Austro-Americana
The Austro-Americana was an Austro-Hungarian shipping company based in Trieste . It was founded in 1895 by the Austrian freight forwarder and founder of Schenker forwarding , Gottfried Schenker , August Schenker-Angerer and William Burell to operate a freight line between Austria-Hungary and North America. The desire of the Austrian cotton industry for a domestic importer also offered a certain certainty that such a freight line would also be profitable.
history
The first years
The company's first four ships were acquired from England in the year it was founded. The first voyages took place every six weeks and went from Trieste to Mobile , Brunswick , Charleston , Wilmington and Newport News , as well as to other ports on the east coast if necessary . Since business was going well, three more used ships were bought in 1897 and four more in 1898. As a result of the global economic crisis from 1901 to 1902, however, some ships had to be sold again. In 1902, William Burell also left the company and sold his shares to the Cosulich brothers (Croatian Kosulić ). The share capital was increased, 14 ships were taken over from the Cosulichs shipping company and in 1903 the company was renamed “United Austrian Shipping Companies of Austro-Americana and the Cosulich Brothers” (Unione Austriaca di navigazione Austro Americana e Fratelli Cosulich Società anonima) .
Expansion up to the First World War
In 1904 the company had 19 ships. In the same year, passengers were also carried for the first time, as many people emigrated to the United States at that time, and thus a profitable business area was offered. Customers could also be diverted from the two North German competitors, Norddeutscher Lloyd and Hamburg-Amerika-Linie , which had previously transported residents of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy to the USA. With the entry into the passenger business, however, they also reacted to the agreement of the English Cunard Line with the Hungarian government, which provided for the takeover of the Hungarian emigration traffic. It was feared that with the passengers, the freight traffic could increasingly have been shifted to the Cunard Line, which would have threatened the existence of the Austro-Americana. The first Austrian “emigration service” therefore left Trieste on June 9, 1904 with 316 emigrants on board the steamer Gerty . However, Austro-Americana was only able to hold its own against strong competition from Northern Germany and England thanks to government subsidies .
As a result, the transport company expanded at an unprecedented rate in Austria. In 1904, 2,172,478 meter tonnes (100 kg) of freight and 4,224 people were carried, in 1912 it was 10,133,490 meter tonnes and 101,670 passengers. In 1905, the company acquired a building in Trieste, in which an emigration center for 1,500 people was set up. From 1906 the Austro-Americana received the right to also take Italian passengers from Naples and Palermo . In 1907 the South America service was started. In 1908, three ships chartered by Österreichischer Lloyd had to be returned due to the poor economic situation in the USA , and several freighters were temporarily decommissioned. In 1910, the company received a shipping and postal contract with postal rights on the North and South Atlantic routes. At the same time, the company was obliged to start a regular service Trieste - Rio de Janeiro - Santos - Buenos Aires , combined with a state subsidy. In 1913 this was 1.53 million crowns . The reported profit was roughly the same two years earlier. For comparison: Austrian Lloyd, which is active in the Mediterranean and Asia , received subsidies for its entire route network of around 10 million kroner annually. In order to avoid unnecessary competition, the areas of activity between Lloyd and Austro-Americana were contractually regulated.
On September 9, 1911, the Kaiser Franz Joseph I was launched at the Cantiere Navale Triestino shipyard in Monfalcone . The Archduchess Maria Josepha and the navy commander Admiral Count Rudolf Montecuccoli as well as numerous high dignitaries, industrialists, merchants and workers were there. With 12,567 tons, 145 meters in length, 18 meters in width, 7.9 meters in draft and 12,800 hp, it was larger than any other Austrian merchant ship ever built, making it the flagship of the Austro-Hungarian merchant navy .
In 1913, the last year of peace, the Austro-Americana imported 939,912 meter tonnes and exported 854,642 meter tonnes. This includes: 95 percent of all goods traffic between Austria-Hungary and South America. At the beginning of 1914, Austrian banks took over the shares of the major German shipping companies, which meant that the company was entirely in Austrian hands. With the outbreak of war, however, international shipping was no longer possible. The Austro-Americana suffered a similar fate as the Österreichischer Lloyd. Ships that were abroad - i.e. in North or South America or on the way there or back - were confiscated or shot at by opposing states. Other ships were claimed by the Austro-Hungarian Navy - for example as a hospital ship .
Fate after the end of the war
Of the 31 steamships at the beginning of the war, only ten remained in 1918. The Austro-Americana (also Unione Austriaca di Navigazione ) simply became Unione di Navigazione SA Members of the Trieste shipping line Cosulich took over the company, which from March 1919 was called Cosulich Società Triestina di Navigazione - colloquially for short Cosulich-Linie . By 1927 the fleet again comprised 24 ships with 183,000 GRT. From 1932 to 1936 the shipping company was part of the company Italia-Flotte Riunite, Cosulich-Lloyd Sabaudo - NGI. Its passenger lines connected Trieste with New York and South America. Goods were transported to and from North, Central and South America - similar to Austro-Americana. Due to recent financial difficulties, the former Cosulich line was incorporated into Italia in 1937 under state pressure .
literature
- Gregor Gatscher-Riedl : Red-white-red across the Atlantic - The history of Austro-Americana. Kral Verlag, Berndorf 2019, ISBN 9783990248249
- Horst Friedrich Mayer, Dieter Winkler: Austria - the Austro-Hungarian merchant navy - was in all ports. Edition S, Verlag der Österreichische Staatsdruckerei Wien, ISBN 3-7046-0079-2
Web links
- Mint Austria for the coin series Austria on the high seas
- Fratelli Cosulich today and the agency's history