After the really big and really
complicated “What if the US and Canada went to war” articles, I think it’s time
to dial it back, and try just a short, simple…
Well, okay, shorter for sure.
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| This is not happening. Sorry to those who hate reading! |
The Titanic
was, and still is, one of my favorite bits of history, and the one that got me
interested in history way back in Grade 3. I’ve seen every movie, every book,
every documentary, and even the one time-traveling video game with alternate
history elements that I wish still worked today. Also, please not remind me of
Jack and Rose… OH GOD, THE FLASHBACKS STARTED! NO, WHY ARE THEY YELLING SO
MUCH? WHY DO THEY GRATE ON MY NERVES SO MUCH? WHY DO YOU PEOPLE CARE ABOUT
THEM? AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!
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| Did you really need to add a love story to a historical event that is already has enough drama and emotion? And Jack would have never been able to get into First Class more than once, and only then being immediately escorted below, if not punched and locked away for the rest of the trip. There was a reason for those gates they have to break down in the movie, and it was actually US law, to keep all the maybe diseased immigrants from the people that spent many times any of third classes annual income on a cabin that-*passes out from rage induced coma* |
It was built in a time where humanity
believed it was on the verge of conquering any problem before it: the end of
war, or disease, of chaos. European and American civilization spread around the
entire world, the Industrial Revolution was bringing new and amazing inventions
every day, and it seems that reason was soon going to triumph over fear and
oppression. Never mind that all of Europe was a powder keg, engaged in an arms
race, and well over half the continent was under the control of autocrats and
the other half by wealthy industrialists, with a class barely removed from the
peasantry of just 100 years before by the growing working class demanding equal
and free rights, and racism and imperialism still held millions upon millions
of people down. But you know, baby steps.
When the world woke up on April 15, 1912,
to hear the news the biggest, most luxurious, “unsinkable” ship had sunk, with
over two thirds of those on board, it was like a collective shock to those same
hopes, and one that never recovered before it finally ended in the trenches of
Flanders just two short years later. As Walter Lord, author of the stellar A Night to Remember put it, “Before the Titanic, all was quiet. Afterward all
was tumult. That is why, to anybody who lived at the time, the Titanic more than any other single event
marks the end of the old days, and the beginning of a new, uneasy era.”
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| "Walter Lord: A guy that knew how to make a memorable quote on the Titanic." - Tyler Bugg |
So, what if the Titanic didn’t sink?
Point
of Divergence
This can be done one of two ways: either
the Titanic completely misses the
iceberg, or the iceberg causes little to no damage. The first scenario could be
done either by the lookouts seeing the iceberg in time, or, to go a bit further
back, maybe the accident with the sister ship Olympic in 1911 when she collided with a British cruiser didn’t
happen, so Titanic’s sailing date
wasn’t moved from March to April 1912. Either one would work for the purposes
of this POD, but let’s go with the Titanic
still hitting the iceberg, but it only causes minor damage.
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| Part of me really wishes something like this happened... |
What
Happens to the Titanic
When the Titanic sails into New York Harbor with only a small gash in her
hull and two or three watertight compartments full of ice cold Atlantic water,
the ship is taken out of service for a short period to be restored. Returning
to the North Atlantic sailing route, the Titanic
works with the Olympic on a
two-ship service for the White Star Line, allowing the company to compete with
the Lusitania and Mauritania of the Cunard Line,
accelerating the competition between these companies even more, not to mention
other companies such as HAPAG (Hamburg-America Line), and Norddeutscher (North German) Lloyd. HAPAG was about to launch the Imperator, which was already bigger than the Olympic/Titanic by a few feet, but would be outfitted with a really gaudy eagle on the bow to add just a couple more in the endless one-upmanship of the Trans-Atlantic route. By early 1914, both White
Star and Cunard have another ship each, the Gigantic
(the original name for the Britannic)
and the Aquitania respectfully. With
this fleet, the White Star Line would be in a much more secure financial
position.
The Titanic
would also most likely serve in World War One, either as a troop ship or a
hospital ship, and maybe both. I personally feel it would be unlikely that one
more ship able to carry a couple thousand more soldiers to the battlefields of
Europe would change much for the course of the war. While many ships were
torpedoed or sunk during the real war, such as the Lusitania in May 1915 and the Gigantic/Britannic
in 1916, the Titanic and the Olympic survived.
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| And like Olympic here, would have had a really... odd paint job. I'm pretty sure of it. |
After the war ends, the Titanic, Olympic, and all the other survivors would be refitted and be
placed back in service. Titanic and Olympic are placed back on the
transatlantic route, and continue to sail between Southampton, England and New
York City for several more years. Eventually their massive coal engines are
converted to oil, the interiors are modernized to continue to compete, and the
rich and famous continue to sail across the Atlantic. However, in the 1920s,
the US began to impose immigration restrictions. Immigrants from Europe to
America had long been the bread and butter of the major shipping companies, but
now that the flood of millions of immigrants had been reduced to a trickle, the
steerage/third class cabins and apartments are converted, providing
inexpensive, but comfortable, places for middle class tourists.
The
future of the Titanic looks great until
the start of the Great Depression. In the 1930s OTL, the White Star Line and
the Cunard Line were forced to merge into the Cunard White Star, though eventually
White Star was dropped. I think both companies would be merged, but for the
hell of it in this scenario, White Star is the company that takes over Cunard.
But in the mid 1930s, as fewer and fewer people can afford to sail across the
Atlantic for business and pleasure, the number of crossings is reduced. Cheap
cruises to the Caribbean or the Mediterranean are attempted, though eventually
smaller ships the tough decision is made to reduce the fleet of ships,
especially the older, more expensive, increasingly outdated ships like Titanic, Olympic, and Mauritania, especially as new
superliners, such as the Queen Mary
are proposed. By 1935, the three older ships are finally sold to the scrapyard,
their furnishings auctioned off, and the sailors and passengers who were on these
ships in their heyday are only left with fond memories.
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| The Olympic and Mauritania, competitors and rivals, right before they are sold for scrap. |
The
Broader Consequences
The biggest change in such a timeline is
that safety regulations, hurriedly changed after the Titanic sank, would remain insufficient: only 16 lifeboats for
ships over 10,000 tons, radios would not have to be manned around the clock,
and there would be no International Ice Patrol to monitor ice on the North
Atlantic. Since there was no massive tragedy to spur governments into action in
1912, the British and Americans wouldn’t change any of the rules until such a
disaster happens, which, by the laws of probability, would eventually take
place.
And my fear is that a major disaster would
have occurred right before, or immediately after the start of World War One.
One passenger ship, any passenger ship, could be the cause that changes the
laws. Say one had been caught in fog and struck another ship, sinking in just a
few minutes like the Empress of Ireland
in 1914, taking 1,012 out of 1,477 to their deaths. Perhaps an even more
devastating outcome would come in World War One, if a certain ship still sank...
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| Yep. That ship. |
In May 1915, the Lusitania was torpedoed by the German submarine U-20, and in only
18 minutes, listed heavily to the starboard and sank, taking 1,198 men, women
and children, including 128 Americans. And because the Lusitania now had 48 lifeboats after the Titanic sank, 761 survived, even though only a six could be lowered
due to the angle and speed the ship sank at.[1] But what if the Lusitania only had the required 16? With the eight on the port side
and the four of the starboard closest to the bow impossible to launch in only
18 minutes, that leaves only four. What’s to say that panic and chaos troubles
their launch too? Maybe only one or two lifeboats could be launched
successfully, each with a maximum 65 people. While people were pulled from the
water hours after the Lusitania sank,
most victims died of hypothermia or drowning. It would be safe to say that in
this version of events, the Lusitania may
have sank with hundreds more victims, leaving, at most, maybe 200 survivors out
of nearly 2000 on board.
| And... really? A stamp? Who thinks trying to use a stamp as propaganda would be a great idea? |
Another change could be media: the Titanic disaster lead to many books,
movies, TV shows, video games, and even a play dramatizing the wreck, and all
of which adds to the mystique of the disaster; the glamor and hope of it’s
passengers and crew, and the heroism, horror, and sadness of it’s victims and survivors.
Without this, the Titanic would
become, much like it’s sister the Olympic,
a minor footnote in the history of the world, just one of many massive ocean
liners of the early 20th century.
The Butterfly
Effect
I don’t usually talk about the butterfly
effect, but in this case, it’s important to mention it, mostly to say that I
won’t actually be going into detail about possible results of the butterfly
effect.
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| And no, I'm not talking the movie. What is it with all the movie's in this article? |
I cannot even begin to imagine all the
changes that could have happened if the 1,513 men, women, and children who
would have died on April 15, 1912, reached New York on April 17 or 18, 1912.
The survivors too would have had their lives changed. The few officers that
survived the Titanic, namely Second
Officer Charles Lightoller, was never going to be able to command a luxury
liner because he was tied to the Titanic.
But because the Titanic didn’t
sink, in a few years he would get to command his own ship, and maybe eventually
the Titanic itself. John Jacob Astor
IV, the wealthiest man on board, could have started a new business, donated
millions to charity, and even run for President of the US in the years to come.
So many immigrants who were seeking a new life on the other side of the world
could have made fortunes, raised families, married, and joined the boiling pot
that is the United States. Captain Edward John Smith would have proudly sailed
the Titanic back to England, and
retired to his hometown of Lichfield, Staffordshire, England.
Their descendants could have been great
leaders, brave soldiers, clever scientists, renowned artists, or just one of
the millions of people who work, live and play in a world that may or may not
be completely changed. What if one of these hypothetical descendants was
President of the US in the Cuban Missile Crisis and made the wrong decision?
What if one created a famous literary character, and another performed that
character in film years later, winning accolades and awards? What if one found
the cure for cancer? What if one became an infamous serial killer? What if one
solved world hunger? What if one…
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| ... replaced this idiot for a stock photo? |
As you could see, I could go on and on
about this. But that’s not the point of this article. The point of these
articles is to show how I see the world changing if something in history
happened differently. Sometimes, as I showed above, the overall course barely
differs, if at all. Sometimes the ramifications are massive. Sometimes it takes
generations for the effects to be felt. Sometimes it could be instant.
But in the end, the Titanic did sink. On a moonless night, it struck an iceberg at
11:40 PM, April 14, 1912, and sank at 2:20 AM, April 15, 1912. Of the 2,218 on
board, 705 made it to the lifeboats, while 1,513 were left on the magnificent
ship. The band played till the last, the stoic men letting the women and
children first get to the lifeboats first, the crew valiantly keeping the
engines going till the last, the captain going down with his ship, the rich
owner cowardly slinking off; all the clichés and tropes of a disaster movie,
played out in real life.
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| At the very least, James Cameron got this right. Really, he got a lot right, like how the ship sank, the real life people, the period costume... |
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| OH GOD DAMNIT!!! NOT THESE TWO!!! I KNOW THE MYTHBUSTERS SAID JACK COULDN'T GET ON THAT PIECE OF WOOD, BUT WHY COULDN'T HE HAVE GOTTEN ANOTHER ONE? THEN AGAIN ROSE SHOULD HAVE CUT OFF JACK'S HAND FROM SWINGING THE AXE EARLIER ON THE SHIP, IF SHE COULD HAVE EVEN FOUND HIM IN TIME IN A SINKING SHIP AND-*is taken away to a mental hospital* |
[1] The starboard boats of the Lusitania
could be lowered easier, but swung out to far from the ship to safely load,
while the lifeboats on the port side could be filled to full, but would have
been damaged on the riveted hull of the ship. Some lifeboats spilled their occupants
into the water because of the chaos in trying to lower the boats, while others
were cut free of their ropes and allowed to float away from the Lusitania as it sank.
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