Charlemagne was ordered to the Dardanelles in November to guard against a sortie into the Mediterranean by the ex-German Ottoman battlecruiser Yavuz Sultan Selim.

These boilers were coal-burning with auxiliary oil sprayers and were designed to produce 14,200 metric horsepower (10,444 kW; 14,006 ihp) to give the Charlemagne class a speed of 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph).

[3] The Charlemagnes carried their main battery of four Canon de 305 mm (12 in) Modèle 1893 guns in two twin-gun turrets, one each fore and aft of the superstructure.

[8] With an initial budget of 24,000,000 French francs,[9] the ship was laid down at the Arsenal de Brest on 2 August 1894,[7] launched on 17 October 1895 and completed on 12 September 1899.

On 18 July, after combined manoeuvres with the Northern Squadron, the ship participated in a naval review conducted by the President of France, Émile Loubet, at Cherbourg.

The following year, Charlemagne and the Mediterranean Squadron participated in an international naval review by President Loubet in Toulon with ships from Spain, Italy and Russia.

[7][12][Note 1] The battleships of the Mediterranean Squadron visited Cartagena, Spain, in June and then Palma de Mallorca and Ibiza in the Balearic Islands in October.

She was one of the ships that escorted President Loubet during his state visit to Italy in April and participated in the annual fleet manoeuvers later that summer.

[16] Together with the destroyer Dard, the ship was the French contribution to an international squadron that briefly occupied Mytilene in November–December 1905 and participated in a naval review by President Armand Fallières in September of the following year.

[17] Charlemagne, Saint Louis, and the predreadnought battleship Suffren were deployed to Morocco on 30 November to reduce tensions between the European powers vying to assume control over that country.

The division spent Christmas at Mers-el-Kébir, French Algeria, and made port visits to Cadiz, Spain, Lisbon, Portugal, and Quiberon enroute to Brest where they arrived on 27 February 1910 and their new assignment to the 2nd Squadron.

Charlemagne was placed in reserve in Brest in September 1912 to begin a lengthy overhaul; the ship rolled 34° during her post-overhaul sea trials on 30 May 1913 which raised serious questions about her stability and that of her sisters.

[20] Charlemagne was not initially combat ready and arrived at Bizerte on 19 August and was joined there by Saint Louis and Suffren three days later.

The ship provided support for British battleships on 1 March as they bombarded Kilitbahir Castle; she was straddled several times by return fire, but was not damaged.

[25] Together with two British predreadnought battleships and the Russian protected cruiser Askold, Charlemagne bombarded Ottoman fortifications defending the Gulf of Saros on 26 March.

[28] The ship was transferred to Salonica in October 1915 where she joined the French squadron assigned to prevent any interference by the Greeks with Allied operations in Greece.

Due to a shortage of coal, the navy decided to cancel the refit two days later and convert her into a depot ship for propellant and explosives.

[31] The ship was decommissioned on 1 November 1917 and was stricken from the naval register on 14 March 1918 with the proviso that her propulsion plant was required to remain operational.