Algérie as a treaty-cruiser breakthrough

The design drew on hard-won French experience with earlier treaty cruisers and marked a radical break from the formula used for Dupleix and her predecessors. Grouping the boilers and turbines instead of alternating machinery units permitted a single funnel and shortened the space that needed heavy protection. The saved upper-deck and machinery length could therefore be redirected into an external armour belt and a more compact protected citadel. A flush-decked hull added structural strength, while dispensing with the familiar tripod foremast gave the ship a distinctive silhouette. This integration of layout and protection explains why Algérie is often ranked among the strongest Washington Treaty cruiser designs, well beyond an incremental update to earlier French ships.