Danton-class battleship

Postcard of Vergniaud
Class overview
Name:	Danton-class battleship
Operators:	French Navy
Preceded by:	Liberté class
Succeeded by:	Courbet class
Built:	1907–1911
In commission:	1911–1937
Completed:	6
Lost:	1
Scrapped:	5
General characteristics (as completed)
Type:	Semi-dreadnought battleship
Displacement:	18,754 t (18,458 long tons) (normal) 19,763 t (19,451 long tons) (deep load)
Length:	146.6 m (481 ft 0 in) (o/a)
Beam:	25.8 m (84 ft 8 in)
Draft:	8.44 m (27 ft 8 in)
Installed power:	22,500 shp (16,800 kW) 26 water-tube boilers
Propulsion:	4 shafts 4 steam turbines
Speed:	19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph)
Range:	3,120–4,866 nmi (5,778–9,012 km; 3,590–5,600 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Complement:	915 (as flagship)
Armament:	2 × twin 305mm/45 Modèle 1906 guns 6 × twin 240mm/50 Modèle 1902 guns 16 × single 75mm/65 Modèle 1908 Schneider guns 10 × single 47-millimetre (1.9 in) Hotchkiss guns 2 × 450 mm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes
Armor:	Belt: 250 mm (9.8 in) Main gun turrets: 260–340 mm (10.2–13.4 in) Secondary gun turrets: 188–225 mm (7.4–8.9 in) Deck: 45–70 mm (1.8–2.8 in) Conning tower: 216–266 mm (8.5–10.5 in)

The Danton-class battleship was a class of six pre-dreadnought battleships built for the French Navy (Marine Nationale) before World War I. The ships were assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet after commissioning in 1911. After the beginning of World War I in early August 1914, five of the sister ships participated in the Battle of Antivari. They spent most of the rest of the war blockading the Straits of Otranto and the Dardanelles to prevent warships of the Central Powers from breaking out into the Mediterranean. One ship was sunk by a German submarine in 1917.

The remaining five ships were obsolescent by the end of the war and most were assigned to secondary roles. Two of the sisters were sent to the Black Sea to support the Whites during the Russian Civil War. One ship ran aground and the crew of the other mutinied after one of its members was killed during a protest against intervention in support of the Whites. Both ships were quickly condemned and later sold for scrap. The remaining three sisters received partial modernizations in the mid-1920s and became training ships until they were condemned in the mid-1930s and later scrapped. The only survivor still afloat at the beginning of World War II in August 1939 had been hulked in 1931 and was serving as part of the navy's torpedo school. She was captured by the Germans when they occupied Vichy France in 1942 and scuttled by them after the Allied invasion of southern France in 1944.