 Postcard of Vergniaud
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| 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) |
| Length | 146.6 m (481 ft) (o/a) |
| Beam | 25.8 m (84 ft 8 in) |
| Draft | 8.44 m (27 ft 8 in) |
| Installed power |
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| Propulsion | 4 shafts; 4 steam turbines |
| Speed | 19.25 knots (35.7 km/h; 22.2 mph) |
| Complement | 25 officers and 831 enlisted men |
| Armament |
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| Armor |
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The Danton-class battleship was a class of six semi-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.