Aquitania
The "Ship Beautiful"
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The "Ship Beautiful"
In the early 1910s tensions were building between Britain's two great Transatlantic superpowers, Cunard, and White Star Line. Cunard had built the Lusitania and Mauritania; the fastest ships in the world. But White Star had the Olympic-Class, comprised of the Olympic, the famed Titanic, and soon, the Britannic; the largest ships in the world. Cunard was outnumbered 3 to 2, and they needed to even the score if they were to provide a weekly Transatlantic service. The decision was made to design a new ship in the image of the Olympic-Class Liners; slower than her sisters but beating them outright in luxury.
The new ship, to be named after the ancient Roman province of Gallia Aquitania, was designed by naval architect Leonard Peskett, who had drawn up the plans for the Lusitania, Mauritania, and Carmania before her. The new liner would be about 130 feet longer than her sisters, having larger dimensions than the Olympic, but with a lighter tonnage. The Aquitania's keel was laid down at the John Brown and Company shipyard in Clydebank in 1910.
The Liner was launched on the 21st of April, 1913, and in the wake of the Titanic disaster was fitted out with enough lifeboats for all souls on board. With 80 lifeboats in all, a fully equipped Marconi wireless set, sixteen watertight compartments; the ship being able to float with any five flooded, and a double hull, the Aquitania would be able to handle any emergency that came her way. After launch she would be fitted out for 13 months before undergoing sea trials on the 10th of May, 1914, during which she reached one full knot over her expected top speed.
After her successful maiden voyage, Aquitania began to make regular crossings, carrying people between Britain and the new world. She would make six crossings, and carry 11,208 passengers, before Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was shot and killed, and WWI erupted in Europe. She was immediately withdrawn from service and prepared for war. Because she was built by British Admiralty specifications she was designed to quickly have her interiors dismantled, her decks cleared, and guns to be mounted, turning her into an armed merchant cruiser. and on the 8th of August, 1914, she left for patrol. Her wartime service would be cut short however, as the Admiralty quickly found out that armed merchant cruisers were A: not effective and B: a terrible idea. She was expedited out of military service, was repaired, had her interiors re-installed, and was returned to Cunard. She didn't resume passenger service though, unlike some liners I could mention (I'm looking at you, Lusitania -_-) and sat idle.
Until she was called on again by the admiralty and was turned into a troopship, carrying thousands of troops at a time off to battle. She served alongside the likes of Britannic and Mauritania, the Lusitania had been torpedoed and sunk by now. She was then converted into a hospital ship and served this role in the Dardanelles Campaign, before being converted back to a troopship, then being laid up, then serving as a troopship again, before finally, finally being returned to Cunard for the final time.
In 1929, the stock market in America plunged, and the world economy went right down with it. The Great Depression had begun. All of a sudden, millions of people were out of a job, and booking passage on an expensive liner like the Aquitania was suddenly far from anyone's minds. Cunard did have a plan though, and sent Aquitania on "booze-cruises" in the Mediterranean sea, for Americans tired of prohibition. This worked, to some degree, and allowed Aquitania to continue turning a profit. In a effort to modernize her, she underwent a refit between 1932 and 1933, adding a cinema. Around this time though, much bigger things were happening with Cunard. They had ordered their new super-liner, the future Queen Mary, but the Great Depression threw a wrench in their plans, and they were struggling to finance construction. In order to do so, they merged with White Star Line and completed the ship. The merger meant that they now had a surplus of liners, and unfortunately, the oldest liners, including the beloved Mauritania and Olympic, "The Old Reliable," were decommissioned and scraped. And with the same fate befalling the SS France, Aquitania was left as the only "four-stacker" left in service.