Photo Supplement to the French Warships Books
French armored cruiser Victor Hugo at Jamestown, Va., on 12 June 1907
One of the few limitations on published books is that space for illustrations is scarce and expensive. This is not the case on the web, and this opportunity is being taken to post photographs and other illustrations that are relevant to the books but could not be included in them. Photographs and plans shown in the books at full page width are generally not duplicated here, but some of the ones printed in half-page width are presented here in larger format to show additional details. Nearly all of the photos necessarily relate to the 1859-1914 volume. Of the multiple sections planned the following have been posted, partly or in full:
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Before 1859 (all types) Squadron Battleships Station/Cruising Battleships Coast Defense Battleships Armored Gunboats (Pending) |
The sources for the individual photographs are given in their captions, but several require specific mention. These are:
- The "NH" photo collection of the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command (NHHC) in Washington, D.C. (referred to here as "USN NH" or simply "NH").
- Photos relating to Brest on Wikimedia Commons and on Facebook from multiple French repositories, including the Archives municipales et métropolitaines de Brest (here "Archives MM Brest"), the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF Gallica) (here "BNF"), the Musée de Bretagne / Ecomusée de la Bintinais (here "Musée Bretagne"), the Musée National de la Marine de Brest (here "MNM Brest"), and the Archives départementales du Finistère (here "Archives Finistère").
- Photos relating to Rochefort on Wikimedia Commons and on Facebook from a collection of 1270 glass plate images made between 1870 and 1917 by the Direction de la construction navale there and now held by the Service historique de la Défense at Rochefort (referred to here as "SHD Rochefort"). The whole collection may be viewed on the SHD's Mémoire des hommes website.
- The author's collection, including items from small sellers online, Facebook posts, and miscellaneous other online sources (here "Shipscribe").
The author has made a diligent effort to identify and credit the original sources of the images on this site as well as the rights pertaining thereto. Concerning images found on Wikimedia, he notes that "Wikimedia Commons only accepts free content, that is, images ... that are not subject to copyright restictions which would prevent them being used by anyone ..." although certain license requirements like proper source credits are allowed. The author's effort, however, has met with incomplete success. The U.S. Navy's NH collection contains albums of items collected by naval attachés in Europe in the 1880s and 1890s, on many of which the source credits are absent, not visible, or unknown today. Facebook posts rarely report their original sources, and items purchased online, many of which are postcards, mostly bear credits to commercial publishers who are unknown today. The author believes that the photos on this site with inadequate sourcing can be considered "orphan works" and hereby assigns to them the status DR (Droits réservés). He offers his apologies in case his efforts have failed to identify a holder of legitimate rights to an image or images presented here, and he also apologizes if he has failed to identify and respect the legitimate rights of any source that he has identified. If notified of a problem, he will immediately withdraw the image(s) while the matter is being resolved.
This entire site, including all its pages, is copyright © Stephen S. Roberts, 2001-2026 or later as indicated.