Age of Cunard
by Daniel Allen Butler
Category: History

For a century and a half, the single most important sea lane in the world was the transatlantic route linking the Old World with the New. For three hundred years, sailing ships sufficed to carry cargoes and people, but the demands of Steam Age business and commerce demanded more regularity. Just as the steam engine had allowed railroads to replace the unpredictability of stagecoaches on land with dependable schedules, steamships promised to bring this reliability to crossing the Atlantic. This is where the story of the Cunard Line began. The greatest influence Cunard would ever have on world events would be the leading role during the last half of the 19th century, when the great migration of millions of emigrants transformed the populations of Europe, the United States, and Canada. Wars devastation came to the Cunard Line with WW1 and WW2, as the power of the German submarine fleet -- built with one purpose in mind, to sever the North Atlantic shipping lanes -- threatened Great Britains very existence. By 1963, more people chose to travel by airplane than by steamship -- and it was the beginning of the end. Sir Winston Churchill observed, "You came into great things by the accident of sea power... By an accident of air power, you will probably cease to exist."