Читать книгу The Times Great Events - Группа авторов - Страница 45
Оглавление16 April 1912
An ocean disaster, unprecedented in history, has happened in the Atlantic. The White Star liner Titanic on her maiden voyage, carrying nearly 2,400 people, has been lost near Cape Race, and according to the latest messages there is grave reason to fear that less than 700 of the passengers and crew have been saved.
Early yesterday evening the messages gave no indication of a catastrophe of such terrible magnitude, but later they became more and more serious.
As will be seen below, there is much that is conflicting in them, but the news of brighter import – of the possibility of more lives being saved by the vessels which hurried to the rescue – becomes more slender with each succeeding message.
The White Star liner Titanic (46,382 tons), which left Southampton on Wednesday on her maiden voyage to New York, came into collision with an iceberg at a point about 41.46 North and 50.14 West off the North American coast at 10.25 on Sunday night (American time). The vessel was badly damaged and wireless messages were sent out for help. A number of other liners in the neighbourhood hastened to her assistance, but she sank yesterday morning. The number on board the Titanic when she left Queenstown on her voyage, including the Cherbourg passengers, was:–
| First Class ………………… | 350 |
| Second Class……………… | 305 |
| Steerage………………… | 800 |
| Crew……………………… | 903 |
| Total ……………………… | 2,358 |
She had also on board 3,418 sacks of mails. The passengers included Colonel and Mrs. J.J. Astor, Major A.W. Butt, President Taft’s aide-de-camp, Mr. B. Guggenheim, of the well-known banking firm, Mr. C.M. Hays, President of the Grand Trunk Railway, Mr. Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line, Lady Rothes, Mr. W.T. Stead, Mr. Clarence Moore, Mr. Isidor Straus, Mr. George D. Widener, Mr. Thomas Andrews, jun., of Belfast, one of the managing directors of Messrs. Harland and Wolff, the builders of the Titanic, and Mr. Christopher Head, a former Mayor of Chelsea, director of Henry Head and Co. (Limited), insurance brokers and underwriters.
NEW YORK, APRIL 15.
The Titanic sank at 2.20 this morning. No lives were lost. – Reuter.
NEW YORK, April 15, 8.15 p.m.
It was stated officially at the White Star offices this evening that probably a number of lives had been lost in the Titanic disaster, but that no definite estimate could be made until it was known positively whether the Parisian and Virginian had any rescued passengers on board. – Reuter.
NEW YORK, APRIL 15, 8.20 P.M
The following statement has been given out by the White Star officials: “Captain Haddock, of the Olympic, sends a wireless message that the Titanic sank at 2.20 a.m. on Monday after all the passengers and crew had been lowered into lifeboats and transferred to the Virginian. The steamer Carpathia, with several hundred passengers from the Titanic, is now on her way to New York.” – Reuter.
NEW YORK, APRIL 15, 8.40 P.M
The White Star officials now admit that many lives have been lost. – Reuter.
NEW YORK, APRIL 15, 8.45 P.M.
The following despatch has been received here from Cape Race: “The steamer Olympic reports that the steamer Carpathia reached the Titanic’s position at daybreak, but found boats and wreckage only. She reported that the Titanic foundered about 2.20 a.m. in lat. 4ldeg. 16min., long. 50deg. 14min.”
The message adds: “All the Titanic’s boats are accounted for. About 675 souls have been saved of the crew and passengers. The latter are nearly all women and children.”
‘The disaster that has overtaken the Titanic,’ observed The Times in the wake of her sinking, ‘is a forcible reminder of the existence of natural forces which from time to time upset all our calculations and baffle our precautions’.
Titanic was the embodiment of Britain at the peak of its industrial might. Exactly 200 years before, the first steam engine had been built in the Black Country. In the year that she sank, British textile factories reached their maximum output of 8 billion yards of cloth.
No ship afloat was heavier or, at 882 feet (269 metres), longer. Nor did any have such concern not just for luxury but also for safety. Her new Marconi radio-telegraph equipment allowed Titanic to send distress calls by Morse code after striking the iceberg, while the number of lifeboats she carried – though only sufficient for half those aboard – was significantly greater than that specified by law.
Even so, more than 1,500 people perished because no-one wanted to believe that Titanic might sink. Observers, wrote her historian Walter Lord, mistook the appearance of safety for safety itself. To some of them at least, Titanic’s fate must have seemed a portent for Britain as well.
