French submarine Saphir (1908)

Saphir was one of six s built for the French Navy in the first decade of the 20th century.

History
After her launch, Saphir was assigned to the Mediterranean. In 1913, she joined a squadron based in Bizerte, French Tunisia, to defend the region. In late 1914, she moved to a base at Tenedos so as to be closer to the Dardanelles and to participate in monitoring and blockading of Turkish Straits.

On 13 December 1914, a British submarine, HMS B11, 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 Henri Fournier, tried to force the entrance of the straits. As Saphir dived under a minefield off Çanakkale, 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 boats and transferred, after interrogation, to prisons, including the one in Afyonkarahisar. Some soon after were transferred to prisoner-of-war camps in Asia Minor, where they managed to escape.

Citation
A French citation read:

"The submarines Saphir and Curie, fallen gloriously in battle, are brought to the agenda of the Naval Army. In his affliction of having seen succumb such valiant servants of the country, the commander-in-chief reminds everyone how proud the army should be to have in its ranks officers and crews capable of heroic actions such as those that were accomplished by these valourous ships whose names will remain in maritime legends. Honour and glory to the officers and crews of the Saphir and Curie, they have truly earned it from the Fatherland."

- Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère, admiral of the French navy