page_title: French battleship Justice
section_title: Construction – 1910
hierarchical_section_title: French battleship Justice / Service history / Construction – 1910
context_page_description: Justice was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the French Navy in the mid-1900s. She was the second member of the Liberté class, which included three other vessels and was a derivative of the preceding République class, with the primary difference being the inclusion of a heavier secondary battery. Justice carried a main battery of four 305 mm guns, like the République, but mounted ten 194 mm guns for her secondary armament in place of the 164 mm guns of the earlier vessels. Like many late pre-dreadnought designs, Justice was completed after the revolutionary British battleship HMS Dreadnought had entered service, rendering her obsolescent.
  On entering service, Justice became the flagship of the 2nd Division of the Mediterranean Squadron, based in Toulon. She immediately began the normal peacetime training routine of squadron and fleet maneuvers and cruises to various ports in the Mediterranean. She also participated in several naval reviews for a number of French and foreign dignitaries. In September 1909, the ships of the 2nd Division crossed the Atlantic to the United States to represent France at the Hudson–Fulton Celebration.
context_section_description: Justice was laid down at the La Seyne shipyard in Toulon on 1 April 1903, launched on 27 October 1904, and completed on 15 April 1908, over a year after the revolutionary British battleship HMS Dreadnought entered service, which rendered the pre-dreadnoughts like Justice outdated before they were completed. After commissioning, Justice was assigned to the 2nd Division of the Mediterranean Squadron, serving as its flagship, along with her sisters Liberté and Vérité. Contre-amiral (CA—Rear admiral) Le Pord was the divisional commander at that time, and he came aboard the ship on 16 April. Beginning on 10 June and lasting through and July, the Mediterranean and Northern Squadrons conducted their annual maneuvers off Bizerte. The 2nd Division ships visited Bizerte in October. On 30 December, Justice, Vérité, and the destroyers Carquois and Fanfare carried relief aid to Messina, Sicily to help survivors of an earthquake there.
  The entire squadron was moored in Villefranche in February 1909 and thereafter conducted training exercises off Corsica, followed by a naval review in Villefranche for President Armand Fallières on 26 April. During this period of training, on 17 March, Justice and the battleships Liberté, Patrie, and République conducted shooting training, using the old ironclad Tempête as a target. In June, République, Justice, and the protected cruiser Galilée got underway for training in the Atlantic; they met Patrie, Démocratie, Liberté, and the armored cruiser Ernest Renan at Cádiz, Spain on 12 June. Training included serving as targets for the fleet's submarines in the Pertuis d'Antioche strait. The ships then steamed north to La Pallice, where they conducted tests with their wireless sets and shooting training in Quiberon Bay. From 8 to 15 July, the ships lay at Brest and the next day, they steamed to Le Havre. There, they met the Northern Squadron for another fleet review for Fallières on 17 July. Ten days later, the combined fleet steamed to Cherbourg, where they held another fleet review, this time during the visit of Czar Nicholas II of Russia.
  On 12 September, Justice and the other 2nd Division battleships departed Brest, bound for the United States. There they represented France during the Hudson–Fulton Celebration, which marked the 300th anniversary of the European discovery of the Hudson River. The ships arrived back in Toulon on 27 October. Justice joined Patrie, République, Vérité, Démocratie, and Suffren for a simulated attack on the port of Nice on 18 February 1910. The ships of the 1st Squadron held training exercises off Sardinia and Algeria from 21 May to 4 June, followed by combined maneuvers with the 2nd Squadron from 7 to 18 June. Justice began having trouble with her main battery, so she went into the shipyard in Toulon from 13 to 21 July for repairs. An outbreak of typhoid among the crews of the battleships in early December forced the navy to confine them to Golfe-Juan to contain the fever. By 15 December, the outbreak had subsided.
caption: Justice at the Hudson–Fulton Celebration in the United States
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