Читать книгу A Merchant Fleet at War - Archibald Hurd - Страница 8

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Oh hear! Oh hear!

Across the sullen tide,

Across the echoing dome horizon-wide,

What pulse of fear

Beats with tremendous boom?

What call of instant doom,

With thunder-stroke of terror and of pride,

With urgency that may not be denied,

Reverberates upon the heart’s own drum

Come! ... Come! ... for thou must come!

Henry Newbolt.

In order to obtain the truest conception of what the Cunard Company stood for in 1914, it will be well not only to consider very briefly its first origin and steady growth, but to refresh our memories by recalling one or two of the tidemarks of ocean-going navigation. Thus it was in 1802, in the year, that is to say, following Nelson’s great victory at Copenhagen, in the year of the Peace of Amiens, and three years before the Battle of Trafalgar, that the first successful, practical steamer was launched. This was the Charlotte Dundas, built by William Symington on the Forth and Clyde Canal, and fitted with an engine constructed by Watt, which drove a stern wheel. This vessel proved to be an inspiration to Robert Fulton, who in 1807 built the Clermont at New York, a wooden steamer 133 feet long, engined by Bolton and Watt. In the autumn of that year, this vessel made a trip from New York to Albany, a distance of 130 miles in 32 hours, returning in 30 hours, and thenceforward maintained the first continuous long distance service performed by any steam vessel. Five years later Bell’s famous steamer, the Comet, began the earliest, regular steamer passenger service in Europe.

In 1814 the Marjory, the first steamer to run regularly on the River Thames, began her career; but it was not until 1819 that the Savannah, a wooden sailing ship of American construction, but fitted with engines and a set of paddles amidships, crossed the Atlantic, arriving at Liverpool after 29½ days. In the following year the Condé de Palmella was the first engined ship to sail across the Atlantic from east to west, namely from Liverpool to the Brazils.

“Aquitania” at Southampton with Canadian troops

These were but tentative experiments, however, and the Transatlantic Steamship Service, as we see it to-day, did not really begin till the year 1838, when the steamers Sirius and Great Western sailed within a few days of each other from London and Bristol respectively. Both ships crossed without mishap, the Sirius in 17 days, and the Great Western in 15. In the same year, the Royal William and the Liverpool crossed from Liverpool to New York in 19 days and 16½ days respectively.

It was now clear that a new era in transatlantic navigation had dawned, and the Admiralty, who were then responsible for the arrangement of overseas postal contracts, and had hitherto been satisfied to entrust the carrying of mails to sailing vessels, invited tenders for the future conveyance of letters to America by steam vessels. One of their advertisements, as it happened, came into the hands of Mr. Samuel Cunard; he was the son of an American citizen of Philadelphia, who had settled in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in which city he had been born in 1787. For some time the idea of developing a regular service of steamers between America and England had been simmering in Mr. Cunard’s brain. He was already in his 50th year, a successful merchant and ship owner; and he now resolved to visit England with the intention, if possible, of raising sufficient capital to put his ideas into practice. Armed with an introduction to Mr. Robert Napier, a well-known Clyde shipbuilder and engineer, he went to Glasgow, after having received but little sympathy in London. Through Mr. Napier he became acquainted with Mr. George Burns, a fellow Scotsman of great ability and long practical experience as a ship-owner, and through him with Mr. David McIver, also a Scotsman of sagacity and enterprise, then living at Liverpool. Between the three of them the necessary capital was obtained, and Mr. Cunard was able to submit to the Admiralty a tender for the conveyance of mails once a fortnight between Liverpool, Halifax, and Boston, U.S.A. His tender was considered so much better than that offered by the owners of the Great Western that it was accepted, and a contract for seven years was concluded between the Government and the newly formed British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company, as it was then called.

“Aquitania” escorted by Destroyers

Such was the beginning of the Cunard Company in the shape of four wooden paddle-wheel steam vessels, built on the Clyde, the Britannia, Acadia, Caledonia, and Columbia; and its history from then until 1914 was one of steady and enterprising, cautious and daring, development. This is not the place to linger in detail over the technical strides made since 1840 by the Cunard Company’s directors, but one or two of the more important milestones should perhaps be noted. In the year 1804, John Stevens in America had successfully experimented with the screw-propeller, and in 1820, at the Horsley Iron Works, at Tipton in Staffordshire, Mr. Aaron Manby had designed and built the first iron steamer. It had always been the policy of the Cunard Company to keep in touch with every new marine experiment, but at the same time it had been their wise habit, both from the commercial point of view and that of the safety of their passengers and crews, to move circumspectly in the adoption of new devices. It was not, therefore, until 1852 that the first four iron screw steamships were added to their fleet, namely the Australian, Sydney, Andes, and Alps, four vessels that were also the first belonging to the Company to be fitted with accommodation for emigrants. For the next ten years, however, it was found that passengers still preferred the old paddle-wheel system, and side by side with their iron screw steamers, the Company continued to build these until, in 1862, the Scotia proved to be the last of a dying type. Meanwhile, in 1854, the Government was to realise another side of the value to the nation of the Cunard Company. During the Crimean War, in response to a strong Government appeal, the Company immediately placed at the Admiralty’s disposal, six of their best steamers, the Cambria, Niagara, Europa, Arabia, Andes, and Alps; later adding to these their two most recent acquisitions, the Jura and Etna. Throughout the campaign these eight vessels were continuously employed upon various important missions, supplying the needs of the military forces.

Embarkation: “Are we downhearted?”

Transport in Southampton Water: Colonials’ first view of “Blighty”

Perhaps the next most important era began with the invention in 1869 of compound engines, and in 1870 the Batavia and Parthia were fitted with these, and proved extremely successful, maintaining good speeds, with a reduced consumption of fuel. The Company was now sailing one vessel under contract with the General Post Office every week from Liverpool to New York, calling at Queenstown, and from New York to Liverpool, also calling at the South Irish port, and receiving a certain subsidy for so doing. They were also maintaining services between Liverpool and the principal ports in the Mediterranean, Adriatic, Levant, Bosphorus, and Black Sea, and between Liverpool and Havre. In 1881 the first steel vessel, the Servia, was built for the Cunard Company. This was the most powerful as well as the largest ship, with the exception of the famous Great Eastern, that the world had then seen. She was followed in 1884 by the Etruria and Umbria, the former of which in August, 1885, set up the record for speed from Queenstown to New York, the journey being accomplished in 6 days 6 hours and 36 minutes. In the meantime, research work, in the construction of marine engines had been continued, and Dr. Price had invented the triple expansion engine, which effected further considerable economies in the consumption of fuel; and these were fitted by the Cunard Company into the two great twin-screw vessels, the Campania and Lucania, built in 1893. With the Campania we shall deal again, as she performed valuable services in the late war, and it is interesting to note that it was on board the Lucania in 1901 that Mr. Marconi carried out certain important experiments in wireless telegraphy, this vessel being the first, under the Cunard management, to be fitted with a wireless installation.

Through all these years the Cunard Company had of course been submitted to very great competition in the transatlantic trade, not only by British lines, but by American and Continental shipping companies also; and in the year 1900 with the Deutschland and in 1902 with the Kaiser Wilhelm II, what has been called the “blue ribbon” of the Atlantic passed to Germany, these vessels having an average speed of 23½ knots. It was then decided that the supremacy in this respect, should, if possible, be regained by Great Britain, and, with Government help, and in return for certain definite prospective services if required, the Cunard Company laid down the Lusitania and the Mauretania. In 1907, these vessels making use of Sir Charles Parsons’ turbine engines, were put into service and soon afterwards attained a speed of over 26 knots, and the mastery, in respect of speed, of the Atlantic.

Canadian troops on “Caronia,” being addressed by their commander

Enormous as were the proportions, however, of these huge vessels, they were yet to be eclipsed by the Cunard Company’s later and most recent giant, the Aquitania, a vessel that might more fitly be described as a floating city of palaces, libraries, art galleries, and swimming baths, than the steamship child of the little Britannia of 1840. Let us for a moment compare them, remembering that only the ordinary span of a human life-time intervened between them. The Britannia was 200 feet long, a wooden paddle-wheel steamer of 1,154 tons, 740 horse-power, and a speed of 8½ knots. The Aquitania is 902 feet long, of 46,000 tons, with quadruple screws driven by turbine engines of a designed shaft of 60,000 horse-power, maintaining a speed of 24 knots. With her Louis XVIth staircase, her garden Lounge, her Adams drawing-room, her frescoes, her Palladian lounge, her Carolean smoking-room, and her Pompeian swimming bath, she can carry in the comfort of a first-class hotel more than 3,200 passengers, together with a crew of over 1,000.

Such then has been what one may best call, perhaps, the technical advance of the Cunard Company, and in 1914, at the commencement of hostilities, it had in commission 26 vessels, apart from tugs, lighters, and other subsidiaries. Of these, since we shall presently deal with their individual adventures, the following list may be found convenient:

Name of Ship.	Tonnage. Gross.
Aquitania	45,646
Mauretania	30,703
Lusitania	30,395
Caronia	19,687
Carmania	19,524
Franconia	18,149
Laconia	18,098
Saxonia	14,297
Ivernia	14,278
Carpathia	13,603
Andania	13,404
Alaunia	13,404
CampaniaA	12,884
Ultonia	10,402
Pannonia	9,851
Ascania	9,111
Ausonia	8,152
Phrygia	3,353
Brescia	3,235
Veria	3,228
Caria	3,032
Cypria	2,949
Pavia	2,945
Tyria	2,936
Thracia	2,891
Lycia	2,715

AThis vessel was sold for breaking up a few weeks prior to the outbreak of war. Her career as a warship is referred to in these pages.

The “Campania” sinking in the Firth of Forth

From this it will be seen that the total tonnage possessed by the Cunard Company in 1914 was considerably over 300,000, and the Company was operating services not only between the United Kingdom and the United States of America and Canada, but also between the United States of America and the Mediterranean, as well as from Liverpool and other British ports to the Mediterranean and France.