Like many late pre-dreadnought designs, Vérité was completed after the revolutionary British battleship HMS Dreadnought had entered service and rendered her obsolescent.

She saw little activity until 1916 when the Allies began an effort to force Greece to enter the war on their side; she shot down a German zeppelin over Salonika in May and joined a blockade of the country in December.

[2] Vérité's main battery consisted of four 305 mm (12 in) Modèle 1893/96 guns mounted in two twin-gun turrets, one forward and one aft of the superstructure.

The secondary battery consisted of ten 194 mm (7.6 in) Modèle 1902 guns; six were mounted in single turrets, and four in casemates in the hull.

The ships cruised north to Dunkirk, where Fallières embarked on Vérité, and then continued on into the Baltic, stopping in Copenhagen, Denmark and Stockholm, Sweden.

On 30 December, Justice, Vérité, and the destroyers Carquois and Fanfare carried relief aid to Messina, Sicily to help survivors of an earthquake there.

Instead, she joined the rest of the fleet on 27 July for a naval review with the combined Mediterranean and Northern Squadrons in Le Havre for Fallières and Nicholas II, who was visiting the country at the time.

Vérité joined Patrie, République, Justice, Démocratie, and Suffren for a simulated attack on the port of Nice on 18 February 1910.

[11] In January 1912, Vérité left Bizerte and joined Justice, the battleship Danton, and the destroyers Lansquenet and Carabinier, which were steaming to Malta.

The five vessels arrived in Valletta on 22 January, where they met King George V and Queen Mary of Britain, then returning from their voyage to India that year.

From there, Boué de Lapeyrère transferred to Vérité for the voyage back to Toulon, and upon arriving there shifted his flag to the battleship Voltaire.

The 2nd Squadron departed Toulon on 23 August with the armored cruisers Jules Ferry and Edgar Quinet and two destroyer flotillas to conduct training exercises in the Atlantic.

While en route to Brest, the ships stopped in Tangier, Royan, Le Verdon, La Pallice, Quiberon Bay, and Cherbourg.

During this cruise, while moored in Cádiz, Vérité broke free from her anchor and nearly collided with the Spanish ironclad battleship Pelayo.

Accordingly, Vérité and the rest of the 2nd Squadron were sent to Algiers, where they joined a group of seven passenger ships that had a contingent of 7,000 troops from XIX Corps aboard.

In the ensuing Battle of Antivari, Boué de Lapeyrère initially ordered his battleships to fire warning shots, but this caused confusion among the fleet's gunners that allowed Ulan to escape.

[18][19][20] On 24 September, Vérité was detached to reinforce the Dardanelles Division under the command of Contre-amiral (Rear Admiral) Émile Guépratte, then based at Tenedos.

The French and British fleets began to amass a naval force that could defend against a possible sortie by Goeben from the Dardanelles; the fleet comprised the British battlecruisers HMS Indefatigable and Indomitable, which were to engage Goeben, while Vérité and Suffren were to engage the old Ottoman battleships Barbaros Hayreddin and Turgut Reis.

Suffren led Vérité at a speed of 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph), closing to ranges between 12,000 to 13,000 m (13,000 to 14,000 yd) to shell the Kumkale and Orkanie fortresses.

The battlecruisers destroyed the magazine in the fortress at Sedd el Bahr and the French ships inflicted significant casualties on the Ottoman garrison, with estimates ranging from 150 to 600 killed and wounded.

[22][23] Guépratte's squadron, which shortly consisted of Vérité, the battleships Charlemagne, Saint Louis, and Gaulois (his flagship), was employed as part of the blockade of the Dardanelles.

Vérité joined the former members of the Dardanelles Division in Salonika, Greece, where on 5 May she and Patrie shot down a German zeppelin conducting reconnaissance in the area.

In June, the fleet was formally reorganized, with Vérité, her two sisters, the two République-class ships, and Suffren forming the 3rd Squadron, which was tasked with pressuring the Greek government.

Several French ships sent men ashore in Athens on 1 December to support the coup, but they were quickly defeated by the royalist Greek Army.

Vérité was stationed in Piraeus with the cruiser Bruix, but before they could intervene, Constantine abdicated in favor of a pro-Allied government and the Allies lifted the blockade on 16 June.

They remained in Corfu, largely immobilized due to shortages of coal, preventing training or any significant operations, which had a negative effect on crew efficiency and morale.

With the arrival of Justice and Patrie in April and later the two British Lord Nelson-class battleships, the unit was renamed the Salonika Division, meant to counter the possibility of a sortie by Russian warships that had been captured by the Germans at Sevastopol earlier that year.

This arrangement did not last long, however, as in July, Vérité and Justice returned to the 2nd Squadron, where they again faced the coal shortages that crippled French fleet operations.

In late October, members of the Central Powers began signing armistices with the British and French, signaling the end of the war.