German Record Breakers

If the Auguste Victoria was a prelude to fulfilling the Kaiser’s goal of maritime supremacy, the next generation of ships was Germany’s overture.  North German Lloyd (NDL) and HAPAG engaged on a quest to build the largest and fastest liners on the Atlantic.  In 1897, the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse emerged as the first superliner.  She was the first ship with four funnels and a sleek, built-for-speed profile.  At 14,300 tons and a length of 655 feet, she was the largest ship in world.  Her mighty engines drover her (with much consternation to third class passengers housed above the propeller shafts) at a swift 22 knots and made crossings in just under six days.  For the first time, a German ship won the coveted Blue Riband from the Cunarder Lucania.  While built for speed, the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was also built for luxury and included splendid first-class public rooms. 

Not to be outdone, NDL’s rival in Hamburg countered with the Deutschland, a strikingly similar vessel in outward appearance, but even more luxurious inside.  She proved to be a speed queen and handily bested her Bremerhaven predecessor.  Unfortunately, she suffered from terrible vibrations and noise that proved uncomfortable for most passengers.  While initially a disappointment for HAPAG, it proved fortuitous in the end.  The company focused on luxury and stability at sea rather than speed, and subsequently attracted many passengers to their line for just that reason.  People did not mind an extra day at sea if the ship was comfortable.  Despite attempts to solve the vibration problems, the Deutschland proved unsatisfactory was removed from service in 1910 and converted to a dedicated cruise ship (one of the first!) named Victoria Luise. 

Meanwhile, North German Lloyd completed a quartet of four funneled liners.  This was the first multi-ship express service.  The ships were similar, each a little larger than the previous one, but not exactly sister ships either.  Like the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse they combined speed and luxury, but unlike her, none of the subsequent vessels captured the speed record from Deutschland*. 

Kronprinz Wilhelm (1901) had two masts and four funnels, but her newer fleetmates, Kaiser Wilhelm II (1903) and Kronprinzessin Cecilie (1906) had three masts (for reasons I do not fully understand).  All four of these vessels served their owners well in peacetime, however none of them sailed after World War I.  

Kaiser Wilhelm II (1903).  Note: four funnels, arranged in pairs, and three masts.  German marine architects designed the first four funnel profiles and the paired funnels are distinctly German.

The Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse saw brief action as an armed merchant cruiser and was sunk whilst coaling early in the war.  Kronprinz Wilhelm sailed nearly non-stop for a year as an armed merchant cruiser before fatigue, prisoners, and mechanical problems forced the ship to seek protection in then neutral America.  The Kronprinzessin Cecile and Kaiser Wilhelm II were already in American waters when war broke out and were interned there.  When the United States entered the war, the liners were seized and turned over to the U.S. Navy as troop ships.  The remaining three NDL ships survived the war but never sailed commercial voyages again.  Sadly, they languished in a navy yard until 1940, when refused by the British as part of the lend-lease program (due to age and disrepair).  The vessels were then scrapped.  

Kaiser Wilhelm II (1903) sailed for North German Lloyd 1903-1914.  Built by Vulkan Werke, Stettin, Germany.  19,361 GRT, 707 fee long, 72 feet wide.  Twin screw, 23 knots.  As outfitted in 1903, accommodation for 1,888 passengers (775 first class, 343 second class, 770 steerage).  Refitted as U.S.S. Agamemnon in 1917. Scrapped in Baltimore, 1940.  Model by Mercator.  1:1250 scale.

*Kaiser Wilhelm II proved faster on eastbound crossings than Deutschland, but did not break the westbound record.  There is some debate about the speeds.  I err on the side of caution and do not consider the vessel a Blue Riband winner.  In any event, both ships lose to the Lusitania in 1907.

German Innovation

In 1880s, the Bremen-based Norddeutscher Lloyd Company (North German Lloyd) was the leading German shipping operation.  Several smaller lines sailed ships to North America and also to South America, Africa, and Asia, but North German Lloyd operated many of the fastest ships on the Atlantic.  Their chief competition was from the Hamburg-based Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft, better known as HAPAG.  This line, in turn, faced stiff competition in the growing emigrant trade from the Carr Line, a small mostly freight carrier that began to run passenger service under the direction of Albert Ballin.  Ballin’s genius was providing reasonable fairs and comfortable passage for the emigrants sailing on his line. HAPAG wanted this share of a steadily growing passenger trade and rather than engage in a ruthless price war and subsequently bought the Carr Line.  The merger brought Ballin to the head of HAPAG’s North American passenger division (and later as director) and provided him a platform to reshape the form of ocean travel. 

Auguste Victoria: a modern ship in 1889.  Model by Navis Neptune, M903. 1:1200 scale.

The liner Auguste Victoria of 1889 was the first ship to manifest his vision and in several key ways, it revolutionized the industry.  Named for the Kaiser’s wife (originally named Augusta Victoria, but subsequently corrected), the ship was reasonably large, 475 feet long, and fairly fast with a maximum speed of 18 ½ knots (the record in 1889 was 20.1 knots).  This liner was one of the first- along with the aforementioned Teutonic to have masts without spars for sails and twin screws for propulsion.  Ships with two propellers are capable of faster speeds and have a built-in back up in the case of mechanical failure.  Many single-screw ships suffered embarrassing delays on account of a damaged propeller.

Auguste Victoria’s design marked the start of a new era.  Gone were the clipper shaped bows, towering masts with spars, and deckhouses.  From 1890 onward, knife like prows sliced through the water, tired superstructures covered large public rooms, and funnels towered above the hull.  Inside, her public rooms were well appointed and featured electric lighting for both first and steerage class passengers.  There were even single-birth cabins in steerage- a rare option in 1889!  First class passengers were treated to covered promenade decks, a two-deck high dining saloon, a music room and a grand staircase. As we shall see, these features became even grander with each new class of ships Ballin and HAPAG introduced, but the Kaiser’s dream of luxurious and technologically innovate passenger ships (that could become armed cruisers) became a reality with Auguste Victoria and her near-sister Columbia. 

Auguste Victoria's profile was fairly balanced with three masts and three funnels.

Auguste Victoria was initially a popular ship.  By some estimates 30,000 people visited the ship before her maiden voyage to New York and she booked a steady number of passengers.  However, she proved to consume too much coal and unable to carry enough passengers or freight to offset the cost of operation.  To make the ship profitable, during the winter months when Atlantic passengers, particularly in steerage were fewer (winter crossings encounter rough weather), she was sent on cruises to the Mediterranean and the Far East. By 1900, the rivalry with Britain became more intense and passenger traffic was growing year-round.  Newer, faster, and larger ships were needed to meet the demand and HAPAG was engaged in a vigorous construction program to keep pace.  Subsequently, Auguste Victoria was sold to the Imperial Russian Navy in 1904.  Renamed Kuban she served her new owners until 1907, when she was scrapped in Stettin.  

Augusta Victoria (Auguste Victoria) built by AG Vulcan Stettin. Launched 1888, sailed for HAPAG 1889-1904.  7,661 GT, 457 feet long, two triple expansion engines geared to twin screw.  Maximum speed 18.5kn.  1,100 Passengers (1889):  400 first class, 120 second class, 580 steerage.  

Introduction

            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.