French battleship Liberté Liberté was a pre - dreadnought battleship of the French Navy , and the lead ship of her class . She was laid down in November 1902 , launched in April 1905 , and completed in March 1908 , over a year after the revolutionary British battleship made ships like " Liberté " obsolete . After her commissioning , " Liberté " was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet . She served for only three and a half years ; while moored in Toulon in September 1911 , an explosion of badly degraded propellant charges detonated the forward ammunition magazines . Some 250 officers and men were killed , and the ship was totally destroyed . The wreck remained in the harbor until 1925 , when it was raised and broken up for scrap . Design . " Liberté " was laid down at the " Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire " shipyard in November 1902 , launched on 19 April 1905 , and completed in March 1908 . This was over a year after the revolutionary British battleship , which rendered the pre - dreadnought s like " Liberté " outdated before they were completed .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 . She had a crew of between 739 and 769 officers and enlisted men . She was powered by three vertical triple - expansion steam engines with twenty - two Belleville boiler s . They were rated at and provided a top speed of . Coal storage amounted to . " Liberté " 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 . After commissioning , " Liberté " was assigned to the Active Squadron of the French Mediterranean Fleet . In September 1909 , " Liberté " , " Justice " , 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 . On 25 September 1911 , as " Liberté " was moored in Toulon harbor , an accidental explosion in one of her forward ammunition magazines for the secondary guns destroyed the ship . After the initial explosion of propellant charges , the ship ' s commander tried to organize damage control teams at the stern . He sent a party forward to flood the magazines to prevent an explosion in the main magazines , but the flooding valves were located under the magazines , and the path was blocked by fires and smoke . After two failed attempts to reach the valves , the men returned to the captain , who ordered them to try again ; they were killed when the main magazines exploded shortly thereafter . The explosion hurled a chunk of armor plate from the ship into the battleship " République " moored some away , which caused significant damage . The French Navy had suffered a series of fatal accidents in Toulon , beginning with an explosion aboard a torpedo boat in February 1907 , in which nine men were killed . The following month , the battleship " Iéna " blew up , killing 107 men . An explosion aboard a gunnery training ship killed six in August 1908 , and an explosion on a cruiser killed 13 . Six more men were killed aboard the cruiser " Gloire " a year later , on 10 September 1911 . The explosion aboard " Liberté " killed some 250 officers and men . The culprit was unstable " Poudre B " , a nitrocellulose - based propellant that was also responsible for the destruction of " Iéna " , and possibly the other explosions as well . The wreck remained in Toulon until 1925 , when she was raised and broken up for scrap .