Fabre Line

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The French shipping company known as Fabre Line existed from 1868 to 1979.

history

The beginnings

The roots of the shipping company go back to the Fabre family from La Ciotat , who have been involved in trade and shipping in the Mediterranean and the Caribbean since the 15th century . The company's founder, Cyprien Fabre, born in 1838, began his shipping activities in the Régis shipping company. In 1868 he founded the "Société Cyprien Fabre et Cie." He first acquired a few cargo sailors and used them in the West Africa voyage. Fabre soon acquired the first steamships: in the first ten years a paddle steamer and ten others with propeller drives. The Africa line and tramp shipping were expanded and a new service via Spain to Algeria was added. The attempt made in 1879 to enter the transatlantic trade failed; but a service from Marseilles to Liverpool remained from this attempt .

Years of construction

In 1881, Fabre also founded the Compagnie Française de Navigation à Vapeur Cyprien Fabre & Cie. He became president of the Marseilles Chamber of Commerce at the time . In the following four years Fabre used French aid to build twelve ships, most of which were built in British shipyards. In 1885 the new company was already operating 16 steamers. The Fabre lines included the Middle East and Algeria, West Africa (this line was extended to Lagos in 1902), Brazil and Argentina (the latter served mainly to transport Portuguese and Italian emigrants from 1882 to 1905), as well as New York and New Orleans. In addition, between 1887 and 1906, Fabre transported fishermen from Saint-Malo to Newfoundland, pilgrims to Mecca and soldiers to China and Madagascar. When Fabre died in 1896, his company controlled around a tenth of the merchant ships operating out of Marseilles.

Turn of the century and First World War

Around 1900 the shipping company became increasingly known internationally as Fabre Line . At the beginning of the First World War, the company owned eleven ships, including the passenger steamer Sant 'Anna , which was torpedoed and sunk off Bizerta in 1918 with 2000 passengers on board. Furthermore, the shipping company lost the ships Libia , Provincia and Liberia in the four years of the war . A reorganization took place after the end of the war. The line to the Middle East, which was abandoned in 1914, was resumed in 1921, as were the services from Marseilles via Genoa, Syria, Egypt to New York. Soon cruises were also offered through own agencies in the Mediterranean. The transatlantic combined service, which was also reorganized, served Portugal and Italy, while the African service was extended to Douala and Pointe-Noire.

Takeover by Fraissinet and World War II

In the 1920s, Fabre began to set up community agencies with competitor Fraissinet. In 1927 Fabre took over the majority of the shipping company Chargeurs Réunis . In 1931, the Italian government created an Italian monopoly on the transport of emigrants, thereby excluding Fabre from this business. Some of the freed ships were sold to the shipping company Messageries Maritimes , others were used on the Fabre West African lines. In 1933 the name was changed to Compagnie Générale de Navigation à Vapeur Cyprien Fabre & Cie. After working together on the joint agencies and setting up a fruit service from Africa to Europe, Fraissinet took over the majority stake in Fabre in 1937. In the same year Fabre Chargeurs Réunis separated from the company and worked for a time with the family shipping company Paquet from Marseille.

When the Second World War broke out, Fabre concentrated on the Africa Post Service, a supply line to Morocco and Algeria with returns to France and the Fabre fruit services. In 1941 the company was named Compagnie de Navigation Cyprien Fabre & Cie. around. Fabre lost several ships in the war years, other remaining ships became superfluous due to the changed framework conditions.

Post-war period and end of the company

In the post-war years, the focus was initially on the reconstruction of the transatlantic services, the ships of which have now been identified by large Fabre Line lettering on the side . The first lines led to New York and the Gulf of Mexico, from 1950 Canada and the Great Lakes were added, and from 1954 Le Havre, Bordeaux and Brest were again integrated into the transatlantic traffic. In 1955, the merger with Fraissinet came to an end with the establishment of the Compagnie de Navigation Fraissinet et Cyprien Fabre . The company was managed by Roland Fraissinet, the grandson of Cyprien Fabres. Even after that, the shipping company's economic decline continued - in 1960 only two ships were managed. Five years later, under the care of Fraissinet-Chargeurs, the company merged with competitor Société Générale de Transport Maritimes to form Compagnie Fabre - SGTM.

Even after the subsequent reorganization, ships of the Fabre Lines ran in cooperation with other shipping companies of the merger under their own flag on the fruit service to West Africa, occasionally to Reunion, on lines in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific as well as newly opened container services to the United States and the big ones Seen, a conventional freight service to the Gulf of Mexico, the Antilles and Guyana (originally an SGTM line) and a line to Morocco (originally Paquet shipping company).

In the course of the 1970s, the shipping company initially deployed 16 ships, which earned less and less, and then repeatedly sold ships. In 1979 the last two ships Joliette and Frontenac were sold and the company was dissolved.

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