Austria (ship, 1857)
 The steamship Austria (around 1857)
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The Austria was a steamship that sank off the Newfoundland banks in the Atlantic on September 13, 1858 after a fire on board.
The ship
The Austria was in the shipyard Caird & Company in Scotland's Greenock built and launched into the water on 23 June. 1857 The ship was used as a troop transport for the British East India Company . For the first time it got into a severe storm on October 5, 1857 in the Bay of Biscay , killing one crew member. Badly damaged, the ship returned to Plymouth for repairs . On the second voyage, the ship got caught in a storm, and one of the two steam engines was severely damaged. This in turn resulted in a repair in Plymouth.
On May 1, 1858, Austria was taken over by the German HAPAG and used on the Hamburg - New York route.
Downfall
The Austria cast off on September 1, 1858 in Hamburg and three days later took on more passengers in Southampton . New York should be reached on September 18th.
Before entering the port of destination New York , the ship was disinfected around noon according to regulations by smoking the lower decks with tar . To do this, tar was placed in a vat and smoke was generated with a red-hot chain that was immersed in it. Two hours later, the chain became too hot for the seafarer in charge and fell to the wooden floor. The resulting fire spread amidships so quickly that the steam engine of the ship's drive could no longer be stopped and the ship's rudder could no longer be operated. The ship then steered changing courses at full speed (around 10 knots ) , and the wind blowing in from all sides additionally fanned the fire.
Panic broke out on board, made worse by an explosion . Captain F. A. Heydtmann was one of the first to try to get into one of the eight lifeboats on board . He drowned trying to rope himself down to the lifeboat on a rope. Many passengers died after jumping off the deck of the ship into the water and being pulled under the water by the waves of the ship as it turned away. Many passengers also died in the water from the rotating propeller .
Only 89 passengers and crew could be saved. The first ship to arrive at the scene of the accident was the French barque Maurice , whose crew noticed the disaster in the good weather, rushed to the rescue and were able to pick up the first survivors at seven in the evening. Another ship that saved a few survivors was the Norwegian sailing ship Catarina .
The sinking of Austria is considered to be one of the worst shipping accidents during the time of emigration . 456 passengers and crew members were killed in the disaster.
Others
- Among the victims were Henriette Wulff , a close friend of the Danish poet and writer Hans Christian Andersen , and Alexander Friedländer , activist of the German Revolution of 1848/49 .
- Among the survivors was Theodore Eisfeld , chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic .
- On November 3, 1858, the Senate of the Hanseatic City of Hamburg awarded the Hamburg Medal of Honor in gold to the captains of the Maurice and Catarina , Ernest Renaud and C. A. Funnemark, and the Medal of Honor in silver to H. C. Nivert and three other officers for the rescue of 89 passengers of the Austria .
- The cartoon Feivel, the mouse wanderer by the American producer Steven Spielberg is about Austria , among others .
literature
- Arnold Kludas , Herbert Bischoff: The ships of the Hamburg-America line . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1986, ISBN 3-7822-0220-1 .
- Joan M. Dixon: National Intelligencer Newspaper Abstracts . Heritage Books, 2009, ISBN 0-7884-4793-9 .
- Pierre Chotard, Gaëlle David: Hambourg New-York, l'Austria, une tragédie dans l'Atlantique . Livre de l'exposition, Editions du château des ducs de Bretagne, 2012, ISBN 978-2-906519-29-9 .
- The sinking of the Hamburg iron screw steamship "Austria" . In: The Gazebo . Issue 44, 45, 1858, pp. 631-636, 644-648 ( full text [ Wikisource ]).
- Tragedy becomes a media event - steam sailing ship Austria sank 155 years ago . In: Allgemeine Zeitung Mainz , September 14, 2013
- The loss of the Austria, Narrative of survivor . In: Southport Visiter , October 14, 1858 (English)
Web links
- Illustrated London News Emigration Reports 1858 (English)
- Site de l'exposition au château de Nantes, présentée du 15 juin au 11 novembre 2012 (French)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Parliamentary debate on December 12, 1857. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: New Statesman
- ^ Burning of the Austria. Star of the North (English)
- ↑ Eyewitness accounts. In: New York Times , September 30, 1858
- ↑ Otto Christian Gaedechens (arrangement): Hamburg coins and medals. Dept. 3. Additions and continuation . J. A. Meißner, Hamburg 1876, p. 158 f., Textarchiv - Internet Archive
