The Great War
As U-20 watched on as the wounded giant staggered on ahead, the crew onboard listened intently as their captain silently watched. The Cheers had been replaced by a feeling of anxiety and baited breath as the crew awaited for the fate of their prey. However, Schwieger said nothing for the next agonizing minutes, instead letting the smile on his face disappear as he focused his sight on the mammoth liner which seemed to have weathered the blow. Disappointed with this realization from his view, Schwieger moved away and turned to his second in command. “Let us go. She will live.” It was a bitter feeling, however the crew didn’t fuss and moved to get their craft away and safely back to Germany. No doubt, Royal Navy units were likely on their way to Titanic’s rescue.
Onboard, Titanic’s list had stalled a few degrees. Noticeable as it was, the ship had held together. The pumps kept up, whilst her watertight doors kept the water at bay. As he reduced speed, Titanic began moving closer to the shore, whereupon her distress calls had been picked up from a nearby wireless station. Transmitting the distance and location the ship was at, runners on the shore alongside messages sent from the wireless station immediately transmitted Titanic’s plight. Before long, the HMS Juno picked up the call and began making steam and heading towards Titanic’s location. Having originally been dispatched previously to the Persian gulf as part of the engagement at Bushire, Juno was on her return voyage when she received the distress call whilst on her trip to Queenstown, Ireland.
After getting warnings of submarine activities in the waters around Ireland and the rest off the British Isles, the ship took some precautions before receiving the distress signals and changed course to come to Titanic’s aid.
Near the evening of May 7-8, Titanic completed her journey, albeit whilst being late, but triumphant as her passengers disembarked and she was escorted back to Harland and Wolf to start repairs. Unfortunately, this would be Titanic’s last voyage for the rest of the year as a commercial liner, as the threat of U-Boats simply scared off many potential passengers leading to reduced bookings for trips across the Atlantic. In June, Titanic found herself in Belfast with the original belief being she would be laid up until the Wars end, however she was instead requisitioned by the Admiralty who choose her to serve the role as a troop transport ship, whilst her former rivals in the Cunard Liners Lusitania, Mauretania and Aquitania would become troop transport and a hospital ship (Aquitania) respectively.
Titanic would be stripped of her peacetime fittings and was instead armed with 12-pounder and 4.7-inch guns, and was capable of transporting 6,000 troops as like her sister, Olympic. In September, 1915, Titanic (now designated: HMT; Hired Military Transport), left Liverpool carrying just under 6,000 troops to Mudros, Greece for the Gallipoli Campaign. Under command now of Captain Charles Lightoller, Titanic and Olympic would partake in troop voyages for the following months on the lead up to and during the Dardanelles campaign.
However, as losses would only grow and the campaign stalled, Titanic was once more ordered by the Admiralty, but this time to serve as a hospital ship, alongside Gigantic and Aquitania, in order to treat the wounded and get them back to safety. Now repainted from the previous war dark grays with black funnels, to now white with buff funnels and large medical cross emblems that surrounded the vessel. By 1916, the Gallipoli Campaign was abandoned, however not until the “Titanic” trio of White Star Liners suffered another incident when Gigantic, the largest of the Olympic class and White Star Line’s largest liner yet built, struck a naval mine and beached herself in the Aegean Sea in November, 1916.
In the aftermath, Titanic, Olympic and Gigantic would continue performing their respective roles until the two were chartered by the Canadian government to transport troops from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Britain.
(Note: Yes, I changed the history in having Britannic/Gigantic live. Maybe since it was too much like its original fate, or was a underwhelming end to a ship that had yet to enter the spotlight in this TL. So I choose to change timeline again, as a fair assumption could be made that with how much has changed thus far, its possible Gigantic could avoid her original fate either by chance or completely avoid it by other means.)