Latouche-Tréville was one of four Amiral Charner-class armored cruisers built for the French Navy in the 1890s. The ship spent the bulk of her career in the Mediterranean and was assigned to the International Squadron off the island of Crete during the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, to protect French interests and citizens. Latouche-Tréville spent most of the first decade of the 20th century as a training ship or in reserve. The ship was recommissioned before World War I began in 1914, and escorted convoys for several months before she was assigned to the eastern Mediterranean to support Allied operations and bombard the Ottoman-controlled coast. She was lightly damaged in 1915 by an Ottoman shell while providing naval gunfire support during the Gallipoli Campaign. Latouche-Tréville became a t