The Arquebuse class was designed as a faster version of the preceding . The ships had an overall length of 56.58sp=usNaNsp=us,[1] a beam of 6.3m (20.7feet), and a maximum draft of 3.2m (10.5feet).[2] They normally displaced 307sp=usNaNsp=us and at deep load. The two vertical triple-expansion steam engines each drove one propeller shaft using steam provided by two du Temple Guyot or Normand boilers. The engines were designed to produce a total of 6300ihp[1] for a designed speed of 28kn,[3] all the ships exceeded their contracted speed during their sea trials[1] with Fronde reaching a speed of . They carried enough coal to give them a range of 2300nmi at .[4] Their crew consisted of four officers and fifty-eight enlisted men.[1]
The main armament of the Arquebuse-class ships consisted of a single 65mm gun forward of the bridge and six 47adj=onNaNadj=on Hotchkiss guns in single mounts, three on each broadside. They were fitted with two single rotating mounts for 381mm torpedo tubes on the centerline, one between the funnels and the other on the stern.[1]
Fronde (French for "sling") was ordered from Chantiers et Ateliers de la Gironde on 14 November 1900 and the ship was laid down in January 1901 at its shipyard in Bordeaux-Lormont. She was launched on 17 December 1902 and conducted her sea trials during January-March 1903. The ship was commissioned (French: armement définitif) in April and was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet.[5] Fronde and her sister ship were used to conduct the navy's first trials with wireless telegraphy.[6] The two destroyers and their sister were transferred to the Far East Squadron (French: Escadre de l'Extrême-Orient) based in French Indochina in April 1904. They sailed in company with the protected cruiser .[7] [8]
Fronde was wrecked in the 1906 typhoon that hit Hong Kong; the storm rolled the ship onto the beach, and five of her crew were killed in the accident.[9] [10] [11] The ship was raised and then dry docked in Kowloon to be repaired by the Hong Kong Dock Company.[12] The Fronde Memorial, a granite obelisk, was erected in May 1908 in memory of the five sailors of the Fronde who disappeared in the sinking of their boat near the Torpedo Depot, in Kowloon. Initially erected at the corner of Gascoigne Road and Jordan Road, the monument was later relocated to Hong Kong Cemetery in Happy Valley.[10] [13]
In March 1907, the three destroyers were assigned to the newly formed 1st China Sea Torpedo Boat Flotilla (French: 1<sup>re</sup> Flotille des torpilleurs des mers de Chine) of the Far East Squadron.[8] As of 1911, the renamed Naval Division of the Far East (French: Division navale de l'Extrême-Orient) consisted of the armored cruisers and, the old torpedo cruiser, Fronde and two other destroyers, six torpedo boats, and four submarines, along with a number of smaller vessels.[14] Fronde was reduced to reserve in March 1914.[8]
At the start of World War I in August 1914, the Naval Division of the Far East included Fronde, Pistolet and Mousquet, and the armored cruisers and Dupleix, along with D'Iberville. The unit was based in Saigon in French Indochina. The destroyers and D'Iberville were initially sent to patrol the Strait of Malacca while the armored cruisers were sent north to join the search for the German East Asia Squadron.[15] D'Iberville and the destroyers conducted patrols in the strait, searching for the German unprotected cruiser, which was known to be passing through the area at the time; the French ships failed to locate the German vessel.[16]
Fronde was present in the harbor at Penang, a British Crown colony, on 27 October 1914, moored alongside her sister Pistolet. The other major Triple Entente ships in the harbor included D'Iberville and the Russian protected cruiser . In the early hours of 28 October, the German light cruiser entered the harbor to attack the Entente vessels there. In the ensuing Battle of Penang, Emden quickly torpedoed and sank Zhemchug. As Emden turned to leave the harbor, Fronde and D'Iberville opened fire, but their gun crews fired wildly and failed to score any hits on the German raider. The German vessel then encountered Frondes sister Mousquet, which was returning to Penang when the attack began. Emden quickly sank Mousquet and stopped to pick up survivors, but in the meantime, Fronde had gotten underway and attempted to close with Emden. The Germans fled, pursued by Fronde, for about two hours before Emden was able to disappear into a rain squall.[17]
In March 1915, Fronde was fully reactivated[8] and returned to France where she served in the Mediterranean for the rest of the war.[5] The ship rescued 45 survivors from the after it had been torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine in the Straits of Messina on 27 June 1917.[18] [19] She was one of five destroyers that escorted the predreadnought battleship from Bizerte, French Tunisia, to Toulon in September 1917.[20] By 1918 the ship had been assigned to the 8th Destroyer Flotilla (French: 8<sup>me</sup> Flotille de contre-torpilleurs).[8] On 3 July, Fronde collided with the submarine chaser C.43, resulting in the loss of the latter vessel.[21] She was struck from the naval register on 30 October 1919 and sold for scrap in Toulon on 6 May 1920.[5]