ABSTRACT
The era of the armored warship began in January 1857, more than five years before the completion of the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia, when Napoleon III appointed Dupuy de Lôme director of construction for the French navy. Dupuy de Lôme himself had designed the first purpose-built screw ship of the line, laid down just nine years earlier, but after the deployment of the armored floating batteries at Kinburn (October 1855) he joined other French naval leaders in the conviction that the future belonged to ironclad warships. After his appointment he began work on a design for an armored frigate, and in November 1857 the plans for the Gloire were completed. In March 1858 the ship was laid down at Toulon, and Napoleon III authorized construction of another five ironclads of the same type, sparking understandable consternation in Britain and a resolve to respond in kind. Two years after their Crimean War alliance ended in victory over Russia, the leading sea powers were locked in another naval race. 1
