Background
Émile Guépratte was born in Granville, near Cherbourg, August 30, 1856. The son of a naval officer.
Émile Guépratte was born in Granville, near Cherbourg, August 30, 1856. The son of a naval officer.
Guepratte entered the Naval Training College in 1871 and was commissioned an ensign in 1876.
The leader whom his British colleagues later named The Fire- Eater rose quickly. He saw service in the Far East, was promoted captain in 1904, and entered World War I as a rear admiral.
August 1914 found Guepratte in the Mediterranean in command of the division de complement, a squadron of aged battleships assigned to guard transports carrying the XIX Corps from North Africa to France. His force became the center of a quarrel between Admiral Lapeyrere, the French naval commander in the Mediterranean, and Minister of Marine Augagneur. Lapeyrere ordered Guepratte to protect the transports; Augagneur ordered him to move eastward to an offensive station off Cape Bon.
In late September Guepratte again found himself in the midst of a dispute between Paris and the Mediterranean command. Over Lapeyrere's objec-tions, Augagneur sent Guepratte and two battleships to strengthen the British forces guarding the Dardanelles, where the powerful German battle cruiser Goeben had taken refuge.
Guepratte placed his forces under British authority with no apparent reservations. Augagneur's decision of January 1915 to use French forces in the forthcoming assault on the Dardanelles meant Guepratte would attack under Admiral Carden. Lapeyrere learned of the proposed operation only when his nominal subordinate asked for supplies. Guepratte expressed his "absolute confidence in the success" of the coming naval assault on the narrows. His enthusiasm was genuine. At Guepratte's request, his squadron four battleships strong received the dangerous task of passing through the British line on March 18 to engage Turkish shore batteries at close range. The initial failure left Guepratte undaunted. He pulled gunners from his battleships to support the ensuing land operations on Gallipoli and called for carrying the army's attacks to the Asiatic side of the Straits.
He then became a prominent advocate for a new naval assault: high speed mine sweepers, night operations, the deliberate sacrifice of old battleships manned with volunteers all seemed promising tools for a naval breakthrough. This endeared him to like-minded British leaders such as Commodore Keyes. Back in Paris, such ideas terrified Augagneur, whose political career was already fatally compromised by the Dardanelles involvement. He removed Guépratte as quickly as possible to shore duty.
Promoted vice admiral, Guépratte took over the maritime district at Brest and sat out the rest of the war at Bizerte. In his postwar writings he rejected the label "dangerous hothead" he felt Augagneur had given him. Guépratte's allies appreciated him to the end. In November 1915, Lord Kitchener considered a final proposal for a naval assault on the Dardanelles and asked that Guépratte command the French contingent; instead, evacuation was agreed upon in London on November 23.
Guépratte retired in 1918 and served in the Chamber of Deputies from 1919 to 1924. He died in Brest, November 21, 1939.