page_title: Ocean liner
section_title: Early 20th century
hierarchical_section_title: Ocean liner / History / Early 20th century
caption_attribution_description: English: RMS Mauretania on the River Tyne in 1907
context_page_description: An ocean liner is a passenger ship primarily used as a form of transportation across seas or oceans. Liners may also carry cargo or mail, and may sometimes be used for other purposes.
  Cargo vessels running to a schedule are sometimes called liners. The category does not include ferries or other vessels engaged in short-sea trading, nor dedicated cruise ships where the voyage itself, and not transportation, is the prime purpose of the trip. Nor does it include tramp steamers, even those equipped to handle limited numbers of passengers. Some shipping companies refer to themselves as "lines" and their container ships, which often operate over set routes according to established schedules, as "liners".
  Ocean liners are usually strongly built with a high freeboard to withstand rough seas and adverse conditions encountered in the open ocean. Additionally, they are often designed with thicker hull plating than is found on cruise ships, and have large capacities for fuel, food and other consumables on long voyages.
  The first ocean liners were built in the mid-19th century.
context_section_description: In 1902, J. P. Morgan embraced the idea of a maritime empire comprising a large number of companies. He founded the International Mercantile Marine Co., a trust which originally comprised only American shipping companies. The trust then absorbed Leyland Line and White Star Line. The British government then decided to intervene in order to regain the ascendancy.
  Although German liners dominated in terms of speed, British liners dominated in terms of size. RMS Oceanic and the Big Four of the White Star Line were the first liners to surpass SS Great Eastern as the largest passenger ships. Ultimately their owner was American (as mentioned above, White Star Line had been absorbed into J. P. Morgan's trust). Faced with this major competition, the British government contributed financially to Cunard Line's construction of two liners of unmatched size and speed, under the condition that they be available for conversion into armed cruisers when needed by the navy. The result of this partnership was the completion in 1907 of two sister ships: RMS Lusitania and RMS Mauretania, both of which won the Blue Riband during their respective maiden voyages. The latter retained this distinction for twenty years. Their great speed was achieved by the use of turbines instead of conventional expansion machines.
  In response to the competition from Cunard Line, White Star Line ordered the Olympic-class liners at the end of 1907. The first of these three liners, RMS Olympic, completed in 1911, had a fine career, although punctuated by incidents. This was not the case for her sister, the RMS Titanic, which sank on her maiden voyage on 15 April 1912, resulting in several changes to maritime safety practices. As for the Third Sister HMHS Britannic, she never served her intended purpose as a Passenger Ship, as She was drafted in World War 1 as a Hospital ship, and Sank to a Mine in 1916
  At the same time, France tried to mark its presence with the completion in 1912 of SS France owned by the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. Germany soon responded to the competition from the British. From 1912 to 1914, Hamburg America Line completed a trio of liners significantly larger than the White Star Line's Olympic-class ships. The first to be completed, in 1913 was SS Imperator. She was followed by SS Vaterland in 1914. The construction of the third liner, SS Bismarck, was paused by the outbreak of World War I.
  The First World War was a hard time for the liners. Some of them, like the Mauretania, Aquitania, and Britannic were transformed into hospital ships during the conflict. Others became troop transports, while some, such as the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, participated in the war as warships. Troop transportation was very popular due to the liners' large size. Liners converted into troop ships were painted in dazzle camouflage to reduce the risk of being torpedoed by enemy submarines.
  The war was marked by the loss of many liners. Britannic, while serving as a hospital ship, sank in the Aegean Sea in 1916 after she struck a mine. Numerous incidents of torpedoing took place and large numbers of ships sank. Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse was defeated and scuttled after a fierce battle with HMS Highflyer off the coast of west Africa, while her sister ship Kronprinz Wilhelm served as a commerce raider. The torpedoing and sinking of RMS Lusitania on 7 May 1915 caused the loss of 128 American lives at a time when the United States was still neutral. Although other factors came into play, the loss of American lives in the sinking strongly pushed the United States to favour the Allied Powers and facilitated the country's entry into the war.
  The losses of the liners owned by the Allied Powers were compensated by the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.  This led to the awarding of many German liners to the victorious Allies. The Hamburg America Line's trio (Imperator, Vaterland, and Bismarck) were divided between the Cunard Line, White Star Line, and the United States Lines, while the three surviving ships of the Kaiser-class were requisitioned by the US Navy in the context of
caption: RMS Mauretania of 1907
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