Compagnie Générale Transatlantique
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The Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (shortened to "CIE. GLE. TRANSATLANTIQUE" and commonly named "Transat"), known overseas as the French Line, was a shipping company established in 1861 as an attempt to revive the French merchant marine, the poor state of which was painfully highlighted during the Crimean War of 1856. Its first vessel, the S.S. Washington, undertook her maiden voyage on the 15th of June 1864. Aside from operating ocean liners, the company also had a significant fleet of freighters.
Although not a dominant player in the trans-Atlantic ocean liner trade until after WWI (in 1907 and 1908, when immigration to the United States was its greatest, the company's share of the market was a mere 10%) and not possessing ships of either great speed or size, it became renowned during the early 20th Century for its luxuriously appointed liners. The most notable of these early ships was the S.S. France.
Although its fleet sustained substantial destruction during World War I (with a third of its ships being destroyed), the company recovered during the post-war period, with several famous ships entering service. In 1927, the S.S. Ile de France, the first ship to be styled in Art Deco, undertook its maiden voyage.
Although passenger numbers and revenues plummeted during the Great Depression, the company was, with the help of a generous government subsidy, able to finance the construction of what must be considered the most famous vessel in the history of the company, the S.S. Normandie in 1935. At the time of completion, the ship was the largest in the world and also the fastest, capturing the Blue Riband from the Italian liner, the S.S. Rex. Her Art Deco interiors were legendary and her streamlined hull design was years ahead of its time. Unfortunately, however, the ship was never a commercial success and her career was ended by a fire during in 1942.
Although the company again experienced significant losses during World War II, it again flourished during the post-war period. Liberty ships joined the freighter fleet and the liner fleet was boosted by the addition of the Liberté, the former German liner S.S. Europa, which had been awarded to France as reparations.
The advent of commercial air travel in 1958, however, was to spell disaster for the French Line's passenger ships. Despite the launch of a new flagship, the 66,000 ton S.S. France in 1961, passenger demand slumped as no ship could match the convenience of plane flights that could transport passengers in a matter of hours, whereas by ship it would take several days. The ocean liner fleet became dependent on government subsidies, which were finally withdrawn in 1974. The fleet was subsequently mothballed.
In 1977 the company merged with the Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes to form the Compagnie Générale Maritime.
The last surviving CGT ocean liner, the SS France, known to many as Norwegian Cruise Line's Norway is currently (2008) beached in Alang, India and is in the process of being broken up.
[edit] Vessels
Some of the ships of the French Line include
- SS Washington
- SS La Gascogne
- SS La Touraine
- SS France (1912)
- SS Paris
- SS De Grasse
- SS Ile de France
- SS Normandie (1932–42), re-named USS Lafayette by the US Navy; damaged beyond repair by fire in New York
- SS Liberté (formerly SS Europa of North German Lloyd)
- SS Antilles
- SS Flandre
- SS France (1961) (later sold to Norwegian Cruise Line re-named S.S. Norway)
[edit] Further reading
- Miller, William H. Jr., The First Great Ocean Liners in Photographs, 1984, Dover
- Fox, Robert, Liners, the Golden Age, 1999, Könemann
- McAuley, Robert, The Liners, 1997, Boxtree
- Maddocks, Melvin, The Great Liners, 1978, Time-Life
