The story of the Great Liners begins on the Atlantic route between
the Old World and the New, between Europe and the United States. It
was the most prestigious, most progressive and certainly most
competitive ocean liner run of all time. It was on the North
Atlantic that the largest, fastest and indeed grandest passenger
ships were created. In this book, William Miller concentrates for
the most part on these Atlantic superliners. It has been a race,
sometimes fierce, that has continued for well over a century.
Smaller passenger ships, even ones of 30,000 and 40,000 tons, are
for the most part left to other books. The story begins even
earlier, in 1889, when Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II visited his
grandmother, Queen Victoria, and attended the British Naval Review
at Spithead. The British were more than pleased to show off not
only the mightiest naval vessels afloat, but the biggest passenger
ships then afloat, namely the 10,000-ton 'Teutonic' of the White
Star Line. These ships caught the Kaiser's royal eye. His
enthusiasm, his determination and, assuredly, his jealousies were
aroused. Her returned to his homeland determined that Germany
should have bigger and better ships.The world must know, he
theorized, that Imperial Germany had reached new and higher
technological heights. To the Kaiser and other envious Germans, the
British had, quite simply, had a monopoly on the biggest ships long
enough. British engineers and even shipyard crews were recruited,
teaching German shipbuilders the key components of a new generation
of larger ships. Shipyards at Bremen, Hamburg and Stettin were soon
ready. It would all take eight years, however, before the first big
German liner would be completed. She would be large enough and fast
enough to be dubbed the world's first "super liner". She would only
be the biggest vessel built in Germany, but the biggest afloat. The
nation's most prominent shipowners, the Hamburg America Line and
the North German Lloyd, were both deeply interested. It was the
Lloyd, however, which rose first to the occasion. Enthusiastically
and optimistically, the first ship was the first of a successive
quartet. The illustrious Vulkan Shipyard at Stettin was given the
prized contract. Triumph seemed to be in the air! The Kaiser
himself went to the launching, on 3 May 1897, of this new Imperial
flagship.Designed with four funnels but grouped in pairs, the
655-ft long ship was named 'Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse', honoring
the Emperor's grandfather. With the rattle of chains, the release
of the building blocks and then the tumultuous roar as the
unfinished hull hit the water, this launching was the beginning of
the Atlantic race for supremacy, which would last for some 70
years. Only after the first arrival of the trans-Atlantic jet in
October 1958 would the race quiet down. The 'Kaiser Wilhelm der
Grosse' was the great beginning, the start of a superb fleet of
what has been dubbed "ocean greyhounds" and later aptly called the
"floating palaces". Worried and cautious, the normally contented
British referred to the brand new Kaiser as a "German monster".
General
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