The Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT, and commonly named "Transat"), typically known overseas as the French Line, was a French shipping company. Established in 1855 by the brothers Émile and Issac Pereire under the name Compagnie Générale Maritime, the company was entrusted by the French government to transport mail to North America. In 1861, the name of the company was changed to Compagnie Générale Transatlantique. The company's first ship, SS Washington, had its maiden voyage on 15 June 1864. After a period of trial and error in the late 19th century, the company, under the direction of its presidents Jules Charles-Roux and John Dal Piaz, gained fame in the 1910s and 1930s with its famous ocean liners such as , , and especially . Weakened by World War II, the company regained its fame in 1962 with the famous , but the ship suffered major competition from air transport and was retired from service in 1974. In 1977, the company merged with the Compagnie des Messageries Maritimes to form the Compagnie Générale Maritime (CGM). Then, in 1996, the company and the Compagnie Maritime d'Affrètement (CMA) merged to form the CMA CGM.
Contrary to what its name suggests, the company did not operate only on the North Atlantic route. It also offered service to Central America and even, for a time, the Pacific coast. From the beginning of the 20th century, it offered crossings between Marseille and Algiers, creating a tourist circuit in North Africa in the 1920s. In the 1930s, the company briefly became involved in aviation through Air France Translatlantique. Other than operating ocean liners, the company also had a significant fleet of cargo ships. The cargo service was started in the 1900s.
The ocean liners of CGT were often symbolic works of art of their time; they were intended to represent an image of France abroad. The quality of services aboard, such as that of meals and wines, had attracted wealthy clientele, including Americans at the time of the Prohibition in the United States. Years after the company's demise, its heritage continues to attract collectors and is showcased in exhibitions.
History Founding and first trials and errors (1855–1861)
In 1855, the Pereire brothers, Émile and Isaac, founded the Compagnie Générale Maritime in Granville, Manche. Already owners of many railway companies, they were a part of a current of French industrialists who founded large companies under the leadership of Napoleon III. In the 1850s, there was a strong need for a French merchant fleet. The Pereires were also at the head of a credit organization, Société Générale de Crédit Mobilier, which became the main shareholder of the new company.
The Compagnie Générale Maritime was thus officially founded on February 24, 1855, and Adolphe d'Eichthal became its first president until 1861. The company was founded upon the takeover of the “Terreneuvienne”, a cod fishing company founded two years previously which owned many sailboats. The first years of the company were disorganized: the shipping routes multiplied in an anarchic way, using up a great part of the company's initial capital.
After this near-bankruptcy, the Pereires understood that, like the Cunard Line, they would be better off focusing on an ocean liner service financed by postal agreements. Napoleon III, seduced by the concept, proposed a number of agreements at the time, which the Pereires refused, judging them to be too weak. The route to the Americas was thus given to Louis Victor Marziou instead, but he was unable to develop it due to a lack of investors in 1860. It was at this moment that Isaac Pereire chose to renegotiate an agreement with the French government. In 1860, they signed an agreement in which the company contracted to create a fleet and to provide liner service and carry mail for 20 years on the following routes: Le Havre – New York with calls at Brest, Saint-Nazaire, and the Isthmus of Panama, with three additional services for Guadeloupe, Cayenne, and Mexico. In return, the government would provide the company with an annual subsidy. In 1861, an imperial decree changed the company's name to Compagnie Générale Transatlantique, to better correspond to its new roles.
The difficult start of postal service (1861–1880)
To meet the contractual requirement that its fleet be built in France, the company must find local shipyards. With the construction of its first six ships having begun abroad (in particular SS Washington, the first liner built for the New York route), the Péreires were well aware of the prices charged by foreign shipyards. However, the prices offered by the domestic La Seyne-sur-Mer shipyards were significantly higher. Thus they acquired land near Saint-Nazaire and founded the Chantiers et Ateliers de Saint-Nazaire (later better known as the Chantiers de Penhoët). Engineers from the Scottish shipyards of John Scott came to provide their expertise to French workers and architects. At the time, the shipyards only built the hulls of their ships; the engines inside those ships were purchased from Le Creusot.
In 1862, two years ahead of schedule, SS Louisiane inaugurated the route to Mexico, becoming the company's first success. This route's creation was particularly anticipated by the government because of the second French intervention in Mexico. Two years later, service on the New York – Le Havre route began with the paddle-steamer SS Washington providing postal service. It was later joined by SS France (first of this name) and SS Impératrice Eugénie. In 1867, the company switched from using paddle wheels to using propellers for its ships, partly because they were more fuel efficient. Taking advantage, among other things, of the American Civil War and the weakening of the American fleet, the company succeeded in conquering new markets. The Pereires notably set up a service specifically intended for French emigrants.
An economic and financial crisis in 1868 forced the Pereire brothers to file a petition of bankruptcy and to resign from the company's board. However, the company survived. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and the uncertain beginnings of the French Third Republic further reduced the traffic and profits of the transatlantic route while competition from other shipping companies increased. In 1873, as the company was recovering, its first major accident occurred. collided with the sailing ship Loch Earn, with a loss of life of about 226 people. The company's situation seemed catastrophic. In 1875, the Pereires brothers were called back to take over the company's helm again in order to ensure its recovery. That same year, however, Émile died. So it was Isaac and his son Eugène who led the recovery. In particular, they extended their activity by taking advantage of the virtual absence of competition to open a service in the Mediterranean between Marseille and Algiers in 1879. In that same year, the company became public.
Overhaul of the fleet and the first large liners (1886–1904)
At the beginning of the 1880s, the need arose to build new, more modern ships. The first, ordered under the name Ville de New York, was put into service under the name of Normandie then quickly renamed La Normandie. With its 145 meters length and its 6,500 gross tonnage, it was the first liner of the company to be equipped with electric lighting and promenade decks. At the same time, the company had to renew the postal agreement of 1861, before its expiration in 1885. The commission responsible for it renewed it in 1883, on the condition that the company quickly obtained four more liners capable of speed greater than 15 knots. This was already the case for La Normandie.
The four new ships were SS La Champagne, , SS La Gascogne, and . They were assigned to the New York route in 1886, while a large percentage of the company's older ships were reassigned to the Central America route. Despite this major renewal, the company's fleet was facing increasing competition from foreign shipping companies. The success of these four ships was immediate, however, and revenue almost doubled in four years. The quality of life aboard these liners was also important and contributed to the increased fame of the company. With the White Star Line having just put into service its fast , and the Inman Line with its , the company felt the need to respond. This prompted the construction of in 1891. Slightly larger, and, above all, faster than its predecessors (19 knots on average), it however remained below the performance of its competitors (it narrowly failed to conquer the Blue Riband). Nevertheless, it was built at the right time to allow the replacement of the boilers of SS La Normandie, and especially to take advantage of the World Columbian Exposition to be held in the United States in 1893. In 1894, it was also used for luxury cruise service in the Mediterranean, notably to Istanbul. « Paquebot La Touraine » , Association French Lines. Accessed 11 January 2013
The late 1890s were particularly unfavorable for the company for a number of reasons. The Spanish–American War, an economic crisis, and changes in customs legislation, as well as an epidemic of cholera in France partially reduced the passenger traffic, while new, increasingly imposing ocean liners were emerging abroad, such as and . Added to this were several maritime disasters, notably the abandonment at sea of SS City of Saint-Nazaire (1897) and the disappearance of the cargo ship Pauillac which was later revealed to have been purchased at a low price from another company and was in poor condition. Worse still for the company was the sinking of its SS La Bourgogne in 1898, which claimed 568 lives. The biggest disaster known to the company, it made a strong impression on public opinion, which quickly judged that the company was responsible for the tragedy.
At the same time, the company was struggling to renovate its fleet. At the end of the 19th century, SS La Touraine, flagship of the fleet, was clearly outdated. The necessary renewal of the postal convention, for adapting to the new demands of the market, hardly came and was only carried out at the turn of the years 1897/1898. It was only then that the building of new ships SS La Lorraine and SS La Savoie could begin; they entered service in 1900 and 1901 respectively. Although much larger than La Touraine, with 170 meters and 11,000 tons, they still struggled to compete by their size with ships such as . A final growing problem was that of President Eugène Pereire, who had become blind and deaf, and considered increasingly senile. He was finally ousted in 1904 and the board of directors was overhauled. It was the end of the reign of the Pereire family over the company.
Under the presidency of Jules Charles-Roux (1904–1914)
In 1904, Jules Charles-Roux became president and instituted a reorganization of the company. His leadership led to a new strategy of winning back customers who had turned away from the company. Charles-Roux took advantage of several trips to the United States to meet with many wealthy industrialists and gain their customer loyalty to the company. In the same vein, he decided on a change of policy by targeting a new clientele. The race for speed seemed to be an increasingly irrelevant idea as the prices of coal made high speeds unprofitable. Charles-Roux and most engineers, who agreed with him on this point, considered that the speed of liners had reached a plateau which can only be exceeded by technological change. The White Star Line had, moreover, made the same observation a few years earlier by putting into service its "Big Four".