was the second of four s, the first dreadnoughts built for the French Navy. She was completed before World War I as part of the 1910 naval building programme. She spent the war in the Mediterranean and helped to sink the Austro-Hungarian protected cruiser on 16 August 1914. She was torpedoed by an Austro-Hungarian submarine in December and steamed to Malta for repairs that required three and a half months. She spent the rest of the war providing cover for the Otranto Barrage that blockaded the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the Adriatic Sea and sometimes served as a flagship.
After the war, she and her sister ship participated in the occupation of Constantinople and were then sent to the Black Sea in 1919 to support Allied troops in the Southern Russia Intervention. s war-weary crew briefly mutinied, but it was easily put down and she returned to France mid-year. She was partially modernised twice during the 1920s, but was deemed to be in too poor condition to be refitted again in the 1930s. Therefore, she became a training ship in 1934 and was then disarmed and hulked as an accommodation ship in 1935–1936 in Toulon. The Germans captured her intact when they occupied Toulon in 1942 and used her for testing large shaped charge warheads. She was sunk by Allied bombing in 1944, and after the war ended, was refloated and scrapped beginning in late 1945.
Background and description
By 1909, the French Navy was convinced of the superiority of the all-big-gun battleship like over the mixed-calibre designs like the which had preceded the s. The following year, the new Minister of the Navy, Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère, selected a design that was comparable to the foreign dreadnoughts then under construction, to be built as part of the 1906 Naval Programme.Jordan & Caresse, pp. 139–140
The ships were long overallDumas, p. 223 and had a beam of and a mean draught of . They displaced at normal load and at deep load. Their crew numbered 1,115 men as a private ship and increased to 1,187 when serving as a flagship. The ships were powered by two licence-built Parsons steam turbine sets, each driving two propeller shafts using steam provided by 24 Belleville boilers.Jordan & Caresse, p. 143 These boilers were coal-burning with auxiliary oil sprayers and were designed to produce .Whitley, p. 36 The ships had a designed speed of . The -class ships carried enough coal and fuel oil to give them a range of at a speed of .Dumas, p. 224
The main battery of the class consisted of twelve Canon de Mle 1906–1910 guns mounted in six twin-gun turrets, with two pairs of superfiring turrets fore and aft of the superstructure, and a pair of wing turrets amidships. Their secondary armament was twenty-two Canon de Mle 1910 guns, which were mounted in casemates in the hull. Four Canon de Mle 1902 Hotchkiss guns were fitted, two on each broadside in the superstructure. They were also armed with four submerged torpedo tubes, a pair on each broadside, and could stow 10 mines below decks. The ships' waterline belt ranged in thickness from and was thickest amidships. The gun turrets were protected by of armour and plates protected the casemates. The curved armoured deck was thick on the flat and on the outer slopes. The conning tower had thick face and sides.Jordan & Caresse, pp. 143, 150, 156–158
Construction and career
was ordered on 11 August 1910Jordan & Caresse, p. 142 and named after the privateer Jean Bart.Silverstone, p. 101 She was laid down on 15 November 1910 at the Arsenal de Brest and launched on 22 September 1911. The ship was completed on 2 September 1913 at a cost of F60,200,000 and visited Dunkerque, the birthplace of her namesake on 18 September. She was commissioned into the fleet on 19 November together with her sister . They were assigned to the 1st Battle Division () of the 1st Battle Squadron () of the 1st Naval Army (), at Toulon in mid-November. steamed to Brest on 24 June 1914 to rendezvous with her sister , who had not yet finished her trials. Raymond Poincaré, President of the French Republic, boarded on 16 July for a state visit to Saint Petersburg, Russia. After encountering the battlecruisers of the German I Scouting Group in the Baltic Sea en route, the ships arrived at Kronstadt on 20 July. They made a port visit to Stockholm, Sweden, on 25–26 July, but a planned visit to Copenhagen, Denmark, was cancelled due to rising tensions between Austria-Hungary and Serbia and the ships arrived at Dunkerque on 29 July.Jordan & Caresse, pp. 142, 243–244
World War I When France declared war on Germany on 2 August, the sisters were in Brest and departed for Toulon that night. They were met off Valencia, Spain, on the 6th by and the semi-dreadnoughts and because was having problems with her 305 mm ammunition and had yet to load any. The ships rendezvoused with a troop convoy the following day and escorted it to Toulon.Jordan & Caresse, pp. 244, 254
When France followed with a declaration of war on Austria-Hungary on 12 August, Vice-Admiral () Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère, now commander of the Allied naval forces in the Mediterranean, decided on a sortie into the Adriatic intended to force the Austro-Hungarian fleet to give battle. After rendezvousing with a small British force on the 15th, he ordered his forces to split with the battleships headed for Otranto, Italy, while the armoured cruisers patrolled off the Albanian coast. Before the two groups got very far apart, several Austro-Hungarian ships were spotted on 16 August and the Allied fleet was successful in cutting off and sinking the protected cruiser off Antivari, although the destroyer managed to escape. The following day, Boué de Lapeyrère transferred his flag to . On 1 September the 1st Naval Army briefly bombarded Austro-Hungarian coastal fortifications defending the Bay of Cattaro to discharge the unfired shells remaining in the guns after sinking . Boué de Lapeyrère transferred his flag to s newly arrived sister on 11 September. Aside from several uneventful sorties into the Adriatic, the French capital ships spent most of their time cruising between the Greek and Italian coastsJordan & Caresse, pp. 244, 254–257 to prevent the Austro-Hungarian fleet from attempting to break out of the Adriatic.Halpern, p. 19
was torpedoed on 21 December by the Austro-Hungarian submarine off Sazan Island. A single torpedo struck her in the wine store in the bow, blowing a hole through the compartment. The ship took on of water, but was able to reach the Greek island of Cephalonia where temporary repairs were made. She was able to steam to Malta on her own for permanent repairs that lasted from 26 December to 3 April 1915. This attack highlighted the danger of submarine attacks in the restricted waters of the Strait and forced the battleships south to patrol in the Ionian Sea. The declaration of war on Austria-Hungary by Italy on 23 May and the Italian decision to assume responsibility for naval operations in the Adriatic, allowed the French Navy to withdraw to either Malta or Bizerte, French Tunisia, to cover the Otranto Barrage. At some point during the year, s 47 mm guns were put on high-angle mountings to allow them to be used as anti-aircraft (AA) guns. They were later supplemented by a pair of Mle 1891 G guns on anti-aircraft mounts. On 27 April 1916, the French began using the port of Argostoli on the Greek island of Cephalonia as a base. Around this time many men from the battleships' crews were transferred to anti-submarine ships. At the beginning of 1917, the French began to use the Greek island of Corfu as well, but growing shortages of coal severely limited the battleships' ability to go to sea.Jordan & Caresse, pp. 258, 260, 274–275, 277, 280, 283 The situation was so bad that Vice-Admiral Gabriel Darrieus wrote in 1917:
The military capabilities of the , which has already been badly affected by the shortages of personnel and constant changes in the general staff, need to be maintained by frequent exercises, and although from March to June we were able to follow a normal pattern, the coal crisis is currently preventing any manoeuvres or gunnery training, even for the ships returning from repairs. The big ships have lost 50 per cent of the capability they had several months ago.Jordan & Caresse, p. 277
In 1918, they were almost immobile, leaving Corfu only for maintenance and repairs. On 1 July, the Naval Army was reorganised with , and assigned to the 2nd Battle Division of the 1st Battle Squadron.
Interwar years After the Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October between the Allies and the Ottoman Empire, the ship participated in the occupation of Constantinople. In early 1919, was transferred to the Black Sea to reinforce the French forces opposing the Bolsheviks. A few days after bombarding Bolshevik troops advancing on Sevastopol on 16 April and forcing them to retreat, her war-weary crew briefly mutinied on 19 April, inspired by socialist and revolutionary sympathisers. s captain was able to restore order aboard his ship the following day and mustered a landing party to patrol the city. s crew was still mutinous, so Vice-Admiral Jean-Françoise-Charles Amet, commander of the ships in the Black Sea, hoped to reduce tensions by meeting the mutineers' demands for leave by letting crewmen with a history of good behaviour ashore. The sailors mingled with a pro-Bolshevik demonstration and the mixed group was challenged by a company of Greek infantry which opened fire. The demonstrators fled and encountered s landing party, which also fired upon them. A total of about 15 people were wounded, included six sailors, one of whom later died of his wounds. Delegates from the other mutinous crews were not allowed aboard and the mutiny collapsed when Amet agreed to meet their main demand to take the ships home. Three crewmen were sentenced to prison terms upon her return, although the sentences were commuted in 1922 as part of a bargain between Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré and the parties of the left.Masson, pp. 88–92, 96–97, 99
The ship returned to Toulon by 1 July and was placed in reserve. On 10 February 1920, the 1st Naval Army was disbanded and replaced by the Eastern Mediterranean Squadron () and its Western counterpart (); all the s were assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron of the latter unit, with , and in the 1st Battle Division and in the 2nd Battle Division. Vice-Admiral Charles Charlier commanded both the 1st Division and the Western Mediterranean Squadron at this time. The two squadrons were combined into the Mediterranean Squadron () on 20 July 1921. In June 1923, the 1st Battle Division, including , was cruising off the coast of North Africa when had a boiler-room fire.Jordan & Caresse, pp. 288–290
received the first of her two refits between 12 October 1923 and 29 January 1925. This included replacing one set of four boilers with oil-fired du Temple boilers and trunking together her two forward funnels. The maximum elevation of the main armament was increased from 12° to 23° which increased their maximum range to . Her existing AA guns were replaced with four 75 mm Modèle 1918 AA guns and and stereoscopic rangefinders were installed for the AA guns. A new tripod foremast with a fire-control position at its top was fitted and her bow armour was removed to make her more seaworthy. Barr & Stroud FT coincidence rangefinders were installed for the 14 cm guns in October 1925.Jordan & Caresse, pp. 298–299, 302–303