 Amiral Charner was an armored cruiser built for the French Navy in the 1890s , the name ship of her class . She spent most of her career in the Mediterranean , although she was sent to China during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 – 01 . The ship was assigned to the International Squadron off the island of Crete during the Greco @-@ Turkish War of 1897 to protect French interests and citizens . Amiral Charner spent most of the first decade of the 20th century as a training ship or in reserve . The ship was recommissioned when World War I began in 1914 and escorted convoys for several months before she was assigned to the Eastern Mediterranean to blockade the Ottoman @-@ controlled coast . During this time , she helped to rescue several thousand Armenians from Syria during the Armenian Genocide of 1915 . Amiral Charner was sunk in early 1916 by a German submarine , with only a single survivor rescued . 
