, the seventh ship of her name to serve in the French Navy, was ordered on 1 August 1911 from
Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire. The ship was
laid down on 30 November at its
shipyard in
Saint-Nazaire and
launched on 7 November 1912. She was formally declared completed on 1 July 1914 to carry President
Raymond Poincaré, on a state visit to
Saint Petersburg, Russia. He boarded the ship on 16 July. Escorted by , arrived at
Kronstadt on 20 July after encountering the
battlecruisers of the German
I Scouting Group in the
Baltic Sea en route. The French ships 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; they arrived at
Dunkerque on 29 July.
World War I When France declared war on Germany on 3 August, the sisters were in
Brest and departed for
Toulon that night. They were met off
Valencia, Spain, on the 6th by their sister 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. entered service on 10 October and was assigned to the 2nd Battle Squadron () of the
1st Naval Army () on 21 October at the mouth of the Adriatic Sea to prevent the Austro-Hungarian fleet from attempting to break out of the Adriatic. The torpedoing of on 21 December by the Austro-Hungarian submarine showed that the battleships were vulnerable to this threat and they were withdrawn to spend the rest of the month further south at an anchorage in
Navarino Bay. On 11 January 1915, the French were alerted that the Austro-Hungarian fleet was going to sortie from its base at
Pola, so and her sisters and led the 1st Naval Army north to the Albanian coast. It proved to be a false alarm, and they were back at their
moorings three days later. In the meantime, the ships patrolled the
Ionian Sea as the danger of submarine attacks in the restricted waters of the Strait forced the battleships south. 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. A fire broke out aboard on 25 July and she was forced to return to Toulon for repairs that lasted until 14 October. Two days later
Vice-Admiral ()
Louis Dartige du Fournet assumed command of the 1st Naval Army and hoisted his flag aboard , which remained in Malta for the rest of the year. At some point during the year, the ship'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. Dartige du Fornet transferred his flag to the battleship on 23 May. 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. 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. In 1918, they were almost immobile, leaving Corfu only for maintenance and repairs. On 1 July, the 1st Naval Army was reorganised with assigned to the 1st Battle
Division () of the 1st Battle Squadron (). On 1 July, all the s were assigned to the 1st Division of the 1st Squadron. On 10 February 1920, the 1st Naval Army was disbanded and replaced by the Eastern Mediterranean Squadron () and its Western counterpart (); all the sisters were assigned to the 1st Battle Squadron of the latter unit, with , and in the 1st Battle Division and in the 2nd Battle Division, with
Rear-Admiral ()
Louis-Hippolyte Violette commanding the latter from . The two squadrons were combined into the Mediterranean Squadron () on 20 July 1921. and the battleship hosted the British battleship and
light cruiser during a port visit to
Villefranche from 18 February to 1 March 1922. The two French battleships had a gunnery exercise on 28 June using the former Austro-Hungarian battleship as a target and sank her. On 18 July, , and began a cruise visiting French ports in the
Bay of Biscay and
English Channel. On the evening of 25/26 August, struck an uncharted rock while entering
Quiberon Bay at 00:57. The after
boiler room flooded quickly and the ship lost all power at 01:10. She had a 5°
list by 02:00 and the order was given to abandon ship. The battleship capsized two hours later after and were able to rescue all but three of her crew. Her wreck was slowly broken up in place in 1935, 1952 and 1958. ==Footnotes==