The ship was reactivated on 16 March 1914 for training duties, and on 9 May she steamed to Annapolis, Maryland. She took on a contingent of midshipmen from the US Naval Academy for a training cruise that began on 7 June. "Idaho" joined the battleship for a cruise of the Mediterranean. While still abroad, sale of the ship was being negotiated with the Greek government. Greece had become engaged in a naval arms race with the Ottoman Empire in the early 1910s; in 1910 the Ottomans had purchased a pair of German pre-dreadnoughts (renamed and ) and ordered dreadnought battleships from Britain in 1911 and 1914. The Royal Hellenic Navy ordered the dreadnought from Germany in 1913 and the dreadnought from France in response. As a stop-gap measure, the Greeks purchased "Mississippi" and "Idaho" from the US Navy. The Greek government bought the ships through an intermediary, the shipbuilder Fred Gauntlett, who acquired them on 8 July and handed them over to Greece. In the meantime, "Idaho" and "Missouri" stopped in a number of ports in the region: Tangier, Morocco; Gibraltar; and Naples, Italy. After the sale was finalized, "Idaho" left "Missouri" and steamed to Villefranche-sur-Mer, France on 17 July, where she transferred her entire crew to the battleship "Maine". The Greek Navy formally took possession of the ship on 30 July and renamed her "Lemnos" after the Battle of Lemnos during the First Balkan War.