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 U-12 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.