The trials of the Gustave Zédé resulted in stimulating the interest of the French in submarine warfare. Writers vied with one another in extolling the qualities of under-water craft and the popular imagination saw already the powerful fleets of Great Britain and Germany destroyed by the attacks of the French submarine flotilla.
“Jamais nous n’aurions trop de sous-marins,” wrote M. V. Guilloux in Le Yacht. “The twelve years of consecutive efforts and studies continued in order to obtain a solution of the question of submarine navigation have at length been crowned with success,” said a writer in the Moniteur de la Flotte.
Lieutenant Maurice Loir writing in the Moniteur of a later date remarked that Frenchmen went too fast in proclaiming that these isolated trials sounded the knell of the battleships.
He nevertheless believed the submarine boat to be a real element in naval war because the very fear of its invisible attack would keep at a distance adversaries who might have an object in approaching the coasts.
So great was the interest taken in France in submarine boats that the Matin opened a “Patriotic Subscription Fund” in 1898, to raise money for building submarine boats of the Gustave Zédé type. The journal itself headed the list with a subscription of 5,000 francs. In a long article the Matin dwelt on the utility of these engines of warfare, and asked the French public to furnish the funds necessary for the construction of at least one more Gustave Zédé. It urged the Government to build a fleet of these boats as an effectual protection for the French ports and the harbours of the French Colonies, against the most powerful navies of the world.
The result of the opening of the fund was that two submarines were presented to the nation—the Français and the Algerien—and the sum of 300,000 francs, mostly in small sums, was contributed by the French nation for these vessels.
The history of the Gustave Zédé shows how much in earnest the French were in the matter of submarines. When it was first launched it was a distinct failure in almost every respect, and it was only after some years during which many alterations and improvements were carried out, that she became a serviceable craft. At first nothing would induce the Gustave Zédé to quit the surface, and when at last she did plunge she did it so effectually that she went down to the bottom in 10 fathoms of water at an angle of 30°. The Committee of Engineers were on board at the time, and it speaks well for their patriotism that they did not as a result of their unpleasant experiences condemn the Gustave Zédé, and advise the Government to spend no more money over these monsters of the deep.
Morse.
Before the Gustave Zédé was completed M. Romazzotti prepared designs for a smaller submarine, which should be intermediary between the Gymnote, displacing 30 tons, and the Gustave Zédé of 266 tons.
This vessel, the Morse, is 118 feet long, 9 feet beam, 8 feet 3 inches diameter, is made of “Roma” bronze, and displaces 146 tons. Amidships is a circular conning tower rising about 18 in. from the top of the boat.