Following the outbreak of World War I in July 1914, France announced general mobilization on 1 August. The next day, Admiral Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère ordered the entire French fleet to begin raising steam at 22:15 so the ships could sortie early the following morning. The bulk of the fleet, including the (designated as "Group C"), was sent to French North Africa, where they would escort the vital troop convoys carrying elements of the French Army from North Africa back to France to counter the expected German invasion. At the time, the division was commanded by Émile Paul Amable Guépratte, and it was tasked with guarding against a possible attack by the German battlecruiser , which instead fled to the Ottoman Empire. "Bouvet" and her division mates steamed first to Algiers and then Oran. There, they rendezvoused with one of the convoys and covered its voyage north to Sète on 6 August. From there, "Bouvet" and the battleships proceeded on to Toulon, before departing again for Algiers for another escort mission. Once the French Army units had completed their crossing by late August, the Group C ships were tasked with patrolling merchant traffic between Tunis and Sicily to prevent contraband shipments to the Central Powers.