An explosion of badly degraded propellant charges on board the French battleship Liberté detonates the forward ammunition magazines and destroys the ship.

Liberté was a pre-dreadnought battleship built for the French Navy in the mid-1900s. She was the lead ship of the Liberté class, which included three other vessels and was a derivative of the preceding République class, with the primary difference being the inclusion of a heavier secondary battery.…