The
year was 1889. The place: Spithead on
the English coast. In a spectacle
arranged to honor an aging queen, relish deep traditions and showcase the most
powerful navy in the world, Britain’s naval review was, if anything, a sort of
aging burlesque show. The fleet
assembled before Queen Victoria and visiting dignitaries displayed may have
conveyed strength in numbers, but not in kind.
Most of the ships were outdated and represented designs and ideas of
naval warfare little changed from the era of Nelson. There were some newer vessels, but these were
largely overshadowed by a preponderance of wooden hulls, copper plating, and
masts with sails. Many of the most
capable vessels were stationed in corners of the Empire.
Of
all the spectators reviewing the fleet, Kaiser Wilhelm II was the one Britannia
sought most to impress with this show of sea power. The Kaiser’s reign in Germany was an era of
rapid industrial growth and technological development. His navy was designing newer and more
menacing warships as Germany’s imperial ambitions grew. The point of the Naval Review was to remind
Kaiser Wilhelm that Britannia still ruled the waves, but the Kaiser was
unimpressed. As he watched aging
warships sail by and went about on a regimented tour of a few of Her Majesty’s
ships his attention waning. Then he was
taken aboard the aptly named Teutonic.
The
Teutonic stood out among the row of
naval vessels with its long, sleek black hull, gleaming white superstructure,
and buff colored funnels. The clean
lines of the vessel embodied modernity and speed. Its size (she towered over
her neighbors) suggested strength and stability. It was impressive, and no doubt the Kaiser
was eager to step on board. Yet, this
was no battleship, but an ocean liner. The
Teutonic was the newest vessel
operated by the White Star Line (officially, the Oceanic Steam Navigation
Company) and the one of the largest and fastest vessels in the world. She was anchored at Spithead in part because
it was a fine British-owned ship and the merchant marine was as valuable to her
interests as her navy, but also because the Teutonic
and other merchant vessels were required, if necessary, to become part of the
Royal Navy. The Teutonic was one of the newest passenger liners built with the
ability conversion into an armed merchant cruiser. If there were to be a war
with Germany, ships like Teutonic would
hoist the ensign.
Kaiser
Wilhelm tour of the ship was designed to showcase the features that enabled
this ship and other merchant vessels to become warships. He saw the supports on deck for guns, the
thickness of plates on the upper hull (the notion of a torpedo was a future
development), the double-bottom, and the mighty engines to drive her. The Kaiser’s staff took diligent notes on the
tour, but Wilhelm took little notice of these features. Rather, he was interested in the ships
passenger accommodations. The Teutonic’s public rooms were spacious
and her cabins were comfortable. Despite
the cowl vents, skylights, lifeboats, and other equipment on the boat deck, the
ship had ample room for passengers to walk around and take in the salt air. The Kaiser was impressed and told his aids, “We
must have one of these.” With those
words, ships, ocean travel, and the history of the North Atlantic changed
forever.
From
1890 onward a multi-faceted international competition emerged on the Atlantic Ocean
and endured until the jet age in the 1970s.
Embodied in the vessels was a political, economic, cultural, technological,
and military competition. The ships were
both part of the forces shaping their world and also force of it. Without these ships—much larger, faster, and
better appointed than those on other seas—the “huddled masses” never would have
reached American shores in such numbers.
Without these ships the troops fighting in two world wars would not have
arrived at the front as quickly, as safely, and in as many numbers. They turned the tide of war. These ships enabled tourists to visit other
places comfortably and on a variety of budgets.
The reliable, regular, and safe crossings on ocean liners enabled
commerce and information to flow freely between continents. The risky business of sailing packets was a
thing of the past.
My
goal is to share this fascinating- and important- history with you. This is at once collection of vignettes, a
photo essay, and a [virtual] museum exhibit.
It is a personal expression of the many sides of me. I am an academic historian, a photographer,
and an aficionado of ocean liners. If
the Civil War was the gateway drug that hooked me on American History, then the
discovery of the Titanic wreck
introduced me to ocean liner history. I
suspect that is true of many people. The
story of the Titanic is an enduring
one, and I would say nearly stranger (or true-er) than fiction, if it not for
two things: first, nearly the same cast of notable characters were present on
her sister ship Olympic a year before
(so disaster could have struck then); but the event paralleled a novel written
more than a decade earlier. The name of
the ship in that story: Titan. In both the historical and fictional
disasters the ship was merely in the wrong place at the wrong time. It could have been any vessel. But to a second grader with an interest in
all things of the sea and a morbid curiosity, the discovery of the famous
shipwreck was an irresistible lure to a seemingly singular event and spectacular
ship with phenomenally bad luck. For me,
as a child- this was the ship.
Eventually I would
learn that she was not quite any of those things but one interesting ship out
of many wonderful vessels that sailed the seas.
Contrary to public myth, the Titanic
was not one of a kind, but one of three nearly identical ships. She was not the largest ship nor was she the
fastest. The only thing that made her
special was the tragic sinking and the very belated consequences of bringing
life saving equipment up to speed with the times and vigilant navigation
practices. Within a few years, the
sinking was largely forgotten in the public mind and confidence in Atlantic
crossings restored until disrupted by two world wars. Within those years, and in a generation
after, there were many great ships on the ocean and their role in history yet
to be fully appreciated and understood.
That is what I set out to do. On
these pages, I bring images, anecdotes, and an academic’s analysis to the
history of ocean travel in my own words and pictures. I hope you enjoy this journey into the past.
