page_title: French battleship Justice
section_title: 1911–1914
hierarchical_section_title: French battleship Justice / Service history / 1911–1914
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: On 16 April 1911, Justice and the rest of the fleet escorted Vérité, which had aboard Fallières, the Naval Minister Théophile Delcassé, and Charles Dumont, the Minister of Public Works, Posts and Telegraphs, to Bizerte. They arrived two days later and held a fleet review that included two British battleships, two Italian battleships, and a Spanish cruiser on 19 April. The fleet returned to Toulon on 29 April, where Fallières doubled the crews' rations and suspended any punishments to thank the men for their performance. Justice and the rest of 1st Squadron and the armored cruisers Ernest Renan and Léon Gambetta went on a cruise in the western Mediterranean in May and June, visiting a number of ports including Cagliari, Bizerte, Bône, Philippeville, Algiers, and Bougie. By 1 August, the battleships of the Danton class had begun to enter service, and they were assigned to the 1st Squadron, displacing the Liberté and République-class ships to the 2nd Squadron. On 4 September, both squadrons held a major fleet review for Fallières off Toulon. The fleet then departed on 11 September for maneuvers off Golfe-Juan and Marseille, returning to Toulon on 16 September.
  On 25 September, Liberté was destroyed by a magazine explosion; a commission was convened aboard Justice the following day to investigate the accident. Just a month later, on 26 October, Justice also caught fire and two of her 194 mm and one of her 47 mm magazines had to be flooded to prevent a similar explosion. The fire was believed to have been started by a short circuit in the electrical system near the forward magazines. The fire nearly reached the ammunition in the magazines when the ship's commander ordered the magazines to be flooded, averting a catastrophic explosion. This occurred just days after the battleship Suffren had to flood her magazines to put out another accidental fire. The fleet thereafter made cruises to Les Salins, Le Lavandou, and Porquerolles through 15 December. At some point in 1911, the ship was featured in the film A Day on the French battleship "Justice".
  On 19 January 1912, Justice and the battleship Danton steamed to Malta in company with the destroyers Lansquenet and Carabinier. Vérité joined the ships en route from Bizerte, and the five vessels arrived in Valletta on 22 January. There, they met King George V and Queen Mary of Britain, then returning from their voyage to India that year. On 24 April, Justice went to sea with République for gunnery training off the Hyères roadstead; they were joined by Patrie and Vérité the next day. Admiral Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère inspected both battleship squadrons in Golfe-Juan from 2 to 12 July, after which the ships cruised first to Corsica and then to Algeria. The rest of the year passed uneventfully for Justice.
  In early 1913, Justice and the rest of the 2nd Squadron took part in training exercises off Le Lavandou. The French fleet, which by then included sixteen battleships, held large-scale maneuvers between Toulon and Sardinia beginning on 19 May. The exercises concluded with a fleet review for President Raymond Poincaré. Gunnery practice followed from 1 to 4 July. The 2nd Squadron departed Toulon on 23 August with the armored cruisers Jules Ferry and Edgar Quinet and two destroyer flotillas to conduct training exercises in the Atlantic. While en route to Brest, the ships stopped in Tangier, Royan, Le Verdon, La Pallice, Quiberon Bay, and Cherbourg. They reached Brest on 20 September, where they met a Russian squadron of four battleships and five cruisers. The ships then steamed back south, stopping in Cádiz, Tangier, Mers El Kébir, Algiers, and Bizerte before ultimately arriving back in Toulon on 1 November. On 3 December, République, Justice, Vérité, and Démocratie conducted torpedo training and range-finding drills. While anchored at Les Salins on the night of 19/20 December, heavy winds blew Démocratie into Justice; Démocratie's port screw cut through Justice's starboard anchor chain and the collision knocked two of Justice's armor plates from her bow. Both vessels were forced to retur
caption: Map of the western Mediterranean, where Justice spent the majority of her peacetime career
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