Victor Baptistin Sénès

Career

Sénès entered the École Navale in October 1874. He reached the rank of enseigne de vaisseau 2nd class in August 1876, and joined the battleship Richelieu. He reached the rank of enseigne de vaisseau first class the following year and was promoted in October 1879 to Lieutenant de vaisseau.

He served as Maneuvering Officer on Orne from 1881, and he participated in the campaign of Tunisia. Three years later, when in command of the ship's machine guns at Tonkin, he distinguished himself during operations in the River Claire (Sông Lô River, also called the Lo River).

Injured in February 1885, he was promoted to Lieutenant de vaisseau in March of that same year. He then headed the Secrétariat Général majority in Toulon in 1886, and later attended the School of Submarine Defence on the Algésiras.

Commissioned as a destroyer commander, he was finally ordered in 1890 to Destroyer Squadron 127 in the Mediterranean and, in 1891, took command of torpedo boat Éclair. In 1897, he took part in the operations of the international squadron sent to Crete during the Greco-Turkish War.

He was promoted to Frigate captain in 1898, served as aide to the Ministry, and eventually rose to personal secretary of the Minister of War. He became chief of the first section of the General Staff in Toulon, and he was conspicuous in 1899 during the explosion of the powder magazine at La Goubran near Toulon. Sénès became a Captain in 1905 and took command of the battleship Charles Martel, in the Mediterranean Squadron.

He was promoted to Rear-Admiral in 1911, and took command of the 2nd Division of the 1st Light Wing, on the armoured cruiser Léon Gambetta. At the beginning of the First World War, he took part in cruiser operations in the Mediterranean and Adriatic. On 27 April 1915, the Léon Gambetta was torpedoed by the Austrian-Hungarian submarine U-5 off of Cape Santa Maria di Leuca. Sénès sank with his vessel.