The three ships saw limited service during World War I, and were primarily occupied with containing the Austro-Hungarian Navy in the Adriatic Sea.

After the outbreak of World War II, the ships were tasked with convoy duties and anti-commerce raider patrols until the fall of France in June 1940.

Lorraine was disarmed by the British in Alexandria and recommissioned in 1942 to serve with the Free French Naval Forces.

To remedy the inferiority of the French fleet, the government passed the Statut Naval on 30 March 1912, authorizing a force of twenty-eight battleships, to be in service by 1920.

[2] The primary reason for the decision to use the same hull design as the Courbet class was limitations of French shipyards.

After several other proposals, the Superior Naval Council chose a design with five twin turrets, all mounted on the centerline.

Lorraine followed at the Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire shipyard in St. Nazaire almost six months later on 7 November 1912.

[5] Due to the outbreak of World War I in the summer of 1914, French industrial capacity was redirected to the army and work slowed on the ships.

[6] The Greek Navy ordered a battleship to be named Vasilefs Konstantinos to the same design from AC de St Nazaire Penhoet.

[14] Each gun was supplied with 100 rounds of ammunition, stored in shell rooms located beneath the propellant magazines.

[15] A secondary battery of twenty-two Canon de 138 mm Modèle 1910 guns were mounted in casemates along the length of the ship's hull.

[16] The secondary battery fire control consisted of two central directors four rangefinders, which were located abreast of the superfiring turrets, fore and aft.

Lorraine followed a similar pattern, though in 1935, her center main battery turret was removed; an aircraft catapult was fitted in its place.

Each of the main battery barbettes that housed the lower turret assemblies were armored with 248 mm (9.8 in) thick steel.

Bretagne and Lorraine were assigned to the 1st Division of the 1st Battle Squadron, while Provence served as the fleet flagship for the entirety of the First World War.

They were deployed to guard the southern end of the Adriatic Sea, based in Argostoli and Corfu, to block a possible sortie by the Austro-Hungarian fleet.

The three ships largely remained in port, though Provence was repeatedly used to intimidate the government of Greece, which favored Germany during the war.

She joined her sisters in Toulon in June 1919; later that year the ships formed the Eastern Mediterranean Fleet until 1921.

[21] Bretagne remained in service and conducted training cruises in the Mediterranean and along the coast of North Africa during the 1920s and 1930s.

[22] After undergoing a refit in the early months of the war, Provence conducted anti-raider patrols with Force Y, based in Casablanca.

She was then ordered to join Lorraine in Force X, to be based in Alexandria to operate in concert with the British Mediterranean Fleet.

Two weeks later, Bretagne was instead ordered to steam at high speed to Bizerte, to join the Force de Raid with Provence.

[24] Bretagne was hit by at least four 15 in (380 mm) shells from HMS Hood, Resolution and Valiant and exploded, killing the vast majority of her crew.

Provence was set on fire and sank to the bottom of the harbor,[21] though she was subsequently raised and transferred to Toulon, where she was later scuttled in 1942 to prevent her from being seized by the Germans.

She served as a training ship for much of 1943 until a major refit at the end of the year to prepare her to participate in Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France.

She was then used as a barracks ship until February 1953, when she was stricken from the naval register and sold for scrapping at the end of the year.