French battleship Justice Justice was a pre - dreadnought battleship of the " Liberté " class built by the French Navy . She had three sister ships : " Liberté " , " Vérité " , and " Démocratie " . " Justice " was laid down in April 1903 , launched in October 1904 , and completed in February 1908 , over a year after the revolutionary British battleship made ships like " Justice " obsolete . She was armed with a main battery of four guns , compared to the ten guns of the same caliber mounted on " Dreadnought " . After her commissioning , " Justice " was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet . In September 1909 , she traveled to the United States for the Hudson - Fulton Celebration . At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 , she was assigned to the 2nd Division of the 2nd Squadron of the Mediterranean Fleet . She covered troop convoys from North Africa to France in the first days of the war , and spent the rest based at Corfu and Mudros without seeing any action . After the war ended , she participated in the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War , though a mutiny in the French fleet in April 1919 led to the fleet ' s withdrawal . " Justice " was sold for scrapping in 1922 . Design . " Justice " was laid down at the La Seyne shipyard in Toulon in April 1903 , launched on 27 October 1904 , and completed in February 1908 , over a year after the revolutionary British battleship , which rendered the pre - dreadnought s like " Justice " outdated before they were completed . The ship was long between perpendiculars and had a beam of and a full - load draft of . She displaced up to at full load . " Justice " had a crew of between 739 and 769 officers and enlisted men . The ship was powered by three vertical triple expansion engines with twenty - four Niclausse boiler s . They were rated at and provided a top speed of . Coal storage amounted to . " Justice " s main battery consisted of four Canon de 305 mm Modèle 1893 / 96 gun s mounted in two twin gun turret s , one forward and one aft . The secondary battery consisted of ten Canon de 194 mm Modèle 1902 guns ; six were mounted in single turrets , and four in casemate s in the hull . She also carried thirteen 9 - pounder guns and ten 3 - pounders . The ship was also armed with two torpedo tube s submerged in the hull . The ship ' s main belt was thick and the main battery was protected by up to of armor . The conning tower had thick sides . Service history . In September 1909 , " Justice " , " Liberté " , and " Vérité " visited the United States for the Hudson - Fulton Celebration . The three battleships , commanded by Admiral Jules le Pord , were the first foreign contingent to arrive . The ships departed from Brest and arrived New York seven days later , having run at an average of ; the performance of the ships ' propulsion systems was regarded as satisfactory by contemporary naval experts , including the United States Naval Institute . In early 1911 , the French Navy conducted experiments with wireless telegraphy , and used " Vérité " and " Justice " for the tests . The wireless transmitters could pick up messages as far as away . On 11 October 1911 , an accidental fire aboard " Justice " threatened to destroy the ship in a way similar to the explosion that destroyed her sister ship " Liberté " the month before . 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 . Later that year , the ship was featured in the film " A Day on the French battleship " Justice " " . At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914 , " Justice " was assigned to the 1st Division of the 2nd Squadron in the Mediterranean , along with " Démocratie " . The French fleet was initially used to cover the movement of French troops — the XIX Corps — from Algeria to metropolitan France . As a result , the fleet was far out of position to catch the German battlecruiser . For the majority of the war , the French used their main fleet to keep the Austro - Hungarian fleet bottled up in the Adriatic Sea . In 1914 she participated in the Battle of Antivari , where the battle line caught the Austro - Hungarian cruiser by surprise and sank her . The French battleships then bombarded Austrian fortifications at Cattaro in an attempt to draw out the Austro - Hungarian fleet , which refused to take the bait . The French operations in the area were hampered by a lack of a suitable base close to the mouth of the Adriatic ; the British had given the French free access to Malta , but it was hundreds of miles away . The Austrians also possessed several submarine s , one of which torpedoed the dreadnought " Jean Bart " in December 1914 . The threat from underwater weapons greatly limited French naval activities in the Adriatic . As the war progressed , the French eventually settled on the Greek island of Corfu as their primary naval base in the area . Later in the war , " Justice " was sent to Mudros along with her sister ships . In 1919 , after the end of the war , " Justice " participated in the French naval intervention in the Russian Civil War in the Black Sea , and was based in Sevastopol . On 19 April , a mutiny gripped the French fleet , starting on the battleship " France " , the squadron flagship . At one point during the mutiny , the crew of " Justice " briefly flew the red flag , though they remained relatively calm . The situation worsened after a group of Greek soldiers fired into a crowd of demonstrators ashore ; one French sailor was killed and another five were injured . " Justice " s crew was enraged , and began discussing opening fire on the Greek battleship " Kilkis " , moored nearby . " Justice " s captain ordered his ship ' s guns disabled by removing their breech blocks to prevent an attack . The situation was eventually defused by returning the French squadron back to France , one of the mutineers ' primary demands . Ultimately , " Justice " was stricken from the naval register in 1922 and sold for scrap .