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Courbet was the lead ship of her class of four dreadnought battleships, the first ones built for the French Navy. In World War I, after helping to sink the Austro-Hungarian protected cruiser SMS Zenta in August 1914, she provided cover for the Otranto Barrage that blockaded the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the Adriatic Sea, and often served as a flagship. Although upgraded several times before World War II, by the 1930s she was no longer considered to be a first-line battleship and spent much of that decade as a gunnery training ship. A few weeks after the German invasion of France on 10 May 1940, Courbet was hastily reactivated. She supported Allied troops in the defence of Cherbourg during mid-June. As part of Operation Catapult, she was seized in Portsmouth by British forces on 3 July and was turned over to the Free French a week later. She was used as a stationary anti-aircraft battery and as an accommodation ship there. (Full article...)