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She was called the Morse. She was 118 feet long, 9 feet beam, displaced 146 tons, and was likewise made of "Roma" bronze. The motive power was electricity and in many other respects she was very similar to the Gustave Zédé, embodying, however, a number of improvements.
Nine more submarines were in course of construction at the outbreak of war, most of which were of the improved "Gustave Zédé" class. During the war French shipyards were chiefly occupied with capital navy ships and it is not thought the submarine strength has been much increased.
The successive crews of the Gustave Zédé suffered much from the poisonous fumes of the accumulators, and during the earlier trials all the men on board were ill. In the bows was a torpedo tube, and an arrangement was used whereby the water that entered the tube after the discharge of the torpedo was forced out by compressed air. Three Whitehead torpedoes were carried.
"These deponants saith, and first Thomas Trotter for himself saith, that on the of this instant October, being Sabbath-day, betwin the ours of 2 and 4 in the afternoon, he zeed Joseph Andrews and Francis Goodwill walk akross a certane felde belunging to layer Scout, and out of the path which ledes thru the said felde, and there he zede Joseph Andrews with a nife cut one hassel twig, of the value, as he believes, of three half-pence, or thereabouts; and he saith that the said Francis Goodwill was likewise walking on the grass out of the said path in the said felde, and did receive and karry in her hand the said twig, and so was cumfarting, eading, and abatting to the said Joseph therein.
In spite of the fact that a horizontal rudder placed at the stern had not proved serviceable on the Gymnote, such a rudder was fitted in the Gustave Zédé.
The first of these was the Gymnote, planned originally by a well-known French engineer, Dupuy de Lome, whose alert mind also planned an airship and made him a figure in the history of our Panama Canal. He died, however, before his project could be executed. M. Gustave Zédé, a marine engineer and his friend, continued his work after modifying some of his plans.
By its external form, its interior arrangements, its air-supply system, the rapidity with which it could be immersed, the facility with which it could be handled and controlled, and its extraordinary speed, it was conceded to be far superior to the Goubet, the Gymnote, the Zede, and other similar boats which had made great strides towards perfection.
Hardly had the furious cannonade broken out into thunder and flame along the two opposing lines, than these strange craft sank gently and silently beneath the waves. They were submarine vessels belonging to the French navy, an improved type of the Zédé class, which had been in existence for more than ten years.
Following along the same lines as this boat another boat, considerably larger, was built. Before it was completed, M. Zédé died and it was decided to name the new boat in his honour. The Gustave Zédé was launched at Toulon on June 1, 1893; she was 159 feet in length, beam 12 feet 4 inches, and had a total displacement of 266 tons.
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