Why France bought destroyers from Japan

French torpedo boats and destroyers were fighting hard, but the navy could neither replace losses nor expand the force quickly. Buying Japanese ships was an open admission that domestic industry could not meet the need. Jeune École policy had concentrated funding and industrial effort on systems expected to dominate future war. The criticism centres on the way advocates used those predictions to dismantle a broader naval industry, then blamed failures on the people implementing their plans. Torpedo craft remained useful, although they did not replace every other naval capability as advocates had expected. That outcome supports skepticism toward claims that one technology will quickly replace everything else. Such changes generally took decades, while successive demands for more capability made ships larger and left room for smaller vessels below them. France entered a major war without the broad shipbuilding base needed to turn combat experience into new ships.