Suffren was a predreadnought battleship built for the (French Navy) in the first decade of the twentieth century. Completed in 1902, the ship was assigned to the Escadre de la Méditerranée (Mediterranean Squadron) for most of her career and often served as a flagship. She had an eventful career as she twice collided with French ships and twice had propeller shafts break before the start of World War I in 1914. Suffren was assigned to join the naval operations off the Dardanelles, where she participated in a series of attacks on the Ottoman fortifications guarding the straits. She was moderately damaged during the fighting on 18 March 1915 and had to be sent to Toulon for repairs. Upon their completion the ship returned to provide gunfire support for the Allied forces during the Gallipoli Campaign. Suffren provided covering fire as the Allies withdrew from the peninsula and accidentally sank one of the evacuation ships. After repairs the ship was assigned to the French squadron tasked to prevent any interference by the Greeks with Allied operations on the Salonica front. While en route to Lorient for a refit, Suffren was torpedoed off Lisbon by an Imperial German submarine on 26 November 1916 and sank with all hands. Design and description The three battleships of the that had been authorized in 1893 were still building when the Navy Minister, (Vice Admiral) Armand Besnard, was able to get the Chamber of Deputies to authorize the battleship in 1897 to an improved Charlemagne design. The Chamber authorized another battleship the following year and Besnard, not wishing to delay construction for the time required for an entirely new design, requested an enlarged and improved version of Iéna. Suffren was intended to have only modest improvements in armament and armour, but the number of improvements grew as the project was discussed by the Conseil des travaux de la Marine (Board of Construction) so that she was essentially a new design, retaining only some of Iénas layout. The biggest changes were that the bulk of the secondary armament was mounted in turrets, rather than Iénas casemates, and the stowage of shells for the main armament was increased from 45 to 60 rounds per gun. General characteristics Suffren was longer than Iéna, being long overall. She had a beam of and a draught of forward and aft. She displaced at normal displacement, and at full load, over more