French battleship Liberté
Liberté was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the French Navy in the mid-1900s. She was the lead ship of the Liberté class, which included three other vessels and was a derivative of the preceding République class, with the primary difference being the inclusion of a heavier secondary battery. Liberté carried a main battery of four 305-millimeter (12 in) guns, like the République, but mounted ten 194 mm (7.6 in) guns for her secondary armament in place of the 164 mm (6.5 in) guns of the earlier vessels. Like many late pre-dreadnought designs, Liberté was completed after the revolutionary British battleship HMS Dreadnought had entered service, rendering her obsolescent.
Liberté in New York Harbor during the visit to the United States
Line-drawing of the Liberté class
Postcard depicting Liberté
Liberté underway
The Liberté class consisted of four pre-dreadnought battleships built for the French Navy in the early 1900s. The class comprised Liberté, Justice, Vérité, and Démocratie. They were ordered as part of a naval expansion program directed at countering German warship construction authorized by the German Naval Law of 1898; the French program called for six new battleships, which began with the two République-class battleships. During construction of the first two vessels, foreign adoption of heavier secondary batteries prompted the French to re-design the last four members to carry a secondary battery of 194 mm (7.6 in) guns, producing the Liberté class. Like the Républiques, their main armament consisted of four 305 mm (12 in) guns in two twin-gun turrets, and they had the same top speed of 18 knots.
Liberté in New York City, September 1909
Line-drawing of the République class, the direct progenitors of the Liberté design
HMS King Edward VII, one of the foreign battleships that prompted the redesign of the latter four Républiques
Right elevation and deck plan as depicted in Brassey's Naval Annual