The Léon Gambetta class consisted of three armored cruisers built for the French Navy (Marine Nationale) during the first decade of the 20th century.

Léon Gambetta, the first of the sister ships to be completed, was initially assigned to the Northern Squadron (Escadre du Nord) where she served as a flagship.

To their credit, the factions in the government and the navy were mostly able stop squabbling amongst themselves to reconsider their naval strategy and the types of ships that they would build.

[1] They realized that the advocates of the Jeune École (Young School) had built enough torpedo craft that the British could no longer maintain their long-time strategy of a close blockade of French ports without risking the loss of their capital ships, which would allow the battleships favored by the traditionalists to sortie and defeat the blockading squadron.

Countering this with a distant blockade strategy would require the British to keep their capital ships at home to react to any attempt by the French to break out en masse.

The distant blockade strategy required smaller ships to monitor the ports and notify the battlefleet of any attempt to break out.

The engines were rated at a total of 27,500 metric horsepower (20,200 kW), using steam provided by 20 (Jules Ferry) or 28 water-tube boilers.

They carried a maximum of 2,100 long tons (2,100 t) of coal and could steam for 7,500 nautical miles (13,900 km; 8,600 mi) at a speed of 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph).

[5] The main battery of the Léon Gambetta class consisted of four 40-caliber 194-millimeter Modèle 1893–1896 guns mounted in twin-gun turrets fore and aft of the superstructure.

[8] For defense against torpedo boats, they carried twenty-four 47-millimeter (1.9 in) Hotchkiss guns,[9] although Victor Hugo used the Canon de 47 mm modèle 1902 instead.

Victor Hugo was reduced to reserve shortly afterwards and missed participating in the fleet review by Armand Fallières, President of France, and the Navy Minister, Théophile Delcassé, off Toulon on 4 September with her sisters.

The following day, Vice Admiral Augustin Boué de Lapeyrère, commander of the Allied forces in the Central Mediterranean, was ordered to begin offensive operations against the Austro-Hungarian fleet in the Adriatic.

He split his forces into two groups to break the Austro-Hungarian blockade of the port of Antivari, Montenegro, and to engage any ships operating out of nearby Cattaro.

During one such mission, the 2nd DL raided the island of Lastovo on 2 November and Jules Ferry was narrowly missed by U-5, an Austro-Hungarian U-boat, on the return voyage the following day.

Boué de Lapeyrère, concerned about a possible pre-emptive attack on the southern Italian ports, temporarily moved all of his armored cruisers closer to the Strait of Otranto that day.

After the sinking, Boué de Lapeyrère withdrew his armored cruisers even further south to a line running through the island of Cephalonia.

After the Italian declaration of war on 23 May, the French ships withdrew further into the Mediterranean and Ionian Seas with the 2nd DL ultimately basing itself at Alexandria, Egypt, Bizerte, French Tunisia, and British Malta; the division was responsible for patrolling the area between southern Italy and the Greek island of Crete.

The Royal Serbian Army was deemed fit for combat in May and the sisters provided distant cover for the transfer to the Salonica front until it was completed on 15 June.

On 12 August, the 2nd DL was disbanded with Jules Ferry assigned to transport duties until July 1918 when she joined Victor Hugo in reserve.

The sisters were stricken from the Navy List in 1927–1928; Jules Ferry was sold for scrap in 1928 and was followed by Victor Hugo two years later.