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Le Plongeur model (Musee de la Marine, Paris)
After the brief Anglo-French alliance against Russia the peace saw a return to normality, with the French trying to overcome British naval supremacy. This time the inventor was a Captain Bourgeois, who submitted proposals for a submersible. Five years later his Plongeur was launched at Rochefort, a comparatively large 44.5m (145.9ft) boat driven by a steam engine to provide compressed air for expelling water ballast, as well as propulsion. The weapon was a spar torpedo – a canister of gunpowder on a long wooden pole, intended to be driven against an enemy ship’s side before being detonated. Although the Plongeur’s design took submarine development forward, the ‘enabling technologies’ were not yet mature.
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Siméon Bourgeois
Siméon Bourgeois was a 19th century French Navy vice-admiral who was especially involved in the development of early submarines. He was born in Thionville, Lorraine, on March 26, 1815, and died in Paris on December 24, 1887.
He held the rank of captain when he presented together with Bourdelle his project for the submarine Plongeur in 1858, and when he created the plans in 1860, under the code name Q00. Plongeur was the world’s first submarine to be propelled by mechanical (by opposition to human) power.
He later became a vice-admiral and was influential in the development of the French “Jeune Ecole” (“Young school”) school of thought which promoted a modern Navy based on small, powerful units using new technologies. He was a pioneer in the development of the ship screw in France, and became the president of the first Commission for Submarine Defense.
From 1870 to 1872, Siméon Bourgeois was Commander of the Naval Division of the Western Coasts of Africa, becoming the Colonial head of Gabon (“Colony of Gorée and Dependencies”), succeeding to Victor Auguste Duperré at this post. Bourgeois launched in 1872 the first program to develop torpedo boats in the French Navy. He posthumously published a book in 1888, “Le Torpilleur” (“The torpedo boat”). Among other things, he also wrote in the magazine “Nature” an article titled “De l’effet de l’huile pour calmer l’agitation de la mer” (“About the effect of oil to calm the agitation of the sea”).
A long-range submarine was named in his honour, L’ Amiral Bourgeois hull number Q 082. This submarine was launched on November 25, 1912. The grandson of Siméon Bourgeois, Pierre Bourgeois, was a hero of the French Resistance during the Second World War.
