The stout ship Birkenhead lay hard and fast,
Caught without hope, upon a hidden rock;
Her timbers thrilled as nerves, when through them passed
The spirit of that shock.*

 
 
Last weekend’s cruise-ship disaster off the coast of Tuscany is a sad reminder of just how “uncivil” western civilization has become [“Dude, Where’s My Lifeboat?” ~ Rich Lowry]. Between the cowardly behavior of the ship’s captain, the undisciplined crew, and the thoughtlessly rude passengers, I think we can conclusively say that the concept of “women and children first” is no longer part of our collective social mores. It’s been replaced by “you’re on your own sucker.”
 
The tale of the Costa Concordia prompted the inevitable comparison with past nautical disasters. The Titanic yes, but sixty years before she sank, another ship went down near Cape Town off the coast of South Africa; the HMS Birkenhead. Little recalled today, it was this tragic episode that instilled the maritime principle of “women and children first” into the British national psyche.
 
I’d never heard the story until recently when I read a short recounting; The Birkenhead Drill by Douglas Phillips ~
 
A troop transport ship out of Ireland, carrying approximately 640 men, women and children, the Birkenhead hit a reef off the southeast shore of Africa on February 26, 1852. She sank twenty minutes later.
 
After the initial shock of the collision, orders were given for all the men to stand fast, to let the women and children disembark first, and not to jump overboard and risk capsizing the small boats. There was simply no time for more to evacuate safely and when the ship went down, some 600 men were plunged into the ocean. They were in shark-infested waters and two miles from shore. Only 193 souls are believed to have survived the wreck of the HMS Birkenhead. But not a women or child was lost – thanks to the courageous action of those soldiers and sailors.
 
Steve Dougherty at the UK Mail relates how profoundly this disaster affected maritime tradition:

The incident had an immediate international impact. Frederick William IV of Prussia ordered the tale to be read to each of his regiments. ‘Birkenhead Drill’ became a phrase to describe military discipline in the face of overwhelming and inevitable disaster, memorialised by Kipling among others.
 
Within 10 years Birkenhead Drill had become the standard model to be followed on ships in trouble, popularly known by the phrase “women and children first.”

But, ho-hum, why bother to recall this ancient history from the 19th century? The author of The Birkenhead Drill explains:

History, of course, is more than the recitation of mere facts. It is the formal remembrance and the meaningful retelling of human passions and choices in motion. It is the interpretation of those facts such as that we can understand and learn from the many providences of God in human events.
 
This is why the story of the Birkenhead remains relevant one hundred and fifty years after its sinking. A boat sank. So what? Behind the simple facts of the Birkenhead lies the answer to the heart and soul of Christendom. Namely, that to be great our civilization must rest on the transcendent truths demonstrated through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

 
 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Short audio about the sinking of the Birkenhead, February 26, 1852:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 
 
 
 

That those whom God’s high grace there saved from ill –
Those also, left His martyrs in the bay –
Though not by siege, though not in battle, still
Full well had earned their pay.*
 
* from “The Loss of the Birkenhead” by Sir Francis Hastings Doyle

~~~~~~~~~~
Related:
 
The End Of Social Norms, From The Titanic To The Concordia ~ Great article by Mark Steyn with his perspective on shipwrecks, revisionist history and the misguided values of contemporary western culture.