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The SS France was at the time of launch one of the world's largest and most luxurious ships afloat. At a time when Britain and Germany were playing a game of one-upsmanship that resulted in some of the most famous liners of the age (Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, Mauretania, Titanic, etc.), the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique threw its own hat into the ring by commissioning and constructing the largest and fastest French ship of the age. Although not the largest or fastest outright, she was a remarkable leap forwards for French shipbuilding by being twice as large as the CGT's previous flagship, the SS Rochambeau, and at the time of her maiden voyage being the third-fastest ship in the world, surpassed only by the Cunard liners Lusitania and Mauretania. She was also unquestionably the most luxurious ship afloat, with her amenities surpassing even the Olympic-class liners launched by White Star Line. Of course, her actual construction and comfort is overshadowed by her tragic and premature demise.

At the time of her maiden voyage, the France existed in a world of uncertainty. World events as a whole were obviously trending towards the First World War, but for the Transatlantic run in particular a number of controversies and incidents had cast doubts onto the shipping industry. The most proximate of these was of course the RMS Titanic's incident with an iceberg, which at the time of France's maiden voyage had happened just 5 days earlier. The ship had survived and on the 20th of April 1912 was drydocked in New York, but the extent of damage showed that the ship had almost been mortally wounded. On top of this a number of other incidents with the world's largest and newest ships were also still in people's minds: the RMS Olympic (sister ship to the Titanic) had suffered a collision with the HMS Hawke in September the previous year, and in 1908 the RMS Lusitania had had an encounter with a rogue wave. Moods swirled on both sides of the Atlantic, and it was in this realm that the SS France set sail.

In comparison to the questions of safety which swirled around the larger British and German liners, CGT loudly proclaimed the SS France as the safest ship afloat, with well-constructed watertight bulkhead arrangements and more than enough lifeboats for her entire complement of crew and passengers. Setting sail on the 20th of April from Le Havre, the ship carried just 1500 passengers in comparison to 600 crew (both well below maximum capacity), commanded by Captain Léon Eugène Poncelet, an experienced skipper in CGT who was well-liked and considered a competent commander. Sailing for New York, there is still some controversy as to whether Captain Poncelet decided on his own to sail the established northern westbound route in spite of the danger presented by ice, or whether CGT had ordered him to keep on the northern route in spite of his reservations to show the company's confidence. To this day, disputes remain over who said what, but the end result is the same.

On the evening of the 25th of April 1912, France suffered a collision at speed with a heavily-melted iceberg. The mechanics of the collision were poorly-understood until her wreck was later discovered in 1985, and later determined to be the unfortunate result of the ship's propensity to roll combined with the iceberg's low-lying nature. The collision was nearly head-on, and happened when the ship was leaning heavily to port. The incident tore a large hole through the foremost compartments of the ship combined with further damage further along the ship's hull, which resulted in the ship failing to roll back from her lean and immediately beginning to flood. Even her bulkhead arrangement was rendered useless, and the ship immediately began to sink by the head. Her heavy list exacerbated her rate of sinking, and also rendered her starboard lifeboats almost unusable, while making loading her port lifeboats more difficult owing to the gap that had emerged between them and the deck as the lifeboats hung plumb.

Here the story of the Titanic manages to insert itself into the France's story. After several days of preliminary repairs, the Titanic had set back out eastwards to Belfast bereft of passengers for fuller repairs, and was at the time of the France's sinking the only ship both in the immediate area and heading towards her. Spurred by duty and a desire to restore his honor after widespread criticism in the wake of his own ship's incident, Captain Edward Smith of the Titanic immediately made for the France's location. The France in the interim had begun attempting to put her passengers off in boats, but the whole affair was made complicated by her worsening list that made many of her lifeboats difficult to launch. Fortune intervened, though, and the Titanic arrived on the scene half an hour after the France's initial collision. The larger ship put all her lights on and maneuvered to put the stricken France in her lee, along with putting her own lifeboats into the water to start ferrying the France's passengers aboard.

The sight of the immense liner, even with the knowledge of her incident just 20 days prior, was of immense emotional relief to the passengers, and for ten whole minutes the crew of both ships worked to try and move as many people as possible from the France to the Titanic. Their efforts were suddenly hobbled when the France lunged over onto her side before finally falling over onto her port side, sending hundreds of people into the water. The crew of the Titanic dropped nets and Jacob's ladders into the water for people to try and clamber out of the sea, but in the freezing waters many found it difficult to move or swim properly. Attempts to lower lifeboats and rafts were hobbled by people struggling to climb into the boats, and in one notable instance Titanic's Lifeboat 14 was swamped and capsized by a rush of people struggling to get into the boat. All the while, the France itself was sinking ever-faster, and finally foundered at 11:58 PM, a mere 51 minutes after her collision.

Titanic stayed on the scene for nearly an hour, pulling up as many survivors as possible before it was determined that anyone who could survive the frigid waters had been pulled out. A final foray into the field of bodies at 12:45 AM pulled only six further survivors from the water, most of whom clung to debris or were suffering from severe hypothermia. The total death toll numbered 903, with only 597 survivors, a majority of whom had been among those transferred before the France capsized. After one more effort to locate survivors, the Titanic put about and returned for New York after only a day out from the city. Other ships offered assistance, but Titanic was the most well-suited to handle the nearly 600 survivors considering she had been carrying none and had ample space to provide for them. Ships would later converge on the site to collect bodies, while the Titanic arrived on her "second maiden voyage" to great controversy from the press and public speculation on the disaster that had sunk what was supposed to be one of the world's safest ships.

To this day, a lot is still unknown about the exact nature of the SS France's crash and sinking. The majority of the ship's officers, including Captain Poncelet, went down with the ship, leaving only the word of Compagnie Générale Transatlantique to assert its own non-complicity in the matter. Other passengers were later interviewed in investigations held in the United States, United Kingdom, and France itself on the nature of the sinking, but contradictory accounts colored by the emotions of the evening leave a cloud of uncertainty over the whole thing. Physical analysis of the France's wreck off the continental shelf of Maritime Canada has shown the extent of her damage, but as to what put such a securely-designed ship in a situation that was impossible to survive, speculation still abounds. Not helping matters is the fact that the France herself is often treated as merely an event in the extremely eventful life of the Titanic, whose own long and storied career overshadows many other of the great liners of the age.

The wreck of the France sits at approximately 40°13"N 64°20"W, on the abyssal plains southeast of Nova Scotia. She lays on her port side in more than 5000 meters of water, astoundingly well-preserved owing to the lack of oxygen at such depths. The wreck is legally considered to be a grave site, off-limits to all but officially-sanctioned salvage operations. Discovered by Robert Ballard in 1985 (as a side mission from his contracted goals of finding the USS Thresher and USS Scorpion), the wreck sees little traffic in the modern age, overshadowed by the later events of history and the life of the ship which rescued her survivors. For most, especially those families of survivors and the lost, this is exactly how it should be. As quoted by the last living survivor Claudine Devereaux in 2005 shortly before her death, "It's how it should be. A tomb for the lost, in the quiet bosom of the sea." Since 1985, there have been only 4 expeditions to the wreck, the second of which recovered the ship's bell for display in the Le Havre Maritime Museum.

The most significant after-effect of the ship's sinking was to push the maritime industry to fully re-evaluate the state of safety on their ships. Ever since the Titanic's incident, Thomas Andrews had been urging for White Star Line to take the Titanic and Olympic in for modifications to make them safer, and in the aftermath of the France's sinking his words were now fully heeded. Other shipping lines also began to follow the same urging, with many paying close attention to White Star Line's modifications to provide a model for changes made to their own ships. The double-whammy of the Titanic's near-sinking and the loss of the SS France sent shockwaves through the world that prompted the enacting of stricter safety standards for all ships, the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), and the creation of the International Ice Patrol. Since 1912, no ships have been lost to collisions with icebergs, and the drama of the France's loss looms large in the minds of the French people to this day.

Description

The SS France was at the time of launch one of the world's largest and most luxurious ships afloat. At a time when Britain and Germany were playing a game of one-upsmanship that resulted in some of the most famous liners of the age (Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, Mauretania, Titanic, etc.), the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique threw its own hat into the ring by commissioning and constructing the largest and fastest French ship of the age. Although not the largest or fastest outright, she was a remarkable leap forwards for French shipbuilding by being twice as large as the CGT's previous flagship, the SS Rochambeau, and at the time of her maiden voyage being the third-fastest ship in the world, surpassed only by the Cunard liners Lusitania and Mauretania. She was also unquestionably the most luxurious ship afloat, with her amenities surpassing even the Olympic-class liners launched by White Star Line. Of course, her actual construction and comfort is overshadowed by her tragic and premature demise.

At the time of her maiden voyage, the France existed in a world of uncertainty. World events as a whole were obviously trending towards the First World War, but for the Transatlantic run in particular a number of controversies and incidents had cast doubts onto the shipping industry. The most proximate of these was of course the RMS Titanic's incident with an iceberg, which at the time of France's maiden voyage had happened just 5 days earlier. The ship had survived and on the 20th of April 1912 was drydocked in New York, but the extent of damage showed that the ship had almost been mortally wounded. On top of this a number of other incidents with the world's largest and newest ships were also still in people's minds: the RMS Olympic (sister ship to the Titanic) had suffered a collision with the HMS Hawke in September the previous year, and in 1908 the RMS Lusitania had had an encounter with a rogue wave. Moods swirled on both sides of the Atlantic, and it was in this realm that the SS France set sail.

In comparison to the questions of safety which swirled around the larger British and German liners, CGT loudly proclaimed the SS France as the safest ship afloat, with well-constructed watertight bulkhead arrangements and more than enough lifeboats for her entire complement of crew and passengers. Setting sail on the 20th of April from Le Havre, the ship carried just 1500 passengers in comparison to 600 crew (both well below maximum capacity), commanded by Captain Léon Eugène Poncelet, an experienced skipper in CGT who was well-liked and considered a competent commander. Sailing for New York, there is still some controversy as to whether Captain Poncelet decided on his own to sail the established northern westbound route in spite of the danger presented by ice, or whether CGT had ordered him to keep on the northern route in spite of his reservations to show the company's confidence. To this day, disputes remain over who said what, but the end result is the same.

On the evening of the 25th of April 1912, France suffered a collision at speed with a heavily-melted iceberg. The mechanics of the collision were poorly-understood until her wreck was later discovered in 1985, and later determined to be the unfortunate result of the ship's propensity to roll combined with the iceberg's low-lying nature. The collision was nearly head-on, and happened when the ship was leaning heavily to port. The incident tore a large hole through the foremost compartments of the ship combined with further damage further along the ship's hull, which resulted in the ship failing to roll back from her lean and immediately beginning to flood. Even her bulkhead arrangement was rendered useless, and the ship immediately began to sink by the head. Her heavy list exacerbated her rate of sinking, and also rendered her starboard lifeboats almost unusable, while making loading her port lifeboats more difficult owing to the gap that had emerged between them and the deck as the lifeboats hung plumb.

Here the story of the Titanic manages to insert itself into the France's story. After several days of preliminary repairs, the Titanic had set back out eastwards to Belfast bereft of passengers for fuller repairs, and was at the time of the France's sinking the only ship both in the immediate area and heading towards her. Spurred by duty and a desire to restore his honor after widespread criticism in the wake of his own ship's incident, Captain Edward Smith of the Titanic immediately made for the France's location. The France in the interim had begun attempting to put her passengers off in boats, but the whole affair was made complicated by her worsening list that made many of her lifeboats difficult to launch. Fortune intervened, though, and the Titanic arrived on the scene half an hour after the France's initial collision. The larger ship put all her lights on and maneuvered to put the stricken France in her lee, along with putting her own lifeboats into the water to start ferrying the France's passengers aboard.

The sight of the immense liner, even with the knowledge of her incident just 20 days prior, was of immense emotional relief to the passengers, and for ten whole minutes the crew of both ships worked to try and move as many people as possible from the France to the Titanic. Their efforts were suddenly hobbled when the France lunged over onto her side before finally falling over onto her port side, sending hundreds of people into the water. The crew of the Titanic dropped nets and Jacob's ladders into the water for people to try and clamber out of the sea, but in the freezing waters many found it difficult to move or swim properly. Attempts to lower lifeboats and rafts were hobbled by people struggling to climb into the boats, and in one notable instance Titanic's Lifeboat 14 was swamped and capsized by a rush of people struggling to get into the boat. All the while, the France itself was sinking ever-faster, and finally foundered at 11:58 PM, a mere 51 minutes after her collision.

Titanic stayed on the scene for nearly an hour, pulling up as many survivors as possible before it was determined that anyone who could survive the frigid waters had been pulled out. A final foray into the field of bodies at 12:45 AM pulled only six further survivors from the water, most of whom clung to debris or were suffering from severe hypothermia. The total death toll numbered 903, with only 597 survivors, a majority of whom had been among those transferred before the France capsized. After one more effort to locate survivors, the Titanic put about and returned for New York after only a day out from the city. Other ships offered assistance, but Titanic was the most well-suited to handle the nearly 600 survivors considering she had been carrying none and had ample space to provide for them. Ships would later converge on the site to collect bodies, while the Titanic arrived on her "second maiden voyage" to great controversy from the press and public speculation on the disaster that had sunk what was supposed to be one of the world's safest ships.

To this day, a lot is still unknown about the exact nature of the SS France's crash and sinking. The majority of the ship's officers, including Captain Poncelet, went down with the ship, leaving only the word of Compagnie Générale Transatlantique to assert its own non-complicity in the matter. Other passengers were later interviewed in investigations held in the United States, United Kingdom, and France itself on the nature of the sinking, but contradictory accounts colored by the emotions of the evening leave a cloud of uncertainty over the whole thing. Physical analysis of the France's wreck off the continental shelf of Maritime Canada has shown the extent of her damage, but as to what put such a securely-designed ship in a situation that was impossible to survive, speculation still abounds. Not helping matters is the fact that the France herself is often treated as merely an event in the extremely eventful life of the Titanic, whose own long and storied career overshadows many other of the great liners of the age.

The wreck of the France sits at approximately 40°13"N 64°20"W, on the abyssal plains southeast of Nova Scotia. She lays on her port side in more than 5000 meters of water, astoundingly well-preserved owing to the lack of oxygen at such depths. The wreck is legally considered to be a grave site, off-limits to all but officially-sanctioned salvage operations. Discovered by Robert Ballard in 1985 (as a side mission from his contracted goals of finding the USS Thresher and USS Scorpion), the wreck sees little traffic in the modern age, overshadowed by the later events of history and the life of the ship which rescued her survivors. For most, especially those families of survivors and the lost, this is exactly how it should be. As quoted by the last living survivor Claudine Devereaux in 2005 shortly before her death, "It's how it should be. A tomb for the lost, in the quiet bosom of the sea." Since 1985, there have been only 4 expeditions to the wreck, the second of which recovered the ship's bell for display in the Le Havre Maritime Museum.

The most significant after-effect of the ship's sinking was to push the maritime industry to fully re-evaluate the state of safety on their ships. Ever since the Titanic's incident, Thomas Andrews had been urging for White Star Line to take the Titanic and Olympic in for modifications to make them safer, and in the aftermath of the France's sinking his words were now fully heeded. Other shipping lines also began to follow the same urging, with many paying close attention to White Star Line's modifications to provide a model for changes made to their own ships. The double-whammy of the Titanic's near-sinking and the loss of the SS France sent shockwaves through the world that prompted the enacting of stricter safety standards for all ships, the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), and the creation of the International Ice Patrol. Since 1912, no ships have been lost to collisions with icebergs, and the drama of the France's loss looms large in the minds of the French people to this day.