Societé Commerciale Bulgare de Navigation à Vapeur

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The Societé Commerciale Bulgare de Navigation à Vapeur (Bylgarsko Tyrgovsko Parohodno Druzhestvo or Българско търговско параходно дружество) was a Bulgarian shipping company based in Varna , which existed from 1892 to 1948 and was nationalized from 1892 to 1948.

history

founding

At the end of the 19th century Bulgaria was an agricultural country whose imports and exports were almost exclusively handled by foreign companies. This led to low revenues for exports and high prices for imported goods. In order to sell Bulgarian exports closer to producer prices - and thus more cheaply - there were several attempts at the end of the 19th century by Bulgarian businessmen to become active in sea trade.

The preparations for the establishment of the shipping company Societé Commerciale Bulgare de Navigation à Vapeur reached back to 1887 when, at the suggestion of Georgi Zhivkov - Chairman of the National Assembly, Regent of Bulgaria after the abdication of Prince Alexander I and Minister for National Enlightenment - the trader Veliko Hristov from Varna took over this task. Together with the entrepreneurs Yanko Slavchev, Petar Enchev, Ivan Manzov, Stat Panitsa and Petar Popov, also from Varna, he set up a commission in December 1889 to draft the statutes of the future shipping company. As early as January 21, 1890, the commission submitted the draft to the Ministry of Finance for approval.

The year 1892 is considered to be the year of birth of the Bulgarian merchant shipping: On July 25th the constituent meeting of the shipping company took place. In the same year the Council of Ministers gave its approval and parliament passed the "Law Establishing a Bulgarian Merchant Shipping Company on the Black Sea". In addition to the general promotion of Bulgarian trade, the company's aim was expressly to reduce the transport costs for the export of Bulgarian grain to the Eastern Mediterranean. The company was endowed with one million lei , divided into 5,000 shares of 200 leva. The state held 25 percent of the capital, offered an annual return of 9 percent, and received privileges in return for the transport of mail, officials and military personnel. The shipping company is therefore to be regarded as a semi-public company. The company's headquarters were in Varna.

Development of the shipping company and routes

The focus of activity was primarily freight traffic, but also passenger traffic initially between Bulgarian ports and the western Black Sea and the eastern Mediterranean. The shipping company commissioned the two newbuildings Bulgaria and Boris from the Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson shipyard in Newcastle upon Tyne , which began their service in 1894. In the years up to the First World War, the steamers Varna , Sofia , Kyril and Tzar Ferdinand followed . In a few months the transport prices for Bulgarian export goods fell. Initially, mainly Dalmatians and Greeks were employed on the ships, until 1907 they were replaced by Bulgarian officers.

During the First World War , the shipping company's ships were mobilized: In addition to transporting military material, they were used as mine layers and as tenders for submarines and seaplanes . After the Thessaloniki armistice of 1918, they were requisitioned and flied the French flag for two years.

In the interwar period, the shipping company improved its profitability, which made investments in new ships possible. In 1928 she acquired the Bourgas, the shipping company's first ship with telegraph equipment, and the Evdokiya . 1933 to 1935 followed the steamers Balkan , Knyaginya Maria Louisa and Rodina - the largest ship of the shipping company. As the last acquisitions before the Second World War, she bought the second Varna in 1937 , which was the only ship in the Black Sea at that time to be equipped with a cooling system, and in 1938 the shipka .

On the eve of the Second World War , the shipping company had nine ships with around 30,000 GRT that served routes in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. Agents of the shipping company were present in the ports of Istanbul , Marseille , Egypt , Palestine , Syria , Cyprus and Malta . The two ships Knyaginya Maria Louisa and Balkan have been sailing the new route between Varna and Rotterdam since around 1934 . In parallel to the expansion of the routes, the volume of freight and passengers also developed: while in 1931 the shipping company had already carried 65,755 tons of freight and 26,321 passengers, in 1938 this figure was 215,717 tons of freight and 37,670 passengers. The shipping company's share of Bulgarian exports was 21 percent and imports were 19.5 percent.

During the Second World War, all of the shipping company's ships were chartered or sold to the Germans - all of them were sunk between 1941 and 1944. Two or possibly three of these ships were lifted, repaired and put back into service after the war. The last one was only scrapped in 1986.

Ships of the shipping company

Surname tonnage Construction year in the service of the shipping company Notes, whereabouts
Bulgaria 1108 GRT 1894 1894-1941 Freight and passenger traffic; Bought by the Navy in 1941 and converted into a mine ship; sunk by British submarine Unruly on October 8, 1943 .
Boris 869 GRT,
542 NRT 		1894 1894-1920 Freight traffic; Sank on November 9, 1920 after colliding with the Romanian monitor Ion C. Bratianu near Sevastopol.
Ellie 300 dw ? 1900-1900 In 1900 chartered twice for two months by the Greek shipping company Cosmetics for the line to Constantinople . This enabled Boris and Bulgaria to be used for trips to Smyrna , Volos , Piraeus and Patras .
Varna (ex Numidia ) 1820 BRT,
1164 NRT 		1902 1902-1929 Freight traffic; sank on December 25, 1929 after colliding with the Greek freighter Chryssi in the Sea of ​​Marmara .
Sofia (ex Devonia , Panormos , later Ercumentnur , Agios Nicolaos ) 255 GRT,
138 NRT 		1882 1904-1930 / 32 Freight and passenger traffic along the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, sold in 1930/32, no entry in the register from 1954.
Kyril (ex Devonia , later Eleni , Evangelos Georgiou , Fragiscos ) 441 BRT,
211 NRT 		1903 1906-1934 Passenger traffic; Sold to Greece in 1934; sunk by the German Air Force on April 27, 1941.
Tzar Ferdinand 1994 BRT,
1209 NRT 		1913 1913-1941 Freight and passenger traffic; 1941 in German charter; sunk in the Aegean Sea by the French submarine Curie on October 2, 1944 .
Bourgas (ex Carniola ) 2941 BRT,
2283 NRT 		1900 1928-1941 Freight and passenger traffic, 1941 in German charter; sunk in Saloniki itself on October 30, 1944, lifted in 1945, allegedly repaired; Remaining unexplained.
Evdokiya (Knyaginya Evdokiya) 706 GRT,
266 NRT 		1928 1928-1942 Freight traffic, taken over by the Germans as a barge ship in 1942; Sunk after being hit by a bomb in Sevastopol on March 30, 1943, lifted, back into service, back in 1944, scrapped in 1986.
Knyaginya Maria Louisa (ex Felix Fraissinet ) 3821 BRT,
2287 NRT 		1919 1933-1941 Freight traffic, 1941 in German charter; Sank on May 30, 1941 after a fire and explosion of the ammunition load in Piraeus.
Balkans (ex Louis Fraissinet ) 3823 BRT,
2296 NRT 		1914 1934-1943 Freight traffic, 1941 in German charter; sunk in the Aegean Sea on December 23, 1943 by the British submarine Sportsman .
Rodina (ex Eisenach ) 4159 GRT 1922 1935-1941 Freight traffic; sunk on September 19, 1941 on a mine lock in the Black Sea.
Varna 2141 BRT,
1083 NRT 		1937 1937-1943 Freight traffic, temporarily in German charter in 1941; sunk on August 20, 1943 in the Black Sea by the Soviet submarine D-4 .
Shipka 2304 BRT,
1244 NRT 		1938 1938-1941 Freight traffic, 1941 in German charter; sunk on September 15, 1941 on a mine lock in the Black Sea.
Rodina (II) 2950 GRT,
1455 NRT 		1944 1946-1976 German type Hansa-B cargo ship ; Bought in Denmark in 1946 as the first new acquisition after World War II; 1976 decommissioned and scrapped.

fate

After the Second World War, the shipping company bought its first new ship in 1946: on September 25 of that year, the Bulgarian flag was hoisted on board the new Rodina in Copenhagen . Six months later, on March 13, 1947, the Bulgarian National Assembly passed the law on the nationalization of the shipping company; in June it was merged with the “Navigation Maritime Bulgarian” founded in 1941. On November 11, 1948, the "Law on the Nationalization of Private and Cooperative Cargo Ships Over 40 GRT" was published and the remains of the company were nationalized as "Navibulgar". This shipping company still exists today and sees itself as the successor to the Societé Commerciale Bulgare de Navigation à Vapeur.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ http://www.navbul.com/en/company/history/index.php , http://www.chernomore.bg/jivot/2017-01-03/nepoznatata-istoriya-predi-125-godini-e -postaveno-nachaloto-na-balgarskoto-targovsko-koraboplavane
  2. ↑ Unless otherwise stated, the entire paragraph is based on the following pages: http://www.navbul.com/en/company/history/index.php , http://www.chernomore.bg/jivot/2017-01 -03 / nepoznatata-istoriya-predi-125-godini-e-postaveno-nachaloto-na-belgarskoto-targovsko-koraboplavane
  3. ↑ http://cypruslibrary.moec.gov.cy/ebooks/Cyprus_Blue_Book_1932/files/assets/basic-html/page416.html , http://www.levantineheritage.com/testi83.htm
  4. ↑ http://www.tynebuiltships.co.uk/B-Ships/boris1894.html
  5. ↑ Navibulgar news December 2012 - January 2013: History of the shipping company
  6. ↑ http://www.tynebuiltships.co.uk/V-Ships/varna1902.html
  7. ↑ http://www.historisches-marinearchiv.de/projekte/verluste_griechenland/ausgabe.php?lang=1&rubrik=%&where_value=488
  8. ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/44-09.htm , Schmelzkopf, p. 256, Gröner, p. 48, Schmidt, Kludas, p. 77, p. 85, Hartmann, Nöldeke, p 211, p. 285
  9. ↑ melt head, p. 38; see. http://www.morskivestnik.com/mor_kolekcii/mor_post/oftrasfdf.html
  10. ↑ Schmelzkopf, p. 79, Gröner, p. 96
  11. ↑ melt head, p. 124
  12. ↑ melt head, p. 29, cf. http://www.forum-marinearchiv.de/smf/index.php?topic=13125.0
  13. ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/41-09.htm , https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?58847
  14. ↑ melt head, p. 260
  15. ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/41-09.htm
  16. ↑ http://www.navbul.com/en/company/history/index.php , http://www.chernomore.bg/jivot/2017-01-03/nepoznatata-istoriya-predi-125-godini-e -postaveno-nachaloto-na-balgarskoto-targovsko-koraboplavane

literature

Web links

https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?187810 , accessed on February 24, 2018