Titanic: History in an Hour. Sinead Fitzgibbon

      TITANIC

      History in an Hour

      Sinead Fitzgibbon

       About History in an Hour

      History in an Hour is a series of ebooks to help the reader learn the basic facts of a given subject area. Everything you need to know is presented in a straightforward narrative and in chronological order. No embedded links to divert your attention, nor a daunting book of 600 pages with a 35-page introduction. Just straight in, to the point, sixty minutes, done. Then, having absorbed the basics, you may feel inspired to explore further.

      Give yourself sixty minutes and see what you can learn . . .

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      Contents

       Cover

       Title Page

      About History in an Hour

Introduction

The Battle for the North Atlantic

RMS Titanic: A Ship Unlike Any Other

The Maiden Voyage

An Inauspicious Beginning?

      The Quest for Speed

      Ice Warnings

      A Catastrophic Error of Judgement

      Damage Reports

      To the Lifeboats

      Save Our Souls!

      Death by Drowning?

      The Carpathia

      Aftermath: Inquiries & Legacy

      Mirror Images

      Appendix 1: Key Figures

      Appendix 2: Timeline of the Titanic Disaster

      Copyright

      Got Another Hour?

       About the Publisher

       Introduction

      On Wednesday 10 April 1912, RMS Titanic embarked on her maiden voyage, carrying over 2,000 passengers, as she set sail from the port of Southampton, England, bound for New York City.

      RMS Titanic was widely acknowledged to be the jewel in the crown of its owners, the White Star Line. The newly built liner was the product of the very latest advances in nautical engineering and a major achievement for its creators, Belfast shipbuilders, Harland & Wolff. It was the largest floating vessel the world had ever seen and, endowed as it was with every conceivable luxury, it was also the most opulent.

      It is hardly surprising then, that the much-publicized launch of this gigantic vessel attracted intense media interest. On both sides of the Atlantic, Titanic was making headlines in national newspapers, while the cream of British and American high society, eager to bask in Titanic’s reflected glory, were lining up to book a passage on her maiden voyage.

      Much of the excitement which accompanied Titanic’s unveiling was based on the expectation that it would smash the transatlantic speed record, previously held by the Mauretania, which was owned by White Star’s arch-rivals, the Cunard Line. This quest for speed did indeed see RMS Titanic sailing into the pages of history but, tragically, for all the wrong reasons.

      Sadly, for her approximately 2,000 awe-struck passengers and crew, Titanic was not destined to reach its final destination. Four days into the week-long voyage, this triumph of human ingenuity and engineering struck a large iceberg in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. In just over two hours, she had descended to her watery grave on the ocean floor, with the loss of over 1,500 lives.

      This is the story of how, thanks in large part to a calamitous chain of unfortunate events combined with a litany of human errors, the maiden voyage of a supposedly ‘unsinkable’ ship became one of the worst maritime disasters in peacetime history.

      This is the story of RMS Titanic.

       The Battle for the North Atlantic

      In the latter half of the nineteenth century, transatlantic sea travel was fast becoming a lucrative business. Passenger numbers were on the increase, thanks in large part to the hordes of émigrés leaving Europe in search of a better life in America, while steamships also profited by ferrying mail between the US and Britain.

      Since its owner, Samuel Cunard, was awarded the first British transatlantic mail contract in 1839, the Cunard Line had operated a near-monopoly on this highly profitable route.

       Cunard Line Poster, 1875

      This all changed, however, when Thomas Ismay purchased the White Star Line in 1869. Operating in direct competition with the Cunard Line, the White Star Line’s entry into the transatlantic market marked the beginning of a decade-long battle between the two companies as they vied for dominance of the Atlantic Ocean. To complicate matters, they were also fighting off stiff competition from emergent shipping firms from Germany. The stakes could not have been higher.

      By 1907, with the impending maiden voyage of their new liner, the Lusitania, Cunard seemed to be once again gaining the upper hand. The Lusitania was the first in a new generation of superliners, and was soon joined by a sister steamship, the Mauretania, which was also nearing completion. Weighing approximately 30,000 gross tonnes and with a length of 790 feet, the Lusitania and the Mauretania were larger and more luxurious than any of their predecessors. They were also to be the fastest. It was widely expected that the Blue Riband – the award given to the fastest ship to cross the Atlantic – would go to either one or the other.

       White Star Line Logo

      Unsurprisingly, executives at the White Star Line were coming under increasing pressure to catch up with Cunard.

       The White Star Line makes a Comeback

      The White Star Line was now part of the American financier J. P. Morgan’s conglomerate of shipping companies, known as International Mercantile Marine. J. Bruce Ismay, who had succeeded his father at the helm of White Star in 1899, had sold the company to Morgan (pictured below) in 1902 on the understanding that he stayed on as Chairman and Managing Director. Thus, with almost limitless financial resources from his über-wealthy investor, the younger Ismay set about plotting White Star’s comeback.

       J. P. Morgan

      In the summer of 1907, Ismay and his wife attended a dinner at the London home of Lord and Lady Pirrie. A partner in the Belfast shipbuilding firm Harland & Wolff, Pirrie’s