Battle of Mers-el-Kébir

E415812

The Battle of Mers-el-Kébir was a 1940 World War II naval engagement off the coast of French Algeria in which the British Royal Navy attacked the French fleet to prevent it from falling into German hands.

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All labels observed (4)

Statements (50)

Predicate Object
instanceOf World War II battle
naval battle
alsoKnownAs Battle of Mers-el-Kébir
surface form: Attack on Mers-el-Kébir

Battle of Mers-el-Kébir
surface form: Operation Catapult (Mers-el-Kébir phase)
belligerent French Navy
United Kingdom
French State (Vichy regime)
surface form: Vichy France
casualties few British casualties
over 1,000 French sailors killed
cause Battle of France
surface form: Fall of France in 1940
combatant Marine Nationale
surface form: Marine nationale

Royal Navy
commander François Darlan
James Somerville NERFINISHED
Marcel-Bruno Gensoul NERFINISHED
conflict World War II
countryAtLocation France
date 3 July 1940
followedBy Attack on Dakar
Battle of Oran (1940)
involvedShip French battleship Bretagne
French battleship Dunkerque
French battleship Provence
French battleship Strasbourg
French destroyers Mogador-class
HMS Arethusa NERFINISHED
HMS Ark Royal (seaplane carrier)
surface form: HMS Ark Royal

HMS Hood NERFINISHED
HMS Resolution NERFINISHED
HMS Valiant NERFINISHED
location French Algeria
Mers-el-Kébir
near Oran
notableFor British attack on former ally
objective to prevent French fleet from falling into German hands
orderedBy Winston Churchill
partOf Mediterranean and Middle East theatre of World War II
surface form: Mediterranean theatre of World War II

Operation Catapult
politicalConsequence resentment in Vichy France
strengthening of British resolve to continue war
worsening of Anglo-French relations
precededBy Armistice of 22 June 1940
result British victory
shipDamage French battleship Dunkerque heavily damaged
French battleship Provence damaged
shipLoss French battleship Bretagne sunk
shipOutcome French battleship Strasbourg escaped
theatre Mediterranean Sea
typeOfAction preemptive strike
year 1940

How these facts were elicited

The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.

Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10.

# Requirements
- If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list.
- If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list.
- Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf".
- Do not get too wordy.
- Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Battle of Mers-el-Kébir
Description of subject: The Battle of Mers-el-Kébir was a 1940 World War II naval engagement off the coast of French Algeria in which the British Royal Navy attacked the French fleet to prevent it from falling into German hands.

Referenced by (6)

Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.

Vichy French forces engagedIn Battle of Mers-el-Kébir
French State (Vichy regime) hadMilitaryEngagement Battle of Mers-el-Kébir
Force H participatedIn Battle of Mers-el-Kébir
this entity surface form: Attack on Mers-el-Kébir
Battle of Mers-el-Kébir alsoKnownAs Battle of Mers-el-Kébir
this entity surface form: Attack on Mers-el-Kébir
Battle of Mers-el-Kébir alsoKnownAs Battle of Mers-el-Kébir
this entity surface form: Operation Catapult (Mers-el-Kébir phase)
Vichy French Navy conflictOrWar Battle of Mers-el-Kébir
this entity surface form: British attack on Mers-el-Kébir