The Rest Is History - 430. Titanic: The Iceberg Strikes (Part 4)

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

It is Sunday the 14th of April 1912, and the passengers of the Titanic, from the tycoons in first class to the migrants in third class, have been enjoying a journey incomparable in its modernity. The weather, up until that point exceptionally clement, suddenly grew colder, stiller, calmer, and the ice warnings that had been coming through the ship’s sophisticated communications machine since Friday were growing evermore urgent. Ominously, they were left beneath piles of competing letters, unread. Then, at 11.40pm that night, a night of dancing and laughter, a cry came from the crow’s nest: “Iceberg ahead!” Join Dominic and Tom as they unpack the captivating lives and stories of the Titanic’s third class passengers, and recount the days and moments building up to the ship’s final hours. *The Rest Is History LIVE in 2024* Tom and Dominic are back onstage this summer, at Hampton Court Palace in London!  Buy your tickets here: therestishistory.com Twitter: @TheRestHistory @holland_tom @dcsandbrook Producer: Theo Young-Smith Assistant Producer: Tabby Syrett Executive Producers: Jack Davenport + Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for listening to The Rest Is History. For weekly bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, and membership of our much-loved chat community, go to therestishistory.com and join the club. That is therestishistory.com. I got everything I need right here with me. I got air in my lungs, a few blank sheets of paper. I mean, I love waking up in the morning, not knowing what's going to happen or who I'm going to meet, where I'm going to wind up. Just the other night I was sleeping under a bridge,

and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people. I figure life's a gift and I don't intend on wasting it. You never know what hand you're going to get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you to make each day count. so that dominic was jack dawson yeah as played by leonardo dicaprio in james cameron's 1997 film titanic and you will of course remember that jack has just saved rose as played by kate winslet from jumping off the ship in a suicidal fit of depression. And his reward is to be invited up to first class from steerage to meet all the people in first class. Yeah.

Evil Cal, the sinisterly camp fiance of Rose. Yes. And I think actually what Titanic gets really well, the film, is that steerage is actually brilliant because in due course jack will tell rose do you want to see a real party and they go down to steerage and she has a tremendous time you know there's irish dancing and jollity and fiddles and all kinds of things but actually steerage was brilliant wasn't it it was it wasn't a kind of nightmarish place of rats it was probably the best time that lots of people on this ship had ever had

until obviously, you know, it all went wrong. Well, I would imagine, first of all, that a lot of people listening to this podcast will be having the best time they've ever had because they'll have just heard your Leonardo DiCaprio impersonation. Yeah, king of the world. And that, of course, is a,

you've had to live with that comparison for years, haven't you, Tom? Well, you know, I've always been compared with Hollywood stars. Yeah, of course. But years haven't you tom well you know i'm always being compared with hollywood stars yeah of course but the difference between you is that you don't i mean you're a happily married man you didn't uh kick sadie out when she turned 25 no and if you're leonardo dicaprio you would have done yeah but jack dawson wouldn't the character of course yeah so i wasn't being leonardo dicaprio there i was being jack dawson so it's a nuanced yeah absolutely who in the long run will, of course, you know, a heroic act of self-sacrifice because he won't get on the door with Rose.

Anyway, listen, we're not talking about the film yet, although we will be in due course. So just on third class. Sorry, Tom, I spiraled off there slightly in my elaborate comparison between you and Leo. So third class on the Titanic, as you rightly say, it was not just, as we will discover, the best time that a lot of these people had ever known. This is in my capacity as a white star. Propaganda. Publicity man. Yeah. But also it's the best third class in history. There's no doubt about that. All people who've written about the Titanic. Until that point, right? Yes. There have never been better third-class provisions. So what you were buying, you will be in a cabin of either two or four people.

It's very unusual to have two birth rooms in third class. It's pretty much the first time this has ever happened. Normally, they would cram people in, but you have a lot more privacy. Single women and families are put separately from couples or single men. Cabins all have wash basins. And they're ventilated, aren't they, by the fans made in Belfast? Exactly. There are showers and there are baths. Now, if you travel on a Cunard ship, often they locked the third class bathrooms, but not on Titanic So, Dominic, that's why you want to white-star it, not Cunard it, right? Correct.

Correct. Though if Cunard are interested in sponsorship arrangements, they know where we are. Because white-star actually don't exist now, Tom, so this is a foolish pitch. Yeah, you're shilling for an extinct company. Yeah. So in the last episode when we did first and second class,

you said, well, second class have many of the same smoking room type things that they have in first class. But they have smoking rooms and bars in third class as well. They have a nice, big, airy dining saloon. And to give it a comparison, if you were traveling on a rival ship, say the Aquitania, there would be twice as many people packed into a smaller space on the Aquitaine than there would on Titanic. Well, I'm thinking of Dickens' comment when he went over first class on the first Cunard liner, and he was kind of complaining about, what is it, it'd be easier to get a giraffe into a whatever it was than to get his luggage into the cabin.

That's right, yeah. And so presumably these third class cabins are larger than he would have had going first class. Yeah, I would imagine so. So it is a measure of the relative degree of luxury that is being offered across all three classes. Yeah. Now, interestingly, like the other two classes, third class is not full. Again, this is an industry which is struggling with overcapacity. So there are 712, according to some accounts, third-class passengers, the majority of whom embarked at Southampton, but about 100 of them came on in France and 100 of them in Ireland. It is striking, isn't it?

Because the whole reason, in a way, for building the ship and making sure that it's three inches longer than the Olympic, that this is the largest thing that has ever floated on the face of the oceans. The hyperbole is what this maiden voyage is all about. And yet still it hasn't filled. I mean, that is really striking. No, but I guess it's the assumption

that it will fill over time. I suppose. But you'd think that it's the maiden voyage. Yeah. People would want to be a part of something so historic. They would. But why are you going... I mean, we'll come to this why are people traveling to the united states so as you said a couple of episodes ago the truth is people do not go on holiday and most people do not travel for work a very small number of people would well one person of

course who does is is may. Ismay, of course. He apparently is the person who had travelled more across the Atlantic than any other person in history. Is that right? Yeah. Okay. Amazing stat. But most people are travelling to emigrate. That's why you'd go.

You're not going to go to visit a friend or maybe once in a lifetime. But it's not like taking a transatlantic flight, something you would conceivably do multiple times. I think if you're going and then you have the chance to go on the largest ship that's ever been launched, you might think, oh, that'd be brilliant. I'll be part of this kind of record-breaking ship. Of course. Just striking that all three classes, they're not full. Yeah. Well, I suppose because the demand is necessarily limited. Let's talk about the people who do go, Tom.

Of those third-class passengers, the largest number are, what did we say there were, 712. Our largest number, 118 of them are British, 113 Irish. But there are more Scandinavians in total, aren't there, than British? There are. So 104 Swedes, 55 Finns, 25 Norwegians, and 7 Danes. But then there are also groups. So 79 people from Lebanon, 33 Bulgarians, 22 Belgians, 12 Armenians, 8 Chinese, and so on and so forth. So the Chinese are apparently firemen.

Yeah, by and large. So here is where we get to the immigration story. So at about this point, a million people a year are coming into the United States. So the peak, I think, was 1907, 1.125 million people. And we'll get into why people are making this choice. One reason is actually because of people I meet on paid propagandists working for White Star. So they will have agents all over the world who are producing advertisements, who are writing poems, who are painting pictures, who are doing all that about the beauties, the benefits, the bounties of the United States and how much of a better life you can have. The biggest group of Scandinavians, a lot of them are from poor rural villages. A lot of Scandinavians are very, very poor at the turn of the 20th century. So these are your classic people that you will see in...

In Fargo. Yeah, kind of Willa Cather novels and things. They're going to Minnesota. They're going to and things. They're going to Minnesota, they're going to the Midwest, they're going to become farmers. They're going to have very similar lives to the ones they have in Scandinavia, just much richer out on the prairies. There were remarkably few in that group. Some people may have expected there'd be a lot of people, Eastern European Jews. There are very few. And the reason, actually, is prejudice. White Star discourage Eastern Europeans from travelling from Southampton.

But they do provide kosher food, interestingly. In case they do travel. But there's a prejudice against Eastern European Jews. It is believed, and I quote, their untidiness, rudeness, and other marks of semi-civilisation make them unpopular on board. So there are a few Jewish passengers, but not that many. There are about 20 Croats. There's a guy called Nikola Lulic,

who is basically a chaperone, an interpreter. So often these people will travel in a group, or they will kind of club together. And one person who is experienced, this is Nikola Lulic in this case. So he's come back from America. Yes, he's crossed a couple of times. So he's learned English and he can Yes, he's crossed a couple of times. So he's

learned English and he can handle language and things. Poor fellow. He has been to Minnesota, like me. Because I emigrated, of course, to Minnesota, Tom, as you will recall. Yes, you did. I do remember that. Yes. 20 years ago. Actually, I wasn't really emigrating. I was going to do research. And actually, Croatian emigration to the United States is a really big thing at the turn of the 20th century. I mean, who knew that? I didn't know that. Fascinating.

Yeah, I think it's fascinating, some of these groups. So here's a really interesting one. The Lebanese. Yeah. So all these Lebanese people in the Titanic. Well, I did know about them because there's quite a lot of pogroms going on against Christians. Right. In this area of what is the Ottoman Empire.

And actually in Syria as well. Exactly. So this is what's happening. And I love this side of the Titanic story, not because I love pogroms against Christians in the Ottoman Empire, but because I love the way that the Titanic operates as this window into all kinds of aspects of international life in the early 20th century. Yeah, it does. Yeah. So as you say, the Ottoman Empire is in a bit of a mess at the beginning of the 20th century. There's lots of intercommunal violence and whatnot. The people who travel to America are often Christians from Armenia or from what's now Lebanon. Richard Davenport Hines

in his book, Titanic Lies, has a brilliant section on all this. There are 20 people from one particular village called Hardin, a kind of upland mountain village. Where, Tom, I'm pleased to read, there was a temple to the god Mercury, supposedly erected in the time of the Emperor Hadrian. Yeah, that's right. Who knew that Hadrian would feature in a Titanic podcast. Yeah, I'm thrilled to get him in.

So these are what we would call Maronite Christians. They had previously worked cultivating mulberry trees so silk but silk prices have been falling for the last 10 or 20 years or so so they are not merely being persecuted but they are increasingly poor struggling to scratch out a living yeah and they are all going to a place called wilkes bar in pennsylvania which as american listeners will know is famous for its coal mines and they are going to a place called Wilkes Bar in Pennsylvania, which as American listeners will know, is famous for its coal mines. And they're going to become coal miners. It's nicknamed Diamond City, which makes it sound like Las Vegas. It's not like that at all. Again, good spin.

Very good spin. And this is part of a process that is ongoing, that minorities in the Middle East are immigrating still to this day. Yeah. Christians, Yazidis, whoever. Yeah, exactly, to the US. So there's the Lebanese guys. Then there are this group I mentioned, Armenians, 12 Armenians.

So these are an interesting group. They are from a particular place called the Kegi District. Again, very, very mountainous. Davenport Hines says, a place where small farmers eked out a bare existence while fending off Kurdish brigands, avaricious semi-feudal Muslim landowners, and extortionate Turkish officials. Well, and this is a terrible time. Right. Obviously, I mean, kind of midway in what will ultimately become a genocidal program against the Armenians.

Exactly. So this is the point at which the young Turks, the nationalist group who have seized the kind of political momentum inside the Ottoman Empire, they are pushing for a sort of what they see as a kind of modern European style Turkification of the empire and particularly of districts where Turkish speakers and let's say Armenian speakers live side by side. So tens of thousands of Armenians have already been killed by the time the Titanic sails. And in a place called like Kegi, lots of people are keen to get out.

And the United States seems like the promised land. So these guys, there are 12 of them, they are coming from an extremely poor rural corner of the ottoman empire and for them third class on the titanic is unbelievable it's better than a palace you know it's like something that they've never imagined these are not people who are reading magazines about millionaire plutocrats and things their minds are blown by the public rooms by the two birth cabins by all of this kind of stuff extraordinary and there's a kind of peculiarly tragic quality about the armenians on the titanic because i mean had they stayed where they were

the program of genocide is massing i mean it will will begin, what, 1915, go through to early 1920s. Yeah. You know, a million and a half killed. And they think they've escaped, but they haven't. Yeah, of course not. And all this luxury, all this relative luxury,

and then they die as well. Yeah. I mean, it's really very kind of somber quality to the irony there. Very bitter. Because these people have not generally left any written sources, it's hard to get a sense of what they were thinking. I mean, these are not people who are using the Marconi equipment

to send messages and things. And also, they die. Yeah. Now, they must have noticed commonalities between all the different groups. So there's a whole kind of, it's a kind of Tower of Babel quality to it, I imagine. Lots of different groups all speaking their own language. Their experiences are probably pretty similar. So they will have been seen off with feasts and church services and things like that, or religious services.

Some of them are going to stay in America. Some of them are probably planning to come back home after a few years. Sojourning, as it's called. A lot of them are going to be remitting money back home. And there are lots of villages, so Croatia is a really good example, there are lots of villages that are increasingly dependent on remittances from people who've gone to the United States. And Greeks as well, I think, aren't there? Greeks, exactly. I think there are lots from Sparta, actually.

They are from Sparta, aren't they? When they get to America, they will move into this very kind of The Godfather Part Two. Yes. Yeah. These migrant networks. Somebody, a big guy, what do they call the padrone? A padrone will find you, work as a shoeshine boy, as a flower seller, as a... But these are the guy who speak English. Yeah.

Who are familiar with all the paperwork that you need and the kind of networks, shadowy networks in New York or wherever. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. These are the networks you see in all the immigrant stories and films and so on. So that's what awaits them when they get there. Before we get to the break, let's just finish off with some of the other passengers. So, of course, there are all the British and Irish families. There's one that really stuck.

I know you said to me that this was one that stuck with you too. Oh, I know. I know. The goldsmiths. Sadie, when we went to Belfast to see the Titanic Museum and we stayed in the hotel, which was the Harlan Wolfe offices. You can stay there. It's an incredible hotel. I mean, if you're any interest in the subject, go and stay there. I'm now shilling for them. But she was reading Richard Davenport Hines' book, Titanic Lives, and came across this story. So this is, it's a family of Methodists called the Goldsmiths.

From Kent, aren't they? Near Rochester. They're from Rochester. Yeah. And so they're moving out to Detroit. And it's Frank Goldsmith, his wife, Emily, and their young son, Frankie. And they want a clean start because their youngest son had died of diphtheria in 1911. So just a few months before they get on board the Titanic. And he's interesting because he is an example of someone who gets persuaded by the

marketing. So he was anxious about putting his family through going on third class, but he reads up about it and thinks, actually, it's going to be fine. And he's not wrong. I mean, it is fine. And when he's going, he has a kind of family contact in America who wants his younger brother, this is a guy called Rush, and he wants his younger brother, Alfred, to come out with them. And the goldsmiths say, yes, we will take young Alfred Rush with us. Alfred Rush is 15, but he celebrates his 16th birthday on Sunday, the 15th of April, which is the last day of the Titanic. And he gets given a pair of long trousers. And the long trousers, of course, are a signifier of adulthood, of manhood. And so he puts puts them on thereby marking himself out as someone who is

no longer a child yeah and listeners will be able to imagine what the consequence of that is and the way in which this birthday present will effectively kill him yeah heartbreaking he looked young for his years tom he looked young and so this is why he was so proud of... Yeah. And the little boy is nine years old, Frankie Goldsmith. He is very excited and he's been guzzling seasickness tablets like they're sweets. So he's kind of high on seasickness tablets. Necking them furiously. And he's very excited. And he lived because we have his stories and he describes. Mummy, at last we're on the Atlantic, was his cheerful cry.

It's actually a lovely story destroyed by that sinister impression of his. It's not sinister. No, it's full of boyish joy. And listeners will have noted the particular timbre I gave it of a boy who is high on seasickness pills. Really? Yeah. So yes, just before we go to the break. So most of these people have never been on a ship before.

They've never seen a ship, an ocean going vessel before. And they've never had a holiday before. Lots of them. No. Because they are miners, they are farm laborers, they are stonemasons, dressmakers, servants, salesmen. They are people who do not get transatlantic liners as a matter of course. As you say, Tom, they have probably, most of them, never had a week's holiday. And they've probably, I mean, lots of them would never have had as much

food as regularly as they get on the Titanic. It is like a holiday for them. You described the DiCaprio thing and the party. They are kind of playing cards. There are people skipping. They've brought accordions. Lots of people with mouth organs. Yeah. You know, they travel with their music and they are making music. Well, you know, the research that went into that film is really good. Obviously, they take dramatic license. But it's not wrong, that portrait. And the other thing, actually, just before we go to the break,

the food which seems quite drab probably to us, they're having kind of porridge, toast and marmalade, herrings, boiled potatoes. Delicious. Love it. But to them, it's warm, filling, nutritious, and probably quite exotic because they won't have had, you know, people living in Armenia will not have had Quaker oats porridge or toast and marmalade or whatever. Or I imagine herring. I mean, they're basically living like Paddington Bear. Yeah.

And I think, you know, all the accounts we have, nobody ever who survives says. It was awful. It was so unequal and I felt so downtrodden. They think it is absolutely tremendous. So, Dominic, as an enthusiast for. Yeah, White Star. For White Star. I mean, you would say it is a great ship.

Yeah. It deserves all the acclamation that it gets. It does. It does. And I think it's got a very bad and cruel press over the years. For a reason that we will come to after the break. It's out on the Atlantic. What then happens? So we will be looking at the break. It's out on the Atlantic. What then happens?

So we will be looking at that when we come back. I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works.

We have just launched our Members Club. If you want ad-free listening, bonus episodes and early access to live tickets, head to therestisentertainment.com. That's therestisentertainment.com. Hello, welcome back to The Rest Is History. We are on the maiden voyage of the Titanic. And Dominic, it leaves Queenstown. Yes.

Very near Cork, which in 1920 will be renamed Cove. Although for an English person, confusingly spelt because it's with a B-H rather than with B-E. And it steams out on the 12th of April out into the Atlantic. It is. It's following the route that all the ships in this period take. Yes. So there's nothing unusual about it.

No. Nothing unexpected. In fact, the only thing that is unusual is that the sea is very, very calm. Incredibly clement. Everything is going tremendously well. They had gone to cherbourg first then they as you say they've been to cove they picked up the last passengers they now have 1320

passengers when you add the crew that's 2235 people they have all the baggage they want yeah we haven't talked at all about the um all the mad stuff they have that they're taking as well a short story by joseph conrad ostrich plumes, a Renault car, 50,000 pounds worth of diamonds from Antwerp, a rare copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Tom, but they're not carrying, you mentioned the one man who's not aboard and the conspiracy theorist,

Pierpont Morgan. He's not there because he's supervising the transfer of his art collection. Yeah. To France to escape David Lloyd George's punitive taxation. That's what he thinks anyway. He's worried that David Lloyd George is going to steal all his art. So he's not on board, but everybody else is. And as you say, everything is going tremendously.

So Friday the 12th and Saturday the 13th, they make very good time, 500 miles on the 12th, 546 miles on the 12th and Saturday the 13th, they make very good time, 500 miles on the 12th, 546 miles on the 13th. And this is the point in the voyage where I guess, you know, Leo and Kate are carrying on, people playing cards. And they're enjoying the beautiful flat sea. So what you see in the film, you know, King of the World, all that kind of thing. It is beautiful weather. Everyone says this. They say it's not like we're at sea at all. It's a hotel. It's so calm world, all that kind of thing. Yeah. It is beautiful weather. Everyone says this. They say it's not like we're at sea at all. Yeah. It's a hotel.

It's so calm. All of that kind of stuff. So we get to Sunday the 14th. Now, the captain, who we haven't really talked about at all since we introduced him in the second episode. Where we had a slight disagreement, didn't we, about his nautical qualities? Yeah, you were very cruel. No, I just said that, you know that he's had three near crashes or near crashes

before setting out on this voyage. I'm just putting that on the record. That is the life of a captain, Tom. It's not all... No, it's not. He hadn't had any crashes at all. And then just before this voyage, he's had three. Right. Listen, we're never going to agree on this. We're never going to agree. I like a sea dog. I like a sea dog. I like a guy who with a salt and pepper nautical beard you look down on such people no i don't i like him but i you know it's very clear what's going on we've got to be honest so he you should love this thing at 10 30 that morning he leads everybody he puts on that church service a christian service tom in the first class dining saloon so that's very nice what's that him

about those who those in peril on the sea those in peril on the sea. Those in peril on the sea. I wonder if they sung that. They do in the film, I think. Do they? Yeah, I think they do. Now, they were meant to have, interestingly, a lifeboat drill on Sunday mornings. That is standard on a White Star liner. Again, this is something that White Star do, but it's not demanded by law.

It's not required, is it? No. Yeah. English regulations don't require it. They do it out of the kindness and the concern for health and safety. Yes. For which they're famous. Health and safety gone mad.

But it's, I mean, they say, let's have them. Captains don't tend to like to have them because they're just a massive faff and a hassle and whenever there's a big breeze which there is on that sunday morning they will take the opportunity to cancel them yes and it's starting to get a bit colder isn't it yes suddenly there's a slight icy quality to the weather oh there is yeah because that morning a lot of people are sitting out on deck chairs and things, reading and whatnot, and the kids playing on deck. But actually, after lunch, so they have their Sunday lunch, a sort of roast dinner and stuff, and they go back out. And it is a bit cold, and a lot of them retreat inside to the library. Yeah.

People are reading. They're playing cards and things. Go to the gym. Yeah, exactly. Now, one other thing that people are doing a lot of, which we haven't mentioned at all, is that we talked about technology and the obsession with speed and stuff in the early episodes. The first class passengers all have telephones. So they're ringing their stewards all the time and calling for, you know, oysters or whatever. Where's my Picasso?

But there is also a Marconi system on the ship. That's because you can send Marconi grams. You can indeed. So Marconi, the great radio pioneer, he has invented this machine where basically by generating radio waves and sparks and stuff, you can communicate with the outside world. And as a result of that, you have basically newspapers on the ship. They're printing newspapers. newspapers yeah so every morning they kind of put them out the atlantic daily bulletin yeah incredible there's a transmitter station at the pole do in cornwall which i've been to see that's right yes so the marconi they have a little

wireless station with three cabins and there are two marconi men who are marconi employees called jack phillips and harold bride who are working on the ship. And they make money for their employers for Marconi by sending passengers messages. And of course, Tom, going back to that point you made before about the capacity on the ship, because it's the maiden voyage of the Titanic, everyone is sending. People are queuing up to send messages.

I mean, it's kind of Instagram stuff, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Look where I am. Imagine this. You've just got a message from the Titanic and I'm in the middle of the Atlantic. That's what it is. And the apparatus breaks down on Friday night and Saturday morning. There's a huge backlog of work.

So by this point, Sunday, they still have a huge backlog of Marconi messages and they are absolutely knackered. And I think that's really important in explaining what happens next. It is, isn't it? Because, of course, they're not just sending messages from the ship to dry land. They're also getting messages that have come from ships that have gone to dry land that are then being sent back out. Among these messages is the fact that the cold weather is generating iceberg action. Iceberg action, exactly. So the first inkling they had of this, and by the way, this is not that unusual.

So this is not something that will have people quaking in their boots and running up and down, wailing and weeping. This is standard. There's ice in the North Atlantic. But it is unusual, isn't it, that it's been quite a kind of mild winter and so quite a lot of ice has broken off. It has, yes. And you've got these great chunks that are floating around.

Yes, there's so much of it. And the icebergs are very large. So on Friday, they'd had a message from a ship called La Touraine saying there is ice, watch out, be careful. And as you say, Tom, they've had a very mild winter. There are very large blocks of ice floating south because they are so large, they take longer to melt. So they come further south and there's more of them.

And you get to Sunday morning and there are a couple more warnings. So there's one from a Cunarder called the Caronia and there's one from a Dutch sailor, the Noordam, saying, watch out, there's one from a cunard called the coronia and there's one from a dutch style of the nordam saying watch out there's ice and so what does captain smith do when he receives these notifications don't they well this is fascinating so we know that he saw the warning because what they are doing is they are handing over the messages on a very piecemeal basis and this is one of the criticisms that was later made, that actually if you'd seen all the warnings together and they'd been collated, you'd have said,

oh, this is quite serious, we should watch out. But because different people are being handed the warnings every few hours in among a whole load of other messages and instructions and requests and all these kinds of things, they sort of get put down and overlooked. So Smith definitely sees the Nordam one, and then he's given another one when he's going for lunch on Sunday from a wide-style liner, actually.

Yeah, and that is the one that he gives to Ismay, isn't it? Yes. Who then kind of reads it, folds it up, puts it in his pocket, and kind of shows it to some people some of the first class passengers but nothing particularly happens no and then in the evening smith wants it back doesn't he to show to the crew but as far as we know he never actually showed it to them so i mean i know you're a big smith fan but it does seem... Well, I think here's what they're thinking. I think they're thinking, okay, there's a bit of ice,

but they're not thinking, you know, this is a life-threatening situation. I think they're thinking, okay, I'll make a note of that. But I suppose your excuse, if you're in the business, I mean, obviously, at some point, there's no point making excuses because they made a terrible horlicks of it and loads of people died. But if you are making excuses, you say, obviously, at some point, there's no point making excuses because they made a terrible horlicks of it and loads of people died. But if you are making excuses, you say, well, they've got loads of competing requests. I mean, they just don't take it terribly seriously, do they, Tom? Well, also, just to say, because this is obviously quite important for what's going to happen, the Titanic is built to be able to ram into an iceberg and just carry on.

Yeah. It will not cause damage. And not just the Titanic. Like, lots of ships. Yeah, well, all of them. And so this is, I mean, I gather standard, even with icebergs, you just keep going at a steady pace. One thing to absolutely emphasise, and this is something that the film does get wrong, in which Ismay is shown urging Smith to go as fast as he possibly can so that they can reach New York before the scheduled arrival time, because it will then get the Titanic in the papers. This is not true. This did not happen. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that Ismay was pushing

for the Titanic to go too fast. And in fact, it was not going at full speed. No, because white star liners are not famous for their speed. The point to them is they're luxurious. I mean, Ismay in the inquiry afterwards was absolutely explicit. She said the Titanic

did not have all her boilers on. Yeah. So it's not going at an insane speed. No. Another criticism that some people made

was they said, well, why didn't you really reduce your speed? Why didn't you slow down as you knew you were approaching an ice field,

an ice zone? And the answer is not that Smith was too proud or that he was under pressure or there was this sort of, you know, hubris, Edwardian hubris. It's actually that that is not the done thing to do. A good seaman does not reduce speed going into an ice zone. That was the established procedure. You continue going as you are. And as you say, Tom, if you hit an iceberg, it is very annoying, but it's very unlikely, they think, to involve a massive loss of life. And there's an example of a ship, the Kronprinz Wilhelm, a German ship, had rammed an iceberg and crumpled its bow in 1907 and had just

carried on merrily to port. But just one consideration that might perhaps have given Smith pause for thought is the fact that, so we're now the night of Sunday, the 14th of April, and it's the fifth night of the voyage, and the conditions are unbelievably calm so it's a very very flat sea absolutely clear sky blaze of stars and because the conditions are so flat that means it is actually very difficult to spot icebergs because there is no swell yeah giving away their presence yeah i think that is really important because they don't see it until the last possibly that might have been a consideration yeah so as you say we get to sunday evening it's very cold and everybody's gone

indoors now some listeners may remember our podcast which we talked about tom brown's school days i'm delighted to say that the author of that book thomas hughes makes an indirect appearance here because his son-in-law is on the Titanic, the Reverend Ernest Carter. So he's a vicar. Well, you would be a vicar if you were a great devotee of Tom Brown's school days, wouldn't you? Yeah, I think you probably would, yeah. Dr. Arnold and all that stuff. Yeah.

So he has a hymn singing service in the second class cabins. It's like a Rest Is History live show, Tom. He asks people, what hymns would you like? And they shout out hymns and he's able to tell them who wrote the hymn the history behind its composition

brilliant I mean if you have to have a last night yeah that's the kind of entertainment you want definitely

oh definitely that would be your last thought as you died of hypothermia at least I had a brilliant night with hymns what a wonderful night of hymn history

yeah so yeah people are singing people are playing cards hypothermia at least i had a brilliant night with him what a wonderful night of him history um yeah so yeah people are singing people playing cards people are just quietly reading all of that sort of stuff and everyone is i mean those who survive do remember it as being a brilliant evening so a young jack thayer who is only 17 yeah i went onto the boat deck it was deserted and only the wind whistled through the stays and blackish smoke poured out of the three forward funnels because actually the four tunnels we should say the fourth one is a is a fake yes for symmetry yeah it was the kind of a night that made one feel glad to be alive oh that's very poignant tom because they are getting more messages now 7 30 a message from the lane in lines california 9 40 a message from the steamship Masaba.

And a lot of these messages, you know, are just being dumped on a table in the bridge. Because they're all tired and overworked and it's a Sunday evening. Yes, exactly. And actually those later messages, those officers who survived said, well, I didn't see them. I remember vaguely seeing as somebody had put a piece of paper with the word ICE down on the notice board or on the table, but I don't really recall a conversation about it.

So Captain Smith, meanwhile, is dining with the Widners, isn't he? He is. So the young bibliophile, his dad. That's right. And that's not negligence on his part. I mean, that's expected of the captain. That is demanded. It is, because making sure that the wealthiest passengers are happy is a crucial part of his job so the person who effectively

is in charge of the ship the officer in watch is a man called william murdoch who has replaced the junior officer to him charles lightoller on watch he is from sc Scotland. He's a very competent officer. He is described by someone who knew him as being canny and dependable. He's 39, I think, so just before his 40th birthday. And he's the first officer. So he's a man of great experience. He has no authority from Smith to reduce speed, even though the ship has entered a zone where there are icebergs. And so he doesn't. The ship plows on, it's making 22 knots, and Lightoller, who survives, remembers it was pitch dark and dead cold, not a cloud in the sky, and the sea like glass. And again, he says, you know, he's an experienced officer as well, he had never seen such clear

conditions. So this is incredibly significant for what is going to happen these conditions might make people think well it must be easy to see an iceberg but as you say it's it's i mean that's the whole reason why it's so significant it's really hard to see now there are six lookouts there are two in the crow's nest a guy called lee and a guy called frederick called Frederick Fleet. Frederick Fleet is an interesting person. He's in his early 20s. He's a foundling.

He'd been abandoned by his mother as a baby and raised in a Dr. Bernardo's orphanage. And he had gone to sea at the age of 12 and become a deck boy. And as you say, he's looking out from the crow's nest. Although in the film, of course, he's distracted by Leo and Kate. Of course. Yeah. So it's about half past 11 and he's, you know, looking out. And because it's so calm, he doesn't see the sort of the surf that you would expect at the base of an iceberg.

Yeah. Which would warn that an iceberg was coming. And at 11.40pm, he sees a dark shape right ahead in the ship's path. And he rings the bell three times, object dead ahead. And he telephones the bridge and he says, iceberg right ahead. And this is getting through to Murdoch, who's in charge. And he then makes a fatal mistake. I mean, most people would say he should have just gone straight ahead, gone straight for it, rammed it head on.

But understandably, in some ways, maybe it's instinct. Who knows? Or maybe he thought he could clear it. Well, he almost does clear it, I suppose. Yeah. You know, it's not a ludicrously bad call so he he orders it to turn to starboard yeah and to reverse the engines yeah to swing around it so to get thrust to pull back to swing round yeah so he's trying to swing the ship's bow to port

so that it will miss the iceberg and anyone who's again seen again, seen the film, I mean, it's brilliant. Even though you know what's going to happen, you still feel the tension of it. But the ship is going too fast for it to work. And the side of the ship runs up against the rough edge of the iceberg. And the iceberg, it's like a kind of tin can opener shredding the side of the ship but of

course none of them know that do they in the next episode when we talk about the effect that that has we'll talk about the reactions that people have what they think they hear what they then see and what they do but maybe we should just end with this one scene which gives you a sense of the uncertainty at that moment. So they're trying to go around the iceberg. They think they've done it, and they've just kind of scuffed it, haven't they? Yeah, so Fleet in the craziness, I mean, he thinks that all is good. Yeah.

All is fine. And he's not alone, I think. A lot of people think they have just veered past it. But there was a guy who was a steward called James Witter, and he was in the second-class smoking smoking room and he says of that last evening it was a beautiful clear but very cold evening the sea was like a sheet of glass there you go again tom while i was clearing up the second class smoke room ready for closing at midnight all was very quiet he describes the scene there are about 40 people there normally they're not allowed to play cards on sundays but the rule

has been relaxed because it's the maiden voyage so the three groups of them playing cards and he's just quietly clearing up the glasses and stuff around them and then he says suddenly there was a jar the ship shuddered slightly and then everything seemed normal And the thing is that of the 40 men who were there in that room, in that second classroom playing cards, within four hours, nine out of 10 of them would be dead. Right. So in our next episode, we will describe the events that follow on that disastrous brush against the iceberg

and the process which culminates in the sinking of the Titanic and the death of huge numbers of the people on board that ship. So if you want to hear that, you can hear it straight away by going to the rest is history.com. If not, it will be going out very soon. So we will see you then for what will be a very dramatic but very traumatic episode. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

I'm Marina Hyde. And I'm Richard Osman. And together we host The Rest Is Entertainment. It's your weekly fix of entertainment news, reviews, splash of showbiz gossip. And on our Q&A, we pull back the curtain on entertainment and we tell you how it all works. We have just launched our Members Club.

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