Brennus was the first pre-dreadnought battleship built for the (French Navy). Completed in 1896, she was the sole member of her class, with a main battery of heavy guns mounted on the centerline and the first use of Belleville boilers. She formed the basis for several subsequent designs, beginning with Charles Martel. As completed in 1893, the ship was very top-heavy and had to be rebuilt over the next three years before she was ready to enter service. Brennus spent the majority of her service in the Mediterranean Squadron, and she served as its flagship early in her career. In 1900, she accidentally rammed and sank the destroyer Framée. As newer battleships were commissioned into the fleet, Brennus was relegated to the Reserve Squadron in the early 1900s and then served as a training ship. The ship had been decommissioned before the First World War began in August 1914 and was disarmed in 1915. She served as a source of spare parts and equipment for other ships during the war. Her hulk was stricken from the naval register in 1919 and was ultimately scrapped three years later. Design In 1880, the French Navy embarked on a naval construction program that included the ironclad battleships and the three-ship ; the program called for two more vessels, which were to be laid down in 1882. The first of these was to have been named and work began in 1885. Admiral Théophile Aube, who opposed battleship construction in favor of the cheaper torpedo boats and cruisers of the , became the Naval Minister and cancelled both ships in January 1886 before much work had been done. Aube left the government in 1887 and his successor permitted work to resume; the ship's designer, Charles Ernest Huin, lobbied to restart construction to keep the shipyards busy. He re-designed Brennus to meet new requirements and the design was approved in 1889, allowing work to resume. The sections of hull that had been assembled on the slipway were dismantled, with the steel used elsewhere in the new ship. The fact that the same slipway was used to build both vessels, and parts of the original were reused in the latter vessel has caused some to conflate the vessels. The two ships were, nevertheless, distinct vessels. The second Brennus was ordered in 1888. Brennus was the first pre-dreadnought-style battleship built in the French Navy; the previous Magenta-class ships