The Bayard was an early stationary battleship of the French Navy

French Navy

The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...

, lead ship of her class. Bayard had a wooden hull and a full rigging

Full rigged ship

A full rigged ship or fully rigged ship is a sailing vessel with three or more masts, all of them square rigged. A full rigged ship is said to have a ship rig....

, as well as a side armour and steam machinery.

Active service

Bayard was commissioned in May 1883 under the command of capitaine de vaisseau Parrayon as the flagship of Admiral Amédée Courbet

Amédée Courbet

Anatole-Amédée-Prosper Courbet was a French admiral who won a series of important land and naval victories during the Tonkin campaign and the Sino-French War .-Early years:...

, who had recently been appointed to the command of France's Trial division (division des essais), established in April 1883. On 31 May 1883, in the wake of the defeat and death of Commandant Henri Rivière in Tonkin (northern Vietnam) at the Battle of Paper Bridge

Battle of Paper Bridge

The Battle of Cầu Giấy or Paper Bridge, fought on 19 May 1883, was one of the numerous clashes during the Tonkin campaign between the French and the Black Flags...

, Courbet was placed in command of a newly-created Tonkin Coasts naval division. In early June Courbet left for the Far East with the ironclads Bayard and Atalante and the cruiser Châteaurenault.

Bayard arrived in Along Bay on 10 July, and for the next eleven months served as flagship of the Tonkin Coasts naval division. In August 1883, in the Battle of Thuan An

Battle of Thuan An

The Battle of Thuan An was a clash between the French and the Vietnamese during the period of early hostilities of the Tonkin Campaign...

, she bombarded the coastal defences of Hué

Hue

Hue is one of the main properties of a color, defined technically , as "the degree to which a stimulus can be describedas similar to or different from stimuli that are described as red, green, blue, and yellow,"...

, receiving minor shot damage from the Vietnamese shore batteries. From October 1883 to June 1884, during the period of growing tension that preceded the outbreak of the Sino-French War

Sino-French War

The Sino–French War was a limited conflict fought between August 1884 and April 1885 to decide whether France should replace China in control of Tonkin . As the French achieved their war aims, they are usually considered to have won the war...

 (August 1884–April 1885), she took part in a French naval blockade of the coast of Tonkin. On 30 November 1883, in response to the threat of an imminent Vietnamese attack on the French post at Quang Yen, Bayards landing company was hastily installed in the town's citadel, successfully deterring the threatened attack. In June 1884 Bayard became the flagship of the Far East Squadron

Far East Squadron

The French Far East Squadron was an exceptional naval grouping created for the duration of the Sino-French War .- Background :...

, an exceptional naval grouping created for the war with China by the amalgamation of the Tonkin Coasts and Far East naval divisions.

On 5 August 1884 sailors from Bayard took part in a French landing at Keelung, but were forced to re-embark on 6 August by a heavy Chinese counterattack. Bayard took no part in the Battle of Fuzhou (23 August 1884), the opening battle of the Sino-French War, as she drew too much water to enter the Min River. Instead, she was left to guard the telegraph station at Sharp Peak near Matsu that allowed the squadron to communicate with France. On 1 October 1884 Bayard and several other French warships supported the French landing at Keelung with a naval bombardment of Chinese shore positions. On 8 October Bayards landing company took part in the failed French landing at Tamsui

Battle of Tamsui

The Battle of Tamsui , fought on 8 October 1884, was a significant French defeat during the Sino-French War.- Background :...

, which condemned the Formosa expeditionary corps to a prolonged Keelung Campaign

Keelung Campaign

The Keelung Campaign was a controversial military campaign undertaken by the French in northern Formosa during the Sino-French War. After making a botched attack on Keelung in August 1884, the French landed an expeditionary corps of 2,000 men and captured the port in October 1884...

. From November 1884 to January 1885 Bayard took part in the French naval blockade of Formosa (Taiwan

Taiwan

Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...

). On 14 November 1884, while anchored off Keelung and exposed to the northeast monsoon, she nearly foundered when her anchor chain snapped during a gale.

In February 1885 five warships of China's Nanyang Fleet

Nanyang Fleet

The Nanyang Fleet was one of the four modernised Chinese navies in the late Qing Dynasty. Established in the 1870s, the fleet suffered losses in the Sino-French War, escaped intact in the Sino-Japanese War, and was formally abolished in 1909....

 made a sortie from Shanghai in an attempt to break the French blockade of Formosa. Courbet sought them out with Bayard and several other ships of the Far East squadron, and trapped them in Shipu Bay. At the Battle of Shipu

Battle of Shipu

The Battle of Shipu was a French naval victory during the Sino-French War . The battle took place on the night of 14 February 1885 in Shipu Bay , near Ningbo, China.- Background :...

 on the night of 14 February 1885, two of Bayards launches, used as improvised torpedo boats, attacked the Chinese squadron at anchor and disabled the frigate Yuyuan (馭遠) and the composite sloop Chengqing (澄慶). In early March 1885 Bayard took part in the French blockade of Zhenhai, the outport of Ningbo. In late March she formed part of the French flotilla for the Pescadores Campaign

Pescadores Campaign

The Pescadores Campaign in late March 1885 was one of the last campaigns of the Sino-French War . It was fought to capture a strategically important island group off the western coast of Taiwan...

, and her landing company was engaged ashore on 31 March in the decisive battle with the Chinese defenders of Makung.

Admiral Amédée Courbet

Amédée Courbet

Anatole-Amédée-Prosper Courbet was a French admiral who won a series of important land and naval victories during the Tonkin campaign and the Sino-French War .-Early years:...

 died on board Bayard in the harbour of Makung, in the Pescadores

Pescadores

The Penghu Islands, also known as Pescadores are an archipelago off the western coast of Taiwan in the Taiwan Strait consisting of 90 small islands and islets covering an area of 141 square kilometers....

Islands, on 11 June 1885. Bayard left the Pescadores on 23 June to return Courbet's body to France for a state funeral, arriving at Toulon on 26 August. She then proceeded to Brest to be disarmed and decommissioned.

She was eventually used as a hulk from 1899.