Vergniaud spent most of the rest of the war blockading the Straits of Otranto and the Dardanelles to prevent German, Austro-Hungarian and Turkish warships from breaking out into the Mediterranean.

This, combined with other poor traits, including the great weight in coal they had to carry, made them rather unsuccessful ships, though their numerous rapid-firing guns were of some use in the Mediterranean.

[2] She carried a maximum of 2,027 tonnes (1,995 long tons) of coal which allowed her to steam for 3,370 nautical miles (6,240 km; 3,880 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

[3] During 1918, the mainmast was shortened to allow the ship to fly a captive kite balloon and the elevation of the 240 mm guns was increased which extended their range to 18,000 meters (20,000 yd).

[1] Construction of Vergniaud was begun on 26 December 1906[2] by Forges et Chantiers de la Gironde in Bordeaux and the ship was laid down in November 1907.

The ship participated in combined fleet maneuvers between Provence and Tunisia in May–June 1913[5] and the subsequent naval review conducted by the President of France, Raymond Poincaré on 7 June 1913.

[5] At the beginning of the war, the ship, together with her sister Condorcet and the dreadnought Courbet, unsuccessfully searched for the German battlecruiser Goeben and the light cruiser Breslau in the Balearic Islands.

[3] Vergniaud was transferred to the Second Squadron on 27 March 1916 and resumed her former duties of blockading the Strait of Otranto from bases in Argostoli and Corfu for most of the rest of the war.

After the Armistice of Mudros was signed on 30 October between the Allies and the Ottoman Empire, the ship participated in the early stage of the occupation of Constantinople.

[7] In early 1919, Vergniaud was among the ships stationed off Sevastopol as an Allied deterrent to Soviet forces who were encroaching on the city during the Russian Civil War.

Despite Allied support, the city's White Russian forces were in a seemingly hopeless position, and in April 1919 the French naval high command ordered the ships to evacuate.

Rejecting this, the commander of the Second Squadron, Vice-Admiral (vice-amiral) Jean-Françoise-Charles Amet, attempted to have his forces intervene in the fighting, only to have a mutiny erupt on several of his ships.

The battleship's crew had thus far remained neutral in the conflict but quickly joined the ranks of the most radical mutineers, unfurling red banners in support of the Bolshevik forces.