Jean Bart was the second ship of the Courbet-class battleships, the first dreadnoughts built for the French Navy. She was completed before World War I as part of the 1910 naval building programme. She spent the war in the Mediterranean and helped to sink the Austro-Hungarian protected cruiser Zenta on 16 August 1914. She spent most of the rest of 1914 providing gunfire support for the Montenegrin Army until she was torpedoed by the submarine on 21 December. Even with three compartments flooded, she was able to steam to Malta on her own for repairs that required three and a half months. Upon her return she spent the remainder of the war participating in the Otranto Barrage, in the Adriatic.