SS ''Athos'' was a French

cargo-passenger ship A cargo liner, also known as a passenger-cargo ship or passenger-cargoman, is a type of merchant ship which carries general cargo and often passengers. They became common just after the middle of the 19th century, and eventually gave way to co ...

of the Messageries Maritimes, launched in 1914, that was sunk in the Mediterranean by the German submarine during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

Ship history

Construction of the ship started on 25 July 1914 in Dunkirk, but was halted when the city was bombed during the

First Battle of Ypres The First Battle of Ypres (french: Première Bataille des Flandres; german: Erste Flandernschlacht – was a battle of the First World War, fought on the Western Front around Ypres, in West Flanders, Belgium. The battle was part of the Fir ...

. The ship was towed to

Saint Nazaire Saint-Nazaire (; ; Gallo: ''Saint-Nazère/Saint-Nazaer'') is a commune in the Loire-Atlantique department in western France, in traditional Brittany. The town has a major harbour on the right bank of the Loire estuary, near the Atlantic Ocean. T ...

, where it was completed as a

troopship A troopship (also troop ship or troop transport or trooper) is a ship used to carry soldiers, either in peacetime or wartime. Troopships were often drafted from commercial shipping fleets, and were unable land troops directly on shore, typicall ...

and not, as intended, as a passenger ship. Measuring 12,644 gross register tons, the ship was long, with a beam of . Her speed was . Her first voyage was to China, leaving on 28 November 1915. Her second was between 29 October and 26 December 1916 from Marseille to Yokohama and back. At 12:27 on 17 February 1917, during her third voyage, ''Athos'' was torpedoed by the German submarine commanded by

Hermann von Fischel Hermann or Herrmann may refer to: * Hermann (name), list of people with this name * Arminius, chieftain of the Germanic Cherusci tribe in the 1st century, known as Hermann in the German language * Éditions Hermann, French publisher * Hermann, Miss ...

, while

east by south The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sep ...

Malta Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies ...

. Aboard ''Athos'' were 1,950 people, including the crew,

Chinese Labour Corps The Chinese Labour Corps (CLC; french: Corps de Travailleurs Chinois; ) was a force of workers recruited by the British government in the First World War to free troops for front line duty by performing support work and manual labour. The French ...

, a large continent of Senegalese Tirailleurs soldiers, and civilian passengers, including women and children. The ship sank in 14 minutes taking with her 754 people, including the captain and 11 crew members. The survivors were picked up by the escort ships ''Enseigne Henry'' and ''Mameluck'', as well as the gunboat ''Moqueuse'' and the torpedo-boat ''Baliste''.

References

External links

Technical data of the ''Athos''
*

The ''Athos'' on Frenchlines.com

{{DEFAULTSORT:Athos 1914 ships Ships built in France World War I passenger ships of France World War I shipwrecks in the Mediterranean Sea Maritime incidents in 1917 Ships sunk by German submarines in World War I