A great tragedy that only a few remember. Why did the Titanic sink? Add your price to the database Comment Discovery by Robert Ballard

Exactly ninety-seven years ago, on a cold night from the fourteenth to the fifteenth of April, the most famous maritime disaster in the history of mankind occurred in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The ship of the White Star Line, bearing the proud name "Titanic", having died in the middle of its first voyage and taking with it one thousand five hundred and four human lives, was doomed to become the most famous ship in the world.

Why did the most perfect ship of that era, a ship that was considered completely unsinkable, sank? For almost a hundred years, the active human mind has been constructing versions of the catastrophe; fortunately, there is no shortage of riddles here. I have been interested in this story since childhood - now I probably don’t even remember how it all began. Today I want to tell you about the most famous versions of the tragedy.

Version one. Conspiracy theory

"Olympic and Titanic: the largest ships in the world"

Few people know that the Titanic had a twin brother - the ship Olympic, an exact copy of it, also owned by the White Star Line. How is this possible, the reader may be surprised, since the Titanic was considered a unique ship, the largest ship of that era, and now it turns out that there was another ship that was not inferior in size to it? No, the Titanic was indeed longer than its twin. Two inches. Just imagine - the length of a matchbox! – but still longer. Another thing is that it was almost impossible to notice these inches with the naked eye (and, perhaps, with the armed eye too), so that an outsider, looking at the twins standing side by side, could not tell which one was which.

The Olympic was a year older than its brother (so it would be more correct to call the Titanic a copy), and not much luckier. Probably, one should have written something like “from the very beginning, an evil fate hovered over each of the ships,” but more on that a little later: of course, the greatest naval disaster could not help but be surrounded by mystical rumors. I'll talk about them later, but for now let's not get ahead of ourselves. Twins: Titanic (right) and Olympic

Well, rock, not rock, but the fate of the Olympic was indeed full of troubles. His career began when the ship crashed into a dam during launching. After that, small and large accidents rained down on him one after another, and the ship did not even seem to be insured. There are rumors that after a number of accidents, the owners would be happy to insure their ship, but insurance companies refused to deal with the failed liner. The most serious accident was a collision with the British war cruiser Hawk, which led the White Star Line to significant financial problems: expensive repairs were needed, and the company's financial situation was very sad. So the Olympic was placed in the Belfast docks to await a decision on its future fate. And now - attention! Look at the photo on the left - this is almost the only photo in existence that shows the Titanic and Olympic standing side by side. It was made in Belfast. Final rigging of the Titanic
at the shipyard in Belfast

Why not assume, some researchers said, that the White Star Line decided to pull off a huge fraud. Quickly patch up the old Olympic and... pass it off as the new Titanic! Technically, this would not be at all difficult: swapping the plates with the names of the ships, and even interior items on which the monogram of the ships is applied - for example, cutlery (the Olympic and the Titanic had, of course, some design differences - well, yes who knows about them?). Then the Olympic, under the guise of the new, prestigious, widely advertised (and, of course, honorably insured) Titanic, will set off on a journey across the Atlantic, where it will collide (completely by accident, of course) with an iceberg (fortunately, there is a shortage of them at this time it hasn't been a year). Of course, no one was going to sink the liner - and no one believed that some iceberg was capable of sending the most reliable ship in the world to the bottom. It was planned to arrange a small collision, after which the ship would slowly reach New York, and its owners would receive a tidy insurance amount, which would come in handy for the company.

This version is supported by the strange behavior of the ship's captain, Edward Smith. Why was such a seasoned, experienced sea wolf so careless about the safety of his ship? Why did he stubbornly ignore messages coming from other ships about drifting icebergs, and even himself, it seems, directed the liner along the course on which it would be easiest to encounter an ice mountain? Why did he do this, if not to carry out the White Star plan? Personally, it seems to me that this was precisely for this purpose, but... the plan was completely different. But more on that later. Titanic's propeller. In this photo, however, you can’t see the numbers.

It turned out to be quite difficult to refute the conspiracy theory, especially since White Star went out of its way to save its reputation: it distorted information about the disaster in every possible way, bribed witnesses, and so on. Actually, convincing arguments were found only after the sunken liner itself was discovered (and this happened only seventy-three years later - the remains of the ship were discovered by Robert Ballard's expedition in September '85). So, the participants of one of the expeditions, descending to the lost ship, took photographs of the propeller, on which the minted serial number of the Titanic is clearly visible - 401 (its older brother had the number exactly 400). Proponents of the conspiracy theory claim, however, that the Olympic damaged its propeller after a collision with the cruiser Hawk, and White Star replaced it with a propeller from the then unfinished Titanic. But number 401 is also found on other parts of the sunken ship, so the accusation of a planned disaster on the White Star Line can be dropped. The following theory looks much more plausible - we’ll talk about it now.

John Pierpont Morgan Did you know that...

One of the arguments in favor of the conspiracy theory was the fact that industrialist John Morgan, one of the owners of the Titanic, was supposed to sail on board his ship, but canceled his ticket a day before the ship left the port.

They also say (this is where the mysticism began) that the tycoon was dissuaded from going by Nikola Tesla, endowed with the gift of foresight, whose development was financed by Morgan.

Second version. Chasing the Blue Ribbon

It all started a long time ago, when regular maritime communications were established between England and America, and, therefore, competition between ship-owning companies began to flare up. The faster the ship crossed the Atlantic, the more popular it became. In 1840, the Cunard company invented a prize for ships that set a speed record: now the ship that crossed the Atlantic Ocean faster than all its predecessors received the Blue Riband of the Atlantic as an award.

Actually, there was no material prize. The winner did not receive a cash prize, nor was the captain given a commemorative cup, which could be placed in a prominent place in the wardroom. But the ship acquired something more - priceless prestige that could not be achieved by other means. In addition to honor in maritime circles (and, therefore, fame and popularity), the winner of the award received a contract for the transportation of mail (including diplomatic mail) between America and Europe, and this is a very profitable item in shipping. And in general - see for yourself: if you are a rich businessman, maybe even a millionaire, which ship would you prefer to travel on? Isn't it the most prestigious and fastest?

At the time of the Titanic's departure from Southampton, the Blue Riband was owned by the Mauritania, a ship owned by White Star's main competitor. Naturally, this could not be tolerated, and White Star decided to bet on its favorite. The Titanic's winning of the Blue Riband would be a triumph for the corporation, helping to improve its shaky position: the All Atlantic Ribbon typically carried four times as many passengers as other similar ships.

Due to the threat of a collision with floating ice, the prescribed route of the Titanic (and any other ship following the same course) did not run in a straight line, but made a small detour, skirting the dangerous ocean area where most icebergs drift. Of course, this maneuver lengthens the road. That's why it might seem that Captain Smith was steering his ship straight into a cluster of icebergs - he just needed to take a shortcut and get the Blue Ribbon at any cost. That is why the Titanic was moving at full speed and did not slow down even after receiving several radio warnings about ice danger from other ships. Let other ships worry, but the Titanic has nothing to fear. In the “crow’s nest” - a special observation platform on the front mast - there are two lookouts who, in case of danger, can instantly report it to the captain’s bridge via telephone: the Titanic is equipped with the latest technology. And if a collision does occur, well, that just means that the record will be set another time. Icebergs do not pose a danger to the ship - after all, it is known that the Titanic is completely unsinkable. Its hold is divided into sixteen waterproof compartments, so that if it suddenly gets a hole (which, of course, cannot be), then only one of the compartments will be filled with water, and the ship will calmly continue its journey. That's one thing - the liner will not sink, even if four compartments are filled! And a ship can receive such damage only in war.

Well, it’s not for nothing that pride is one of the deadly sins. She played a cruel joke on the Titanic: the iceberg damaged five compartments - one more than was permissible. A piece of the Titanic's plating lifted from the bottom

But how could the ice break through the steel of the ship's plating? In the mid-nineties, a piece of the Titanic's skin was raised to the surface and subjected to a fragility test: a sheet of metal, fixed in clamps, had to withstand the blow of a thirty-kilogram pendulum. For comparison, a piece of steel used in shipbuilding today was also tested. Before the experiment, both samples were placed in an alcohol bath with a temperature of just over a degree - this is exactly what the ocean water was like on that fateful night. Modern metal came out of the test with honor: under the blow of a hammer it bent, but remained intact. The one raised from the bottom split into two parts. Maybe it became so fragile after lying on the ocean floor for eighty years? Researchers managed to obtain a sample of steel from those years at the Belfast shipyard where the Titanic was built. He passed the strength test no better than his brother. The experts' conclusion was that the steel used in the Titanic's construction was of very low quality, with a large admixture of sulfur, which made it brittle at low temperatures. Alas, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the level of development of metallurgy was far from what it is today. If the liner's skin had been made of high-quality steel, the hull would have simply bent inward from the impact, and the tragedy could have been avoided.

American press about the sinking of the Titanic Did you know that...

On the Internet you can find not only Western newspapers of that time (see photo on the right), but also pre-revolutionary Russian publications that reported on the crash in the Atlantic Ocean. A strange feeling arises when you read these dry lines - for the people of that time, the Titanic had not yet become a legend...

To the sinking of the Titanic.

LONDON. The proceedings of the commission to investigate the circumstances of the sinking of the Titanic were opened by a representative of the trade department, Isaacs, who pointed out that from the moment it went to sea, the Titanic was moving at a speed of 21 knots per hour, and this speed was not reduced until the very moment of the collision with the ice mountain despite receiving warnings about moving ice. During the investigation, special attention will be paid to the insufficient number of rescue boats on the ship and to the installation of watertight bulkheads.

* * * * *

But the Iskra publication, as befits an “artistic and literary magazine,” describes the situation in the best traditions of the yellow press:

The sinking of the Titanic.

Russian press about the sinking of the Titanic April 1, at 10 a.m. 25 p.m., a real floating city, the greatest in the world, the luxurious nine-story steamer Titanic (length ¼ verst (126 fathoms), displacement 66,000 tons, cost at 20,000,000 rubles, with machines of 55,000 horsepower, developing a speed of up to 38 versts per hour) on the way to New York, having 2,700 people on board, ran into floating ice at full speed. At midnight, the Titanic reported via wireless telegraph: “We’re going down.”

Stunning scenes played out on the deck of the dying ship. Millionaire passengers (there were 7 of them, with a total fortune of 3 billion) offered fabulous sums for seats on lifeboats. Because of these places, people fought, pushed each other into the water, smashed heads with oars...

1,410 people died.

William Stead died on board the Titanic. A committed journalist, with immense faith in the power of the printed word, Stead exposed the horrors of the debauchery of aristocratic London, its brothels, child trafficking, and energetically advocated for an end to the Anglo-Boer War and for rapprochement with Russia. In 1905, Stead came to Russia with the goal of reconciling Russian society with the government.

Third version. Fire in the hold

On September 20, 1987, French television told the world sensational news: the cause of the death of the Titanic, it turns out, was a fire that broke out in the hold of the ill-fated liner, and not a collision with an iceberg. Apparently, supporters of the new hypothesis assured, spontaneous combustion of coal occurred in one of the ship’s coal storages (well, this is indeed possible), the fire spread throughout the hold, reached the steam boilers, which exploded, causing the ship to go to the bottom. As for the iceberg, it just happened to be nearby, so it was blamed for the crash of the liner. One of the Titanic's watertight bulkheads

Yes, indeed, there was a fire on the Titanic - and this is no longer speculation, but an established fact. However, could it have caused the disaster? Oh, that's unlikely. How do you imagine a fire in a coal bunker? A roaring flame casting ominous crimson reflections on the metal cladding of the walls, bare-chested sailors rushing about, someone pumping a pump, and a stream of water disappearing into a raging wall of fire? I must disappoint you - in fact, everything is much more prosaic. In general, a fire in a coal bunker on ships of that time was a fairly common thing. In such a fire, coal does not glow, does not burn, but quietly and peacefully smolders, sometimes for several days. They fought such fires in the simplest way - they burned smoldering coal out of turn in steamship fireboxes. So a fire in a coal hold is, of course, an unpleasant phenomenon, but, as a rule, it does not promise any serious troubles for the ship. And certainly not, under any circumstances, capable of causing such monstrous destruction as is attributed to it by supporters of the version of the Titanic’s death from flames. Moreover, the fire on the ship was extinguished even before its last voyage. The bunker was emptied and inspected by specialists from the shipyard where the Titanic was docked. It seems that the most serious consequence of the fire was a slight deformation of one of the watertight bulkheads, which could not in any way affect the fate of the liner.

Did you know that...

The Titanic is one of the first, if not the first ship in history to send an SOS signal.

In the early twentieth century, the letters "CQD" - short for "Come Quick, Danger" - were adopted as a distress signal. But this signal was inconvenient in that it was also used to warn on land about train accidents. In 1906, at the International Radiotelegraph Conference, it was proposed to introduce a special signal for maritime disasters. It was then that the letters known today throughout the world – SOS – were chosen. Contrary to popular belief, it is not an acronym for a phrase like “Save Our Souls.” These letters were chosen simply because their combination is very easy to recognize in ethereal Morse code: three dots, three dashes, three dots.

However, habit is second nature, and the CQD signal was still used in water accidents. The Titanic’s radio operator, twenty-five-year-old John Phillips, also sent it: “CQD, here are our coordinates: 41.46 north 50.14 west. We require immediate assistance. We're drowning. You can’t hear anything over the roar of the steam pipes.” He repeated this message for the next quarter of an hour, until his partner suggested sending a new distress signal on the air, cynically joking: “Dude, try knocking out the SOS signal - we won’t have such an opportunity again in our lives.” Phillips smiled sadly at the joke and at 00.45 on April 15, 1912, one of the first SOS signals in history was sent from the Titanic.

Fourth version. German torpedo

German submarine from World War I

1912 With the First World War two years away, the prospect of armed conflict between Germany and Great Britain is becoming increasingly likely. Germany owns several dozen submarines, which during the war will launch a merciless hunt for enemy ships trying to cross the ocean. For example, the reason for America’s entry into the war will be the fact that the U-20 submarine will sink the Lusitania in 1915, a twin of the same Mauritania that set the speed record and won the Atlantic Blue Ribbon - remember?

Based on these facts, some Western publications proposed their own version of the death of the Titanic in the mid-nineties: a torpedo attack by a German submarine secretly accompanying the liner. The purpose of the attack was to discredit the British fleet, famous for its power throughout the world. In accordance with this theory, the Titanic either did not collide with the iceberg at all, or received very minor damage in the collision and would have remained afloat if the Germans had not finished off the ship with a torpedo.

What speaks in favor of this version? Honestly, nothing.

Firstly, there was a collision with an iceberg - this is beyond doubt. The deck of the ship was even covered with snow and ice chips. Cheerful passengers started playing football with ice cubes - it would become clear later that the ship was doomed. The collision itself was surprisingly quiet - almost none of the passengers felt it. The torpedo, you must admit, could hardly have exploded completely silently (especially since some claim that the submarine fired as many as six torpedoes at the ship!). Supporters of the theory of the German attack claim, however, that people in the boats heard a terrible roar just before the Titanic sank - well, this was two and a half hours later, when only the stern raised into the sky remained above the water and the death of the ship did not raise any doubts. It’s unlikely that the Germans would have fired a torpedo at an almost sunken ship, would it? And the roar that the survivors heard was explained by the fact that the stern of the Titanic rose almost vertically and huge steam boilers fell from their places. Also, do not forget that at about the same minutes the Titanic broke in half - the keel could not withstand the weight of the rising stern (however, they will learn about this only after the liner is discovered at the bottom: the break occurred below the water level), and this, too, is unlikely to have happened silently . And why would the Germans suddenly start sinking a passenger liner two years before the start of the war? This seems dubious, to put it mildly. And to put it bluntly, it’s absurd.

Did you know that...

Before filming Titanic, director James Cameron worked closely with the crew of the Russian scientific vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh and personally made twelve dives with a film camera to the remains of the ship on the Mir-1 and Mir-2 bathyscaphes - they can be seen in the documentaries fragments of the film. During each dive, Cameron could only film for fifteen minutes due to the fact that only so much film could fit in the camera.

Five years later, the bathyscaphes Mir-1 and Mir-2 will be used to dive to the sunken Kursk submarine.

Fifth version. Curse of the Egyptian Mummy

The very first horror movie about a mummy

Yes, yes, imagine, there is such a version! I specifically saved it for the end.

So, in the eighties of the nineteenth century, a perfectly preserved mummy from the time of Amenhotep IV was discovered near Cairo, named either Amen-Otu, or Amen-Ra, or Amennophis (lovers of mysticism, as you know, do not bother with such trifles. Mummy, and mummy). During her life, the mummy worked as a famous soothsayer, and therefore after death she was awarded a magnificent burial: with jewelry, figurines of gods, and, of course, magic amulets. Among them was an image of Osiris, decorated with the inscription: “Wake up from your swoon, and your gaze will crush everyone who stands in your way.” Others, however, insisted that it was written “Rise from the dust, and one look from your eyes will triumph over any intrigues against you,” but what difference does it really make? When still others timidly suggested that nothing of the kind was written on the mummy, it was certainly clear that this was nonsense.

The mummy was acquired by one collector, then another, a third, and all the previous owners, of course, died under the most mysterious and mysterious circumstances. That is, perhaps, in fact, each of them lived to be ninety-nine years old and rested in the arms of a young beauty, but who will check this? Owners of mummies, as everyone knows, are supposed to die, preferably a capital death.

Ticket to the Titanic

Finally, our mummy was purchased from a British museum by an American millionaire and sent to his American residence on board a ship. Well, guess which airliner was chosen for this purpose?

The sarcophagus along the way was an ordinary box, either glass or wood (not tin, at least for sure), and it was kept right next to the captain's bridge. Mystics of all stripes enthusiastically claim that Captain Edward Smith, of course, could not resist the temptation and looked into this box with the mummy: their eyes met and... no, they did not fall in love with each other; quite the opposite: a monstrous curse came true. Otherwise, judge for yourself, how to explain that the captain’s head went dark, and with his own intrepid hand he directed the Titanic straight to certain death?

And, in fact, why is it believed that the captain’s head went blank, and with his own hand he directed the Titanic to certain death? Well, how could he not get confused in his head if he met the eyes of the mummy? As you can see, there is nothing to object to.

It's a shame that the mummy died a thousand years before Aristotle was born, so she had trouble with logic. Otherwise, she would have realized that the immediate consequence of the ship ramming the iceberg would be the death of her mummy’s precious body - it would hardly survive in ocean water for more than a few days. And the destruction of the body is the worst thing that can happen to a mummy: its soul will have nowhere to return. So if the mummy really had magical powers, it would be in her interests to protect the Titanic as the apple of her magical eye. Or maybe she also bought into the advertising rhetoric about an unsinkable ship and did not pay attention to the dangerous icebergs?

Be that as it may, the mummy died in the ocean depths, disappeared without a trace, and cannot stand up for its honest name; The yellow press shamelessly takes advantage of this, regularly publishing accusations against her under monotonous headlines: “Sensation! The Titanic was destroyed by the curse of the pharaohs! Let's leave this to the conscience of journalists.

The mummy, by the way, was not the only historical relic that died on board the Titanic. For art, much more tragic is the death in the Atlantic Ocean of the original manuscript of Omar Khayyam “Rubaiyat” - a relic that truly had no price.

Did you know that...

Immediately after the sinking of the Titanic, various projects for raising the ship to the surface began to be proposed. One of them was a proposal to fill the hull of the liner with ping pong balls.

Oh yes, there is another version

She's all in the picture, and there's nothing more to say about her:

Ex-Gigantik. What will you name the ship... Did you know that...

The Titanic had not only an older brother (Olympic), but also a younger brother, Gigantic. At the time of the death of the middle brother in the abyss of the Atlantic, the youngest was still just building on the ropes. To prevent a similar tragedy from happening to it again, modifications began to be made to its design while it was moving - for example, the number of lifeboats was increased (you can see them in the photo - on the upper deck, one above the other). And the most unexpected of the security measures taken was - what did you think? Changing the name of the vessel. Recalling from ancient Greek myths that the fate of both titans and giants was very deplorable, the owners of the ship decided not to step on the same rake again and abandoned the name “Gigantic”. What the hell is not joking about, really?

The new ship was named patriotically: Britannic. Typically, this did not help: in World War I, the youngest of the ships was sunk by a German submarine.

But what was it really like?

Sadly, when studying the history of the most famous maritime disaster, we have to admit that the Titanic owes its death to a long chain of fatal accidents. If at least one link of the ominous chain had been destroyed, the tragedy could have been avoided.

Perhaps the first link was the successful start of the journey - yes, that’s right. On the morning of April 10, during the departure of the Titanic from the quay wall of the port of Southampton, the superliner passed too close to the American ship New York, and a phenomenon known in navigation as ship suction arose: the New York began to be attracted to the one moving nearby. "Titanic". However, thanks to the skill of Captain Edward Smith, a collision was avoided. Ironically, if the accident had happened, it would have saved one and a half thousand lives: if the Titanic had been delayed in port, the ill-fated encounter with the iceberg would not have happened. This time. Captain of the Titanic Edward Smith

It should also be mentioned that the radio operators who received the message from the Mesaba ship about the ice fields of icebergs did not transmit it to Edward Smith: the telegram was not marked with a special prefix “personally to the captain”, and was lost in a heap of papers. That's two.

However, this message was not the only one, and the captain knew about the ice danger. Why didn't he slow down the ship? Chasing the Blue Ribbon is, of course, a matter of honor (and, more importantly, big business), but why did he risk the lives of passengers? It wasn't that much of a risk, really. In those years, captains of ocean liners often passed through areas dangerous with ice without slowing down: it was like crossing the road at a red light: it seems like you shouldn’t do that, but it always works out. Almost always. To the credit of Captain Smith, it must be said that he remained faithful to maritime traditions and remained on the dying ship until the very end.

But why was the bulk of the iceberg not noticed? Here everything came together: a moonless, dark night, windless weather. If there were even small waves on the water surface, those looking ahead could see whitecaps at the foot of the iceberg. Calm and moonless night are two more links in the fatal chain.

As it turned out later, the chain was continued by the fact that the iceberg, shortly before the collision with the Titanic, turned over with its underwater, water-saturated, dark part upward, which is why it was practically invisible at night from afar (an ordinary, white iceberg would have been visible a mile away ). The watchman saw him only 450 meters away, and there was almost no time left for maneuver. Perhaps the iceberg would have been noticed earlier, but here another link in the fatal chain played a role - there were no binoculars in the “crow’s nest”. The box where they were kept was locked, and the key to it was hastily taken with him by the second mate, who had been removed from the ship just before departure. It is believed that this photo shows the same iceberg

After the lookout nevertheless saw the danger and reported the iceberg to the captain's bridge, there was a little more than half a minute left before the collision. Officer of the watch Murdoch, who was on watch, gave the order to the helmsman to turn left, while simultaneously transmitting the command “full astern” to the engine room. Thus, he made a grave mistake, adding another link in the chain that led the liner to death: even if the Titanic had crashed into an iceberg head-on, the tragedy would have been less. The bow of the ship would have been crushed, part of the crew and those passengers whose cabins were located in front would have died. But only two watertight compartments would have been flooded. With such damage, the liner would have remained afloat and could have waited for help from other ships.

And if Murdoch, having turned the ship to the left, had ordered an increase rather than a decrease in speed, the collision might not have happened at all. However, frankly speaking, the order to change the speed hardly plays a significant role here: in thirty seconds it was hardly executed in the engine room. Thomas Andrews

So, the collision happened. The iceberg damaged the ship's fragile hull along six starboard compartments.

It should be said that Thomas Andrews himself, a talented designer who built this liner, traveled on the Titanic. Of course, after the tragedy there were people who blamed him for the unsuccessful design of the ship. These reproaches are without any basis - Andrews actually built the most advanced ship of his time. It is to him that the survivors of the crash owe it to him that they had almost three hours to leave the ship and move to a safe distance.

After the accident, Captain Smith woke Mr. Andrews and invited him to inspect the hold in order to obtain an authoritative opinion on the fate of the ship. The designer's verdict was disappointing: it was impossible to save the Titanic. We urgently need to begin evacuating passengers.

And here we come to one of the most dramatic circumstances. There were 2,208 people on board the ship (fortunately, not the 3,500 it was designed for), but the boats had room for only 1,178 people. Looking ahead, let's say that only seven hundred and four managed to escape: the next link in the chain of failures was that some sailors took too literally the captain's order to put women and children in the boats, and did not allow men there, even if there were empty seats. However, at first no one was particularly eager to get into the boats. The passengers did not understand what was happening and did not want to leave the huge, comfortably lit, such a reliable liner, and it was unclear why they should go down in a small unstable boat down to the icy water. However, pretty soon anyone could notice that the deck was tilting forward more and more, and panic began. Boat deck. Walk for your health.

But why was there such a monstrous discrepancy between the places on the lifeboats? Initially, there were more boats - as many as thirty-five, but it was decided to abandon fifteen of them. Firstly, they “could cause a feeling of insecurity,” but most importantly, they interfered with first-class passengers walking along the deck, and this was quickly corrected: the Titanic’s motto was “comfort above all.” But how could a ship so poorly equipped with life-saving equipment be set sail? It's all about the outdated rules of the British Navigation Code, adopted back in 1894. In accordance with it, a ship of a certain size was assigned a certain number of boats. And since the displacement of the largest passenger ships of that time rarely exceeded 10,000 tons, all such giant ships were combined into a single category with instructions for them to have on board a number of boats sufficient to save 962 people. In 1894, they could not even imagine a ship like the Titanic - with a tonnage of as much as 52,310 tons!

The owners of the Titanic, praising the merits of the new ship, stated that they even exceeded the instructions of the code: instead of the required 962 life-saving seats on the ship, there were 1178. Unfortunately, they did not attach any importance to the discrepancy between this number and the number of passengers on board. Photo of the Titanic's radio operator, taken by a crooked photographer

It is especially sad that another passenger steamer, the Californian, stood very close to the sinking Titanic, waiting out the ice danger. A few hours ago, he notified neighboring ships that he was locked in ice and was forced to stop so as not to accidentally run into an ice block. The radio operator from the Titanic, who was almost deafened by the Morse code from the Californian (the ships were very close, and the signal of one echoed too loudly in the headphones of the other), impolitely interrupted the warning: “Go to hell, you are interfering with my work!” What was the radio operator of the Titanic so busy with? The fact is that in those years, radio communication on a ship was more of a luxury than an urgent necessity, and this miracle of technology aroused great interest among the wealthy public. From the very beginning of the voyage, the radio operators were literally inundated with private messages - and no one saw anything reprehensible in the fact that the Titanic’s radio operators paid such attention to rich passengers who wished to send a telegram to the ground directly from the liner. So at that moment, when colleagues from other ships reported about floating ice, the radio operator transmitted another message to the continent. Radio communication was more like an expensive toy than a serious tool: ships of that time did not even have a 24-hour watch at the radio station. So the radio operator from the Californian, having completed his assigned shift, went to bed in the evening and could not receive a desperate distress signal - SOS. If it had been possible to inform the Californian about the collision, it could have come to the rescue in less than an hour, but the Titanic sank for two and a half hours! They say that from the Californian they even saw signal flares sent by the sinking liner into the night sky, but did not attach any importance to it. Well, rockets, and rockets. The moneybags from the Titanic are probably celebrating something. Look, they set off fireworks for themselves...

But, fortunately for the passengers, several ships still responded to the distress signal. Among them was the Olympic, the twin of the Titanic, but it was too far away - a full five hundred miles. Apart from the Californian, the closest ship to the sinking ship was the Carpathia, less than sixty miles away. Having received an SOS signal, he changed his course and rushed to the rescue at top speed. At about two o'clock in the morning, the radio operator of the Carpathia received the last message from the liner in distress: “Go as quickly as possible, the engine room is flooded to the boilers.” There were no more radio signals from the superliner... Surviving passengers of the Titanic aboard the Carpathia

There were about seven hundred people in boats in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The agonizing hours of waiting for help dragged on. Some of the lifeboats searched for and picked up drowning people all night, while some, on the contrary, sailed away from the scene of the tragedy, fearing that the people overboard, trying to escape, might overturn the boat.

At four in the morning, four and a half hours after the Titanic collided with the ice mass, and two hours after its stern disappeared into the depths of the sea, the Carpathia approached the scene of the tragedy and began rescuing the survivors. At eight thirty the passengers of the last boat were on board. There were 704 people alive. Searching the water for the others was futile. At this water temperature, a life jacket does not save: a person dies from the cold in a few minutes.

At eight-fifty, the Carpathia, ironically owned by the same Cunard Line shipping company whose laurels the Titanic wanted to take for itself by winning the Blue Ribbon, heads for New York.

P.S.

And finally: a few photographs of the Titanic, the legendary ship. Each of them can be increased.

Before:

"Titanic" at the Harland and Wolfe shipyard before launching (colorized photograph) Titanic leaving Belfast (colorized photograph) Here you can see the “crow’s nest” for the lookout on the mast First class cabin First class cabin (colorized photo) Third class cabin (reconstruction) Cafe "Palm Yard" Café Parisien with ocean view (colorized photo) Gym on the Titanic The famous grand staircase with the clock (here DiCaprio waited for Kate Winslet on a date) Glass dome over the main staircase. Only first class passengers were allowed to admire this beauty.

You will find many more colored photographs of the Titanic on titanic-in-color.com

After:

3D model of the Titanic on the ocean floor The remains of the Titanic at the bottom Bow of the ship Fragment of ship hull Opened left side window Captain's helm Anchor Davit for launching rescue boats Once upon a time a man lay here Ceramic cup at the bottom The wooden china box is long gone, but the porcelain remains there There is still glass in the windows of Captain Smith's cabin. Captain Smith's bath with hot water, salt or fresh as desired

The sinking of the Titanic passenger liner, in which 1,517 of the 2,229 passengers and crew died (official figures vary slightly), was one of the worst peacetime maritime disasters. The 712 surviving passengers of the Titanic were picked up by the rescue ship Carpathia.

Few disasters have caused such a resonance and had such a strong impact on public consciousness. The disaster changed attitudes towards social injustice, influenced the rules of passenger transport in the Atlantic Ocean, contributed to stricter requirements for the presence of a sufficient number of lifeboats on board passenger ships and led to the creation of the International Ice Service.

April 14, 2016 marks 104 years since the disaster of the Titanic, which became one of the most famous ships in history. Many books and films, exhibitions and memorials are devoted to the theme of the Titanic sinking.

The British passenger liner Titanic sets sail from Southampton, England on her first and last voyage on April 10, 1912. Before heading to New York, the Titanic stopped at Cherbourg (France) and Queenstown (Ireland). Four days later, on April 14, 1912, at 23:40 local time, the liner collided with an iceberg 603 kilometers south of Newfoundland.

At 2:20 am, the Titanic broke into two parts and sank. At that time there were about a thousand people on board. People who found themselves in the icy water soon died from hypothermia. (Frank O. Brainard Collection)

The passenger liner Titanic departs on her first and last voyage to New York from Queenstown, Ireland, 1912. On board the liner were the richest people of that time: millionaires John Jacob Astor IV, Benjamin Guggenheim and Isidore Strauss, as well as more than a thousand emigrants from Ireland, Scandinavia and other countries who were going to start a new life in America.

The disaster shocked the whole world. The investigation into the cause of the Titanic's sinking, which began a few days after the disaster, contributed to significant improvements in the safety of navigation. (United Press International)

Workers leave the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, where the Titanic was built between 1909 and 1911. At the time of its launch, the Titanic was the largest passenger liner in the world. In this 1911 photo, the Titanic is in the background.

Dining room on the Titanic, 1912. The liner was designed and built with the latest technology and served as the embodiment of luxury and comfort. On board there was a gym, a swimming pool, libraries, high-end restaurants and luxurious cabins.

Second class room on board the Titanic, 1912. More than 90% of the second class passengers were men, who remained on board the sinking liner, as women and children were the first to board the lifeboats.

The Titanic sails from Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912. Some experts believe that the cause of the Titanic disaster was the poor quality of the hull rivets that were used in the construction of the liner.

Captain of the Titanic, Edward John Smith, captained the largest liner of his time. The length of the Titanic was 269.1 meters, width - 28.19 meters, displacement - more than 52 thousand tons.

The height of the liner from the keel to the top of the chimneys was 53.3 meters, 10.5 of which were below the waterline. The Titanic was taller than most city buildings at the time.

An undated photograph of Titanic's first mate William McMaster Murdoch, who is revered as a hero in his homeland of Dalbeattie, Scotland. However, in the film Titanic, which received many Oscar awards, Murdoch's character is portrayed as a coward and a murderer.

At a ceremony marking the 86th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, 20th Century Fox executive vice president Scott Neeson presented a check for $8,000 to Dalbeattie School to apologize to the officer's relatives.

Presumably, the iceberg that the Titanic passenger liner collided with on April 14, 1912. The photograph was taken from the cable-laying vessel Mackay Bennett, captained by Captain Descarteret.

The Mackay Bennett was one of the first to arrive at the site of the Titanic disaster. According to Captain DeCarteret, it was the only iceberg near the site of the ocean liner wreck.

Passengers and some crew members were evacuated in lifeboats, many of which sailed only partially full. This photograph of lifeboats approaching the Carpathia was taken by Carpathia passenger Louis M. Ogden.

The photograph was featured in an exhibition of documents related to the Titanic disaster that Walter Lord bequeathed to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England.

The rescue ship Carpathia picked up the 712 surviving passengers of the Titanic. A photograph taken by Carpathia passenger Louis M. Ogden shows lifeboats approaching the Carpathia.

This photograph was also exhibited in an exhibition of documents that Walter Lord bequeathed to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich.

Although the Titanic had advanced safety measures such as watertight compartments and remote-controlled watertight doors, the ship did not have enough lifeboats for all passengers.

There were only enough boats for 1,178 people - only a third of all passengers and crew. In this photo you see the rescue of passengers from the Titanic.

Reporters interview passengers of the sunken Titanic who disembarked from the rescue ship Carpathia on May 17, 1912.

Seven-year-old Eva Hart with her father Benjamin and mother Esther, 1912. Eve and her mother escaped the sinking Titanic, but her father died when the British liner sank on the night of April 15, 1912.

People stand on the street waiting for the arrival of the Carpathia ship.

A huge crowd of people gathered outside the offices of the White Star Line on Broadway in New York to hear the latest news about the sinking of the Titanic on April 14, 1912.

People read reports outside the offices of The Sun newspaper in New York after the sinking of the Titanic.

Two messages sent from America to Lloyds of London insurers in London erroneously claimed that other ships, including the Virginia, were nearby providing assistance during the Titanic disaster.

These lots will be auctioned at Christie's in London in May 2012.

Titanic survivors Laura Francatelli and her employers Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon and Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon stand aboard the rescue ship Carpathia. Francatelli said she heard a terrible crash and then cries for help as her boat sailed away from the sinking ocean liner Titanic on that tragic night in 1912.

The passenger liner Titanic shortly before departure on its first and last voyage, 1912.

The photo, released by Henry Aldridge & Son/Ho auction house in Wiltshire, UK, on ​​April 18, 2008, shows an extremely rare artifact - a passenger ticket for the Titanic.

An item bequeathed to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England by Walter Lord is a Marconi telegram. Miss Edith Russell (journalist and Titanic survivor) wrote in Women's Wear Daily: "Saved on the Carpathia, tell mother." "Carpathia", April 18, 1912.

Lunch menu from the restaurant on board the Titanic, signed by the surviving passengers. Walter Lord bequeathed this document to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England.

The bow of the sunken Titanic, 1999.

One of the propellers of the Titanic passenger liner. The photo was taken during an expedition to the shipwreck on September 12, 2008. Five thousand artifacts will be sold at auction on April 11, 2012, almost 100 years after the Titanic disaster.

The starboard side of the Titanic's bow. This image was released by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on August 28, 2010.

Part of the Titanic's side, chains and an additional anchor buoy. Dr Robert Bollard, who discovered the wreck of the Titanic almost 20 years ago, returned to the site of the tragedy to look at the damage caused to the ship and its treasure by looters and seekers of easy enrichment.

The huge propeller of the sunken Titanic lies at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. The photo is undated. The first tourists to visit the shipwreck in September 1998 saw the propeller and other parts of the famous liner.

This 17-ton fragment of the Titanic's hull was recovered during an expedition to the shipwreck in 1998.

A 17-ton fragment of the Titanic passenger liner, which was recovered from the ocean floor during an expedition to the shipwreck, July 22, 2009. On April 11, 2012, this exhibit will be sold at auction along with 5 thousand other artifacts.

A gold Waltham American pocket watch, a personal item of Karl Asplund's, is seen in front of a painting of the Titanic by C.J. Ashford. The watch was found on the body of Karl Asplund, who sank with the Titanic.

Money from the Titanic. The owner of one of the richest collections of things found on the Titanic put it up for auction in 2012, the year of the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the famous liner.

Photographs of Felix Asplund, Selma and Karl Asplund and Lillian Asplund in Devizes, Wiltshire, England. These photos are part of Lillian Asplund's collection of Titanic-related items.

Lillian was 5 years old in April 1912 when the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage. The girl survived, but her father and three siblings were among the 1,514 people who died.

Artifacts found at the Titanic wreck are on display at the TITANIC The Artifact Exhibit at the California Science Center: binoculars, a comb, dishes and a cracked incandescent light bulb. February 6, 2003.

Glasses found among the wreckage of the Titanic. The full collection of artifacts found at the Titanic wreck site will be auctioned in April 2012 - 100 years after the tragedy.

Golden spoon from the Titanic.

The chronometer from the captain's bridge of the Titanic is on display at the Science Museum in London. It is one of more than 200 objects recovered from the ocean floor where the Titanic sank.
Visitors to the exhibition at the museum can go through the entire history of the famous liner in chronological order - from the drawings for its construction to the moment of its destruction after a collision with an iceberg.

The Titanic's speed measuring instrument and Gimbal lamp are among the artifacts on display at the museum in New York.

Objects from the sunken Titanic on display at the New York Museum.

A cup and pocket watch are among many items found on the Titanic, as well as a White Star Line flag button and a small porthole.

These spoons from the Titanic are part of an exhibit at the South Norwalk, Connecticut Museum.

The gold-plated handbag is one of the items from the Titanic.

The April 2012 issue of National Geographic magazine and its online version for iPad, where you can see new photos from the sunken liner, which still rests on the ocean floor at a depth of 3,784 m. Few disasters have affected society as much, and for so long, as sinking of the Titanic.

The Titanic's stern, with two propellers sticking out of the mud and sand, rests on the ocean floor 600 meters south of the ship's bow.

The first complete image of the legendary wreckage. The photo mosaic consists of 1,500 high-resolution images taken using sonar research.

The starboard side of the ship. The bow of the Titanic was the first to sink to the bottom of the ocean, so that its front part was buried in the sand, forever closing the mortal wounds left by the iceberg.

The mutilated stern in profile.

The stern of the Titanic, top view. This interweaving of metal is a mystery to scientists. As one of them said: “If you decipher this, you will love Picasso.”

Two Titanic engines are visible through a crack in the stern. These huge structures, covered in rust, once powered the largest liner in the world at the time.

The ship sank in 2 hours 40 minutes. At the time of the disaster, there were 1,316 passengers and 891 crew members on board, for a total of 2,207 people. Of these, 705 people were saved, 1,502 died. The sinking of the Titanic caused widespread public outcry, becoming the largest maritime disaster of its time in terms of the number of victims. Currently, it is one of the five largest peacetime maritime disaster victims of all time.

April 14, 1912

23:00 The Californian warns of the presence of ice, but the Titanic's radio operator Jack Phillips interrupts radio communication before the Californian can report the coordinates of the area.

23:39 From the crow's nest on the Titanic's mast, lookout Frederick Fleet notices an iceberg just ¼ mile (663 meters) ahead of the ship. Flit immediately rings the bell three times and shouts into the phone: “The iceberg is straight ahead!” First Officer William Murdoch immediately gives the commands “Right to board!” (in the original “Hard a” starboard” - according to the command system used at that time, it corresponded to moving the tiller to the right; the rudder and therefore the bow of the ship turned to the left) and “Stop!”, and then “Full back!”, counting go around the iceberg on the left.

The Titanic does not have time to complete the maneuver and crashes into the underwater part of the iceberg with a glancing blow. At a depth of one to six meters below the waterline, the iceberg damages the hull of the liner for about 90 meters. As studies of the remains of the ship resting at the bottom have shown, the Titanic received several narrow but long holes.

The hull of the Titanic stood at an angle of 19 degrees and sank into the water up to the third chimney. The second chimney broke off underwater. Everyone who did not manage to catch on to the davit ropes or deck superstructures rolled into the water, knocked down by the chairs and sun loungers that flew down. Some did not try to climb back to the stern, but jumped down themselves.

The stern of the Titanic already rose 60 meters above the water, and passengers fell from the decks into the water.

The last SOS signal from the Titanic was recorded. On the Titanic, electrical equipment fails and the lights go out.

At an angle of 23 degrees, the ship's hull began to break between the second and third pipes. After the stern finally broke off, the third and fourth pipes fell into the water.

2 hours and 40 minutes after the collision with the iceberg, the stern of the Titanic stood almost vertically (at an angle of 70 degrees), tilted to the left side and began to quickly go under water. The last of those remaining on deck, seeing that there was no chance of salvation, jumped down themselves. Ocean waters broke through into the quickly sinking ship, breaking doors and bulkheads with their pressure. Just half a minute later, the water had already closed over the Titanic’s stern flagpole.

Victims of the collapsible lifeboat "D"

At a speed of about 13 miles per hour, the bow of the Titanic crashes into the ocean floor at a depth of 3,750 meters, burrowing into the sedimentary rocks of the bottom [ unreputable source?] .

The stern of the Titanic sinks to the ocean floor, rotating in a spiral, at a speed of about 4 miles per hour.

After the sinking of the Titanic, only one lifeboat returned to the sinking site to rescue survivors. Lifeboat 4 did not return, but was close and picked up 8 crew members, two of whom later died. Lifeboat 14 rescued 4 people, one of whom, William Haught, later died.

“Carpathia” gets to the scene of the disaster and picks up boat number 2.

Notes

Literature

• Captain L. Marmaduke Collins. THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC. An Ice-Pilot's Perspective. - Breakwater Books, Limited, 2002. - 198 p. - ISBN 1-55081-173-8 Text for reference
• Jay Henry Mowbray. The Sinking of the Titanic: Eyewitness Accounts. - Dover Pubns, 1998. - ISBN 0-486-40298-3 Text for reference
• Robert Gannon. What Really Sank the Titanic? - Popular Science, vol. 246, no. 2 (February 1995). - P. 49-55, 83-84.(One of the chronology options)

Links

Titanic (April 15, 1912)

The English liner sank 2 hours 20 minutes after hitting the iceberg. 1522 people died, 705 people were saved. The most famous disaster of the 20th century.

Summer evening 1907 Bruce Ismay , Executive Director " White Star", and his wife Florence dined at the Lord's London residence James Pirrie , partner of the Belfast shipbuilding firm " Garland and Wolf", which built all the ships for " White Star" New liner " Lusitania", owned by competitors from the company " Cunard line" was on the lips of the whole city. Before its maiden voyage, it was expected that the speed record for crossing Atlantic and this fact will consolidate leadership " Kunarl line"in the superliner race. Ships " White star"did not compare with" Lysitania».

Pirri And Icemay developed a plan that would " White Star» win the championship. They decided that they would not enter into a speed competition, but would build a pair of floating palaces, the likes of which the world had never seen. A week after that historic dinner, an army of engineers and mechanics began creating drawings and specifications, from massive, four-tier-tall engines to first-class dining room seating.

In December 1908, the first keel plate was laid into the foundation of vessel No. 400, later named " Olympic" Vessel No. 401, named " Titanic", was laid down on March 31, 1909.

Day May 31, 1911 Belfast came out bright and clean. A southerly breeze wrinkled the surface of Belfast Lough and ruffled the flags on the cranes. More than 100 thousand onlookers wanted to see the launch of vessel No. 401. According to the tradition of companies " White star" And " Garland and Wolf“There was no prayer service for the glory of the newborn.

At 12.05 two missiles were launched, at 12.10 - a third. At 12.13 the hull of 26,000 tons slid down the guides, pulled by its own weight. " Titanic"developed a speed of 12 knots (about 22 km/h) before six anchors and two thick anchor chains, each weighing 80 tons, stopped it. The entire process took 62 seconds. Tugboats then brought her to the bay, where she was to be equipped with equipment and passenger cabins for ten months.

After the vessel was launched, work began on the construction of passenger seats, installation of engineering equipment and navigation systems. Everything that has been done before can be compared to building the foundation of a building. Now carpenters, electricians, steam engine adjusters, carpet installers and metalworkers had a wide range of work to do.

It was truly a unique structure. Its gross tonnage is 46,328 tons, length - 270 meters, width - 28, height from the waterline to the boat deck - 18.5 meters, height from the keel to the end of the pipes - 53 meters. In fact, it is an eleven-story building in height! Engines: 2 piston, 4 cylinder, 30 thousand horsepower; one Parson low-pressure turbine with a capacity of 18 thousand horsepower. The maximum speed is 21-23 knots (approximately 37-41.4 meters per second). Twenty lifeboats were designed for 1,178 people.

Specifications « Titanic"very much like the specifications" Olympic" Some changes were made that resulted in 1000 tons of weight and more luxury. One of them was the installation of additional protection around the promenade deck. In addition, passengers Olympic» complained of salty seawater spraying from the bow of the ship while sailing through the North Atlantic seas. These changes became the most visible difference between the two courts.

Finally, on February 3, 1912, " Titanic"was put into dry dock, where it was equipped with three propellers, and the interior was given the final shine. A huge chandelier arrived and was hung in the main saloon. Kitchen utensils and porcelain were placed in appropriate storage. A wireless communications system was installed and tested capable of transmitting messages over a distance of 500 miles ( about 310 kilometers). Maps and navigation equipment were sent to the captain's bridge. All the little things necessary for the operation of a large ocean liner and a large hotel arrived on board, were installed, checked, placed in storage and recorded. The construction of the great ship is almost finished.

From April 2 " Titanic"began to sail the seas. Passing deeper into the bay and leaving the tugs behind, he made several quick raids to check the engines.

The ship was set on a direct course at a speed of 20.5 knots. The steering wheel was sharply turned 360 degrees. Leaning slightly, " Titanic" turned around, describing a circle with a diameter of 3850 feet ( more than one kilometer). No one could have imagined that the ship would repeat this maneuver in less than two weeks, but under tragic circumstances.

After completing the test and receiving approval from the Chamber of Commerce, " White star line"was declared the rightful owner of the royal mail steamer" Titanic", the largest and most luxurious object ever created by human hands.

Saturday, April 6. Port Southampton, county Hampshire, south England. Hiring day for most of the crew. The bulk of the cargo has arrived. The entire cargo weighed 560 tons and consisted of 11,524 individual items.

Halls of the company office " White Star line“Were completely packed with people. Hundreds of sailors Southampton, unemployed as a result of the miners' strike that had just passed, crowded around in anticipation of a lucky break, although they were no doubt anxious about the impending maiden voyage. Many were from the very Southampton, but some of the sailors came from Liverpool, London And Belfast.

Applications from those arriving from the continent were not accepted, since at the insistence of the ship's captain Edward J. Smith it was necessary to form real British crew for a real British ship" By the end of the day, most of the crew had been hired.

The main cargo was supplemented by 5,800 tons of coal from a nearby coal pier. Crazy deal! It took 24 hours to load such a large liner with enough coal, after which the ship's storekeeper carefully sealed the coal storage with glued canvas soaked in red paint. By the end of this grueling day, all passages, decks, staircases and passenger spaces were thoroughly cleared of the pervasive coal dust.

The water surface was clear and all work was done on board " Titanic” paused that Easter Sunday. No smoke or steam was visible from its pipes. The sounds of the ship's bell echoed across the bay, marking the last hours of the stay, and the blue English jack fluttered on the flagpole. " Titanic" remained moored to Pier No. 44, which was specially deepened forty feet for such giants as " Titanic" And " Olympic».

Fresh food products brought to the port by train were loaded on board the ship. About 34 tons of fresh meat and about 5 tons of fish were placed in huge refrigerators and storage facilities located on deck " G».

There was very little time left before departure. All final preparations were carried out under the supervision of the vessel designer Thomas Andrew . That evening Andrew remained on board until half past seven, and then returned to the office." Garland and Wolf" to write letters and resolve business issues.

Food and goods continued to be loaded on board. Captain Clark , an observer from the Chamber of Commerce, was on board until late in the evening, checking every nook and cranny of the ship. Second Mate Charles Lightholler at Senate hearings on the cause of death " Titanic"said about Clarke : « He completed his task and I repeat with confidence that he did it thoroughly" Captain Smith , commander " Titanic", conducted his own inspection. All officers except Smith , spent the night on board.

Captain Smith climbed aboard " Titanic"at 7.30 am and received from the first mate Henry Wilde report. The sound of a siren Titanic"notified for miles around that the day of his departure had arrived. Between 9.30 and 11.30 am, three sea trams carrying first, second and third class passengers approached the ship.

Exactly at noon" Titanic" gave up, the boats towed it from the pier, and the giant colossus began its movement along the 24-mile English Channel in the direction France.

At 5.30 pm " Titanic"appeared in the port of a French city Cherbourg. Passengers loaded onto tenders ahead of time and waited for departure to " Titanic" In the evening at 8.30 the anchor was raised, and “ Titanic"with the illumination lit, headed for Ireland around the south coast of England.

Passengers were exploring the huge liner. Thomas Andrew and the warranty group from the shipyard " Harland & Wolff"helped the engineers" Titanic» maintain the necessary systems. A general alarm was rehearsed, and the volume of the emergency bells was significantly reduced by watertight doors.

At 11.30 am " Titanic» dropped anchor in the bay queenstown at a distance of two miles from the shore and prepared to take on board new passengers and mail. At 1.30 pm the main anchor was raised for the last time, and " Titanic"left on his first transatlantic voyage to the shores America. Captain Smith received a report that there were 2,227 passengers and crew members on board.

By mid-afternoon" Titanic" was somewhere in the middle Atlantic, traveling at a speed of 21 knots. From 11 to 12 April he covered a distance of 386 miles in calm, calm and clear weather. With each new day of travel, the general admiration for the vessel grew - its behavior during maneuvers, the complete absence of vibration, and its stability as speed increased. Henry Wild noted that the air was very cold, cold enough to prevent writing or reading on deck, so many spent most of their time in the library.

During the day " Titanic“received many radio congratulations and wishes for a safe journey, including a congratulation from the British Queen. In almost every radiogram received from ships in the waters Atlantic, warned of massive blocks of ice, which was quite unusual for April. Late evening radio" Titanic" has been temporarily disabled to allow Phillips And Bride carry out preventative maintenance on the devices in the very early morning hours.

The ship found itself surrounded by ice that appeared throughout the North Atlantic Sea Route. From Friday noon to Saturday noon " Titanic» covered 519 miles.

At 10.30 am captain Smith began the day's inspection of the vessel. Deep below, in the fireplaces, " black shifts", naked to the waist, continued to satisfy the appetites of the forges in the hot air filled with coal dust. In this terrible stuffiness it was difficult to imagine that it was almost freezing above.

Beautiful weather, smooth water surface and moderate south-east wind created a wonderful mood. Many passengers walked slowly along the boat deck.

Still early in the morning " Titanic"received a radiogram from " Caronia", warning about ice floes ahead, and then - from the Danish liner " Nordam", notifying about " huge accumulation of ice" Just after noon" Baltika" reported a large number of ice fields ahead of " Titanic» at a distance of 250 miles. All these radiograms Smith passed on Ismeyu . After some time, the German ship " America" warned about " big iceberg", but this message was not sent to the captain's bridge.

Around 6.30 pm Smith turned the ship slightly southwest from its usual direction, probably wanting to get around the ice, about which so many ships had been warned. However, no order was given to reduce speed. Moreover, the speed of the ship increased and increased.

At 7.30 pm three more warning messages were received from " California"about large icebergs ahead. According to them, the ice floes were no more than 50 miles away. Radiograms received that day indicated the presence of a huge ice field 78 miles long directly ahead of " Titanic" Having refused dinner, Smith went up to the captain's bridge, where he exchanged views about the unusually clear and good weather with the second mate Lightholler .

Around 9.20 pm Smith went to bed, giving the usual order to wake him, " if something bad happens" Then Lightholler warned that lookouts should carefully watch the ice floes until the morning.

At 10.00 pm Lightholler replaced by the first officer Murdosh .

At 10.55 at night at a distance of 10-19 miles from " Titanic"ship" California" was stopped by ice and sent warnings to all ships in the area. Bride interrupted " California" the now famous answer: " Stop it! Shut up! You're jamming my signal. I'm on the Cape Race frequency", and the radio operator " California"turned off my device for the night. ( Cape Race is a city in the south of Newfoundland.) By this time, fire was maintained in 24 of the 29 boiler rooms, and “ Titanic"was traveling at a speed of 22 knots, the highest he had ever achieved.

At 11.30 lookouts Fleet And Lee noticed a slight haze straight ahead.

At 11.40 at night Fleet spotted a large iceberg ahead and sent an urgent message to the bridge. Sixth Mate Moody received the signal and sent a message Murdoshu , who instinctively commanded: “ Stop the car!", telegraphed a command to the engine compartment to stop all engines, and then - " Full back!» He also ordered all watertight doors to be closed. " Titanic" began to slowly turn around, but the underwater part of the iceberg floating past was already scratching and hitting the starboard side of the ship, completely exposing the five forward bulkheads to sea water.

At 11.55 at night, 15 minutes after the collision, the mail on deck was completely flooded." G", as well as a coal bunker in the engine room. After a quick inspection of the damage done Wild , Boxhall And Andrews , Smith I realized that the worst had happened. The worst. " Titanic was sinking and more than 2,200 people on board were in mortal danger. With a heavy heart Smith personally identified the location " Titanic"and transmitted the coordinates to the fourth assistant Boxhall to the radio room. Transferred Phillips the package contained an order to send distress signals. Phillips the distress signal sounded.

Monday, April 15th. Shortly after midnight, the squash court, 32 feet above the keel, was flooded. Most of the boiler rooms were not working, and huge clouds of steam were escaping from the freed pipes. Smith ordered the lifeboats to be uncovered and passengers and crew members placed on them. There was enough space for 1,178 people, and that was only on condition that each of the boats was completely filled. And there were 2227 people on board.

Between 00.10 and 1.50 a.m., several members of the ship's crew " California“We saw something similar to the lights of a steamship. The missiles were also visible, but were not taken into account. Many ships heard the distress signal " Titanic"and many of them rushed to help, including the liner" Carpathia"under the command of Rostron, located 58 miles southeast of " Titanic».

At 00.15 Willas Hartley and his band began to play upbeat ragtime in the first class salon on deck." A" They played until the very end. All the orchestra members died.

At 00.25 Smith ordered that women and children be put into lifeboats.

By 00.45 lifeboat No. 7 on the starboard side was launched with 28 people on board instead of the possible 65. At the same time, the quartermaster George Rowe at the direction Boxhall The first signal flare was launched. It rose 800 feet and disintegrated into twelve brilliant white stars. Suddenly right on course Boxhall saw an approaching ship, which after a few minutes disappeared from sight, despite attempts to contact it with a lamp Morse.

At 1.15 the water rose to the inscription “ Titanic"on board, and the ship gave a sharp list to the left side. By this time, 7 boats had been launched into the water with even fewer passengers in each. As the deck became steeper, the number of passengers on the boats increased. Boat No. 9 with 56 people on board was lowered from the starboard side.

At 1.30 the panic began. In boat No. 14, 60 people were lowered on the port side, including the fifth mate Leva . Levu I had to fire five warning shots towards the ship, right at the maddened crowd, to stop the uncontrollable people who were ready to jump into the almost full boat.

Radiograms sent Phillips , reported that " the ship is sinking quickly" And " can't hold out much longer...» Perfume tycoon Ben Geigenheim and his servant Victor Gilio returned to their cabins and changed into evening clothes. They returned to the deck with the words: “ We put on our best suits and prepared to die like true gentlemen.».

By 1.40 most of the bow boats had sailed, and the remaining passengers on board began to move towards the stern. J. Bruce Ismay left the ship last on an inflatable boat lowered from the starboard side with 39 passengers. The bow deck of the ship was already under water.

At 2:00 the ocean surface was only 10 feet away from the promenade deck ( 3 meters). Around this time Hartley chose the last song for his orchestra - “ Near, My God, to Three" He always said that this was the hymn he would choose for his funeral. When there are more than 1,500 passengers left on board and only 47 seats on the inflatable boat " D», Lightholler gave the order to the crew to load their weapons and surround the boat, allowing only women and children into it.

The sea was walking on the bow of the deck." A" Roll " Titanic"became increasingly stronger. At that time Smith went down to the radio room and freed Phillips And Bride , informing them that " they have already fulfilled their duties" On the way back to the captain's bridge Smith told several crew members: " Now it's every man for himself" His last thoughts were most likely about his beloved wife Eleanor and little daughter Elena .

As soon as all the boats departed, an amazing calm reigned on the " Titanic" The excitement and stampede ended, and the hundreds who remained stood quietly on the upper decks. They seemed to be crowded into the middle, trying to stay as far away from the railings as possible. The propeller began to emerge from the water, and the passengers moved closer and closer to the stern.

At about 2.17 the hull began to rapidly plunge into the abyss, while hundreds of second and third class passengers, gathered at the end of the stern of the boat deck, listened to their father’s prayers Thomas Bull.

At 2.18 a crash was heard: all the loose objects were inside " Titanic" began to fall towards the plunging bow. The light flickered and went out, leaving the ship a visible silhouette in the starry sky. Many claimed that the ship's hull broke in two between the third and fourth funnels. The ship stood almost perpendicular and remained motionless for several minutes.

At 2.20 it tipped back a little and began to sink into the arms of the northern Atlantic to a depth of 13 thousand feet. Almost immediately the night was pierced by the screams of the dying, gradually becoming more desperate, until, according to Lightoller , they didn't turn into " long drawn out howl" This howl continued for some time until everyone died of hypothermia or drowned. " Heart-stopping, unforgettable sounds"made an indelible impression on Lightoller who heard them from the inflatable dinghy" A" He later claimed that he never allowed his thoughts to return to those bloodcurdling screams.

At 3.30 flares " Carpathia"were seen in the lifeboats, and at 4.10 the first lifeboat was raised from the icy depths. Three hours later, at 5.30 am, when the last boat, No. 12, was picked up " Carpathia», « California", notified of death Titanic", arrived at the scene of the disaster.

At 8.50 am " Carpathia"left other ships looking for survivors and headed for NY. She had 705 survivors on board. 1,522 people remained at the bottom of the ocean.

J. Bruce Ismay The first thing I did was get to the radio room and send him to the office “ White star line" V New York telegram with the following content: “ It is with deep regret that I inform you that the Titanic sank this morning after striking an iceberg. Large human losses. All details later»...

Dark, cold and rainy night in New York. The rain poured straight down, which was usual for April. Occasional flashes and headlights illuminated the faces of the crowd that had gathered in anticipation of the arrival of an important ship. The first spectators arrived at 6.00 pm, and within two hours their number had grown to 30 thousand. Another 10 thousand people strolled along the gardens " Battery" and around " Aquarium"to see the ship approach Hudson. It came along 11th Avenue, which runs parallel to the docks, passed the block from 12th to 16th Avenues and approached the pier, where it anchored.

It was " Carpathia", and she moored with the most expensive cargo on board. This was all that remained of the world's greatest liner." Titanic", - 705 survivors and 13 lifeboats " Titanic».

After " Carpathia"slowed down, an army of tugboats surrounded the ship on all sides. Boats with people making hysterical signs, asking about lost loved ones, reporters shouting questions and offering money to the crew to board the ship for an exclusive interview...

Captain " Carpathia» William Henry Rostron refused to allow anyone to board until the ship docked. One correspondent attempted to enter without permission, but was immediately placed under house arrest.

The maddened crowd on the pier began to scream. Cold rain, smoky air and the smell of magnesium from photo flashes. It was a surreal night filled with madness and despair.

« Carpathia"did not have good radio contact, and her only radio operator was tired. Even with the help of the surviving radio operator " Titanic» Harold Bride he was able to convey to NY This is by no means a complete list of survivors. Both radio operators remained at the post after the shift, but they did not have the strength and ability to do more. Harold Bride , whose feet were severely frostbitten, continued to print lists of survivors and send messages to their families.

« Carpathia" stopped again to unload 13 lifeboats " Titanic"at berth No. 13" White star line" It seemed that the unloading would never end. The crowd continued to go wild. Finally, at 9.37 pm " Carpathia» berthed at berth No. 54.

As soon as the shore ladder was lowered, doctors, nurses and other medical personnel began to lift stretchers and wheelchairs onto the ship for the victims. Those who could prove that they were being met were allowed to leave the ship on their own.

Along the ladder " Carpathia“People began to descend in groups. Those meeting on the pier could no longer contain their emotions. The crowd included about 500 women dressed in mourning. Also, cries of joy and gratitude to God were heard from everywhere. But as survivors left the ship, the number of people mourning the dead increased. Men and women did not hide their feelings. Grief and suffering gripped the crowd.

Many of the survivors cried. Disembarkation at New York was their last hope - the hope that their loved ones had been rescued by another ship and were waiting for them here.

The crowd waited for an explanation. Why are there so many dead? Why " Titanic"sank so quickly? After all, he was unsinkable! How could this happen?!

From Michigan senator arrived William Alden Smith and spoke with Joseph Bruce Ismay , managing " White star line"who was still on board" Carpathia" Many of the survivors and grieving family members, aware of the senator's presence, begged him to send cruisers to the site of the disaster. In their madness, they claimed that their loved ones were still floating alive in the northern Atlantic, that perhaps they were caught in debris or driven by waves into some of the watertight compartments. Many years later, Senator Smith with tears in his eyes he recalled this spectacle: “ Grief and despair overwhelmed everything around so much that it became difficult to distinguish light from shadow».

Death " Titanic“and continues to remain a mystery today. However, thanks to the dedicated efforts of truth seekers, we have several explanations for what happened in the 37 seconds from the moment the iceberg was spotted until it hit the ship. For economic reasons, airliners of the era " Titanic" were operated on the open sea at cruising speed. This usually meant that the engines pushing the ship were operating at " full speed ahead", the turbine worked the same way.

The procedure for changing speed when approaching an object or maneuvering in a port included several stages of switching the steam supply from the turbine; time was also needed to change the operating conditions of the reciprocating engines. Under normal conditions, the engine compartment was notified 3 minutes before the maneuver. 15 minutes were needed for the bridge to be able to move the engines to neutral.

As soon as the iceberg was spotted, the bridge reacted instinctively. The drivers did not have time to prepare the ship for the sharp maneuver that they tried to undertake." Titanic" In general, no one expected any changes in the teams at night in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It took several minutes to go from cruising speed to maneuvering speed, and it is unlikely that the ship slowed down any noticeably before hitting the iceberg.

Since not a single engineer who ensured the operation of the turbine and engines " Titanic“, did not survive, no one knows exactly how it all happened. But there is evidence that the drivers were not in the control cabin, and the first commands for the engines were received and executed by two oilers. However, many researchers agree that the supply of steam to the turbines was eventually stopped. But since this did not affect the situation, we can say with confidence that “ Titanic"rushed towards his death at full speed.

Several sources claim that the helm " Titanic", like ships similar to it, was very small, so it was also not possible to significantly change the course of the ship before the collision. Tests carried out by a British commission showed that the iceberg could not have been further than 1,500 feet ( about 457 meters) ahead at the time he was spotted. Therefore, a ship that was 880 feet long and sailed at a speed of 22 knots ( about 40 km/h), had to jump forward at least a distance equal to two of its lengths before reacting to the movement of the steering wheel. All of the above allows us to draw only one conclusion: under the circumstances that developed according to God’s will, it was impossible to avoid the tragedy.

According to the testimony of the surviving first and second class passengers and information leaked to the press, on board “ Titanic“There were a lot of treasures. According to the calculations of the managing director of the shipyard Andrews, on which the giant steamship was built, " price The cost of the liner's passengers, among whom were collectors, millionaires and very wealthy people, was about $250 million. These passengers carried with them expensive antique paintings, things, diamonds and gold.

Of course, paintings, like a priceless manuscript Omar Khayyam « Rubaiyat", a rare, excellently preserved mummy of an Egyptian soothsayer from the times of the pharaoh Amenhotep I (belonged to the archaeologist and Lord Canterville), - all this was irretrievably lost in the abyss, but gold bars, diamonds and gold jewelry undoubtedly remained in the safes in the cabins " Titanic».

All attempts to establish the exact location and discover the remains of the ship for a long time ended in nothing. And only on September 1, 1985, a joint French-American expedition led by Dr. Robert Ballard was able not only to find " Titanic", but also for the first time to photograph it on the ocean floor using robots controlled underwater.

The next step was taken by the Russian Institute of Oceanology named after P. Shirshova. In 1991, Russian submersibles descended to a depth of almost 4 kilometers and made the first video recording, and also took samples of the hull lining. After this expedition, official representatives of the Institute. P. Shirshova made a statement that previous expeditions had so carelessly handled objects and ship mechanisms that could be moved underwater that it was no longer possible to restore a complete and accurate picture of the shipwreck.

In 1996 Robert Ballard made an unprecedented attempt to lift a 10-ton fragment of the hull, but the safety ropes broke. After in 1989 Atlantic, at a depth of 3750 meters, by a famous submariner R. Ballard was discovered " Titanic", several expeditions visited the place of death - including American-French and one Russian. The main purpose of these dives was to examine the place of death and the nature of the destruction of the hull. As it turned out, the hull of the airliner broke. The stern part of it, where there was no hole and where a giant air cushion formed, broke off and sank a little later, separately from the bow.

American underwater mini-robot " Jason"cautiously entered the interior" Titanic" and took several hundred pictures. Crystal and gilded chandeliers under the ceiling have been preserved there; columns once sheathed with expensive trees; staircase of the main salon; first class cabins with English porcelain baths; bottles of champagne, Chinese sets with the emblem of the famous steamship line " White star"with a star inside a red triangle is the object of desire of many collectors. An ancient Greek bronze sculpture was found Diana, apparently belonged to Margaret Brown , millionaire from Denver, transporting rare items purchased in different countries. Taking command of one of the lifeboats, she at the last moment ordered to throw it all overboard.

However, a second French underwater expedition received permission to retrieve items from the cabins and bring them to the surface. Apparently, some interesting arguments from the French played a role, convincing lawyers to extract both scientific data and objects of legal significance from the bottom of the ocean. For example, during the investigation and trial, which examined the circumstances of the death, “ Titanic", some passengers argued that while " Titanic"sank, individual crew members robbed personal safes in the cabins. This was a serious allegation that had to be investigated.

Really, " Jason“We were able to examine some of the service premises and passenger cabins, including the one that, according to an eyewitness, was robbed. Operator " Jason“I managed to use the manipulator to turn the handle of the safe, partly this indicated that the lock of the safe was indeed open, but the massive steel door, covered with a thick layer of rust, did not budge!

About the safes located in the service areas and the captain's cabin Smith, nothing was reported to the press. It is only known that the French raised 1,412 objects to the surface.

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105 years ago, on the night of April 14-15, 1912, the legendary Titanic sank. This disaster is described in hundreds of articles, books, films... Why exactly does the sinking of the Titanic attract so much attention?
I agree, the sinking of the Titanic is one of the largest maritime disasters. But not the largest at all. In terms of the number of victims, many more people died in .
If we talk about disasters that occurred outside of hostilities, then the Titanic ranks third in terms of the number of victims. The sad leader is the Dona Paz ferry, which collided with an oil tanker in 1987. More than 4 thousand people died in the collision and subsequent fire. Second place is held by the wooden paddle steamer Sultana, which sank on April 27, 1865 on the Mississippi River near Memphis due to a steam boiler explosion and fire. The total number of deaths on the ship exceeded 1,700 people.
So why exactly does the Titanic attract so much attention?

« Titanic» ( RMS Titanic)- a British steamship of the White Star Line, the second of three twin ships of the Olympic class. The largest passenger airliner in the world at the time of its construction.

Laid down on March 31, 1909 at the shipyards of the Harland and Wolff shipbuilding company in Queens Island (Belfast, Northern Ireland), launched on May 31, 1911, and underwent sea trials on April 2, 1912.
To mark the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the ship, the Titanic Museum was opened at the Harland and Wolf shipyard.

The workers pictured here are just a small number of the 15,000 people who built the Titanic.

Specifications:
Gross tonnage 46,328 register tons, displacement 66 thousand tons.
Length 268.98 m, width 28.2 m, distance from waterline to boat deck 18.4 m.
Height from the keel to the tops of the pipes - 52.4 m;
Engine room - 29 boilers, 159 coal fireboxes;
The ship's unsinkability was ensured by 15 watertight bulkheads in the hold, creating 16 conditionally watertight compartments; the space between the bottom and the second bottom flooring was divided by transverse and longitudinal partitions into 46 waterproof compartments.
Maximum speed 24-25 knots.

During its maiden voyage on April 14, 1912, it collided with an iceberg and sank 2 hours and 40 minutes later. There were 1,316 passengers and 908 crew members on board, for a total of 2,224 people. Of these, 711 people were saved, 1513 died.
The Titanic disaster has become legendary; several feature films have been made based on its plot. But why did the sinking of the Titanic become legendary?
The Titanic was one of the largest ships of that time, the personification of the success of technological progress. To some extent, it symbolized the very idea of ​​man's victory over nature. "Man - that sounds proud!" - as the classic said.

And on the night of April 14-15, proud humanity received a deafening slap in the face from nature. A huge piece of melting ice easily and quickly sent the result of the work of thousands of people who designed and built the “floating palace” to the bottom.
Historians still argue about the reasons for the death of the Titanic. Proponents of the “conspiracy theory” put forward versions that the Titanic was deliberately sunk to obtain insurance, that it was torpedoed...
All this is, of course, nonsense. But it still couldn’t happen without the human factor. More precisely, a combination of errors, miscalculations, and negligence.
So, already at the construction stage, design miscalculations surfaced. It was believed that the Titanic could theoretically remain afloat if any two of its 16 watertight compartments, any three of the first five compartments, or all of the first four compartments were flooded. Watertight bulkheads, designated from stem to stern by the letters "A" to "P", rose from the second bottom and passed through 4 or 5 decks: the first two and last five reached the "D" deck, eight bulkheads in the center of the liner reached only the deck "E". All bulkheads were so strong that they had to withstand significant pressure if they were breached.

The first two bulkheads in the bow and the last one in the stern were solid; all the rest had sealed doors that allowed the crew and passengers to move between compartments. On the flooring of the second bottom, in bulkhead “K,” there were only doors that led to the refrigerator compartment. On decks “F” and “E”, almost all bulkheads had hermetic doors connecting the rooms used by passengers; all of them could be sealed either remotely or manually, using a device located directly on the door and from the deck to which it reached bulkhead. To bolt such doors on passenger decks, a special key was required, which was available only to the chief stewards. But on G deck there were no doors in the bulkheads.

In the bulkheads “D” - “O”, directly above the second bottom in the compartments where the machines and boilers were located, there were 12 vertically closed doors; they were controlled using an electric drive from the navigation bridge. In case of danger or accident, or when the captain or watch officer considered it necessary, electromagnets, upon a signal from the bridge, released the latches and all 12 doors were lowered under the influence of their own gravity and the space behind them was hermetically sealed. If the doors were closed by an electric signal from the bridge, then they could only be opened after removing the voltage from the electric drive.
In the ceiling of each compartment there was an emergency hatch, usually leading to the boat deck. Those who did not manage to leave the premises before the doors closed could climb up its iron ladder. This is such a seemingly wonderful design, designed to ensure the complete safety of the ship.
But in July - October 1909, while on a business trip in England, Russian engineer V.P. Kostenko, a student of the famous shipbuilder A.N. Krylov, drew the attention of the Titanic designer Thomas Andrews to the potential danger that the watertight bulkheads of the ship’s compartments do not reach the main deck: “Understand, one small hole and the Titanic will be gone.”
However, the proud Briton ignored V.P. Kostenko’s advice, which later became one of the reasons for the death of the ship.

In addition, the steel used to cover the Titanic's hull was of low quality, with a large admixture of phosphorus, which made it very brittle at low temperatures. If the casing were made of high-quality, tough steel with a low phosphorus content, it would significantly soften the impact force. The metal sheets would simply bend inward and the damage to the body would not be so serious. Perhaps then the Titanic would have been saved, or at least would have remained afloat for a long time, sufficient to evacuate most of the passengers.
Also, according to the research, it was revealed that the hull steel was susceptible to brittle rupture in cold waters, which also accelerated the sinking of the ship.

It is now also known that the rivets on the Titanic were of poor quality. Conducted research and tests, analysis of procurement documents showed that forged iron rivets were used as rivets, and not steel, as was originally planned. Moreover, these rivets were of low quality, they contained many foreign impurities, in particular coke; during forging, this coke collected in the heads, further increasing fragility. During an iceberg strike, the heads of cheap rivets simply broke, and sheets of 2.5-centimeter steel separated under the pressure of the ice.

In addition, the number of lifeboats was insufficient due to outdated Admiralty instructions. But even those boats that were there were not completely filled. And this is due to miscalculations in the training of the Titanic crew.

But they didn’t skimp on luxury. There were legends about the pomp and splendor of the Titanic's interiors. The ship had 762 cabins, which were divided into 3 classes. There was room for 2,566 passengers, with unprecedented amenities available to passengers in all classes.
The difference between the luxurious first class cabins and the cheapest accommodation in third class was great: the differences were in everything - in size, decoration and number of rooms. Some third-class cabins had no washbasins or closets, things had to be stored in bags and used as a pillow, and all the furniture consisted of an iron bed with a straw mattress.
In terms of comfort, luxury and service, the Titanic was comparable to the best hotels of that time and was rightfully considered a luxury floating hotel.

1st class cabin:

1st Class Restaurant on Deck:

Smoking lounge 1st class:

Library:

Gym

What strange sports equipment there were back then...

There was even a swimming pool.

Smoking lounge 2nd class.

3rd class premises

A bunch of miscalculations led to errors in maneuvering, to a collision with an iceberg, to the fact that the ship quickly sank, and many passengers were unable to use the boats... All this is quite well known and has been described many times.

By the way, an interesting detail. Almost all the women and children from the 1st and 2nd class cabins were saved. More than half of the women and children from the 3rd class cabins died because they had difficulty finding their way up through the labyrinth of narrow corridors. Almost all the men also died. 323 men (20% of all adult men) and 331 women (75% of all adult women) survived.
On the one hand, this speaks of class privileges and prejudices of the society of that time. On the other hand, the fact that there are many men among the dead, and fewer women, tells us that the advanced ideas of feminism had not yet captured the masses. And it was still customary for women to be allowed to go ahead. As historians, aristocrats and millionaires say. those traveling 1st class could have been saved, but ladies and children were allowed to go ahead. 3rd class passengers were not always so gallant, and some rushed to the boats, pushing aside those who were weaker.

Yes, the representatives of the elite of that time had not matured enough to understand that “those who don’t have a billion can go to hell.” (c) And they believed that there is something more important in life than life itself. They could have saved their skins, but their upbringing and breed did not allow them to put their own lives above all else. And I involuntarily remember the words of Fr. Vsevolod Chaplin that earthly human life is not at all the highest value for a Christian. These words caused a terrible butthurt among the burning hamsters. Unlike the reactionary priest, the handshake representatives of a progressive society consider their precious lives to be the highest value. Like those passengers of the Titanic who furiously rushed to the lifeboats, pushing aside women and children...

The fate of the passengers and crew of the Titanic has become the topic of numerous articles. Some of them are not really surprising. For example,
In May 2006, the last American eyewitness to survive the sinking of the Titanic died at the age of 99. Swedish by birth Lillian Gertrud Asplund (Swedish. Lillian Gertrud Asplund), who was 5 years old at the time of the disaster, lost her father and three brothers. Her mother and brother, who was three years old at the time, survived. They were third class passengers and escaped in lifeboat No. 15. Asplund was the last person to remember how the tragedy occurred, but she avoided publicity and rarely spoke about the event.
who was two and a half months old at the time of the death of the liner, died on May 31, 2009 at the age of 97 years. Her ashes were scattered to the wind on October 24, 2009 in the port of Southampton, where the Titanic began its first and last voyage...

The crash of the airliner became one of the most famous disasters in human history. In essence, the tragedy of the Titanic became a symbol of the death of what seemed powerful and unsinkable, a symbol of the weakness of human technogenic civilization in front of the forces of nature. And ahead of humanity awaited revolutions, bloody world and local wars...
Therefore, the disaster was widely reflected in art, for example in the film Titanic.

The futility of human pride, power and glory - all this was absorbed by the Titanic disaster. A century ago, the “floating palace” rests at the bottom, becoming the grave for many people.
R.I.P.