Coche d`eau, XVIIIe Siecle
- Marine Marchande, Cange du Nil
- Marine Marchanda - Bateau da Commerce Hollandaise XVIIIe Siecle
- Marine Marchande, Trois Mats XVIII Siecle
- Marine Marchande, La Savannah, 1819
- Marine Marchande, Vapeur a roues du Rhone
- Marine Marchande, Barque Sardiniere, XIXe Siecle
- Marine Marchande 1867
- Marine Marchande, La Germania, 1870
- Marine Marchande, Le Canada, 1874
- Marine Marchande, Bateau de commerce Hollandais XVIIIe Siecle