Contact Admin. The Arras-class , sometimes known as the Amiens class, were a series of aviso also referred to as sloops built for the French Navy at the end of World War I. A total of forty three fast "first-rate" avisos for convoy escort duties. These ships were ordered under and building programmes for the French Navy and all were named after places on the Western Front lines.
Built in nine different military and civilian dockyards across France, The first of which, Arras , entered commission May The signing of the Armistice of 11 November marked the end of the First World War, and the final thirteen planned Arras-class ships were cancelled. The remaining ships were slowly completed from to The ships were modelled after the success of British Q-ships , military ships purposely designed to resemble three-island type merchant cargo ships to deceive enemy U-boats.
As such, like merchant ships they were considered roomy for their size and remained dry in head seas. Ships completed before the end of the war participated in the trans-Atlantic convoys. The surviving ships were returned to French naval service in Bar-le-Duc foundered and was stricken off of Lesbos while escorting Wrangel's fleet during the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War in Other ships were reassigned to a variety of duties.
Vauquois and Remiremont were used as Training ships. Bapaume was temporarily given a flight deck from bow to bridge for takeoff training for French Naval Aviation under a plan devised by naval aviation pioneer Paul Teste between and Belfort was converted to a seaplane tender.
At the start of the Second World War in , nineteen Arras -class avisos had been retired and only eleven still remained in active service. Several ships of the class were active in the evacuation of Allied Forces after the collapse of France in June One of which, Vauquois was sunk by a naval mine in 18 June French navy ships in British ports were interned and soon passed to the fledgling Free French Naval Forces.
