Liner (4f/2m).
L/B:
787 × 87.8 (239.9m × 26.8m). Tons:
31,550 grt. Hull:
steel. Comp.:
1st 563, 2nd 464, 3rd 1,138; 900 crew. Mach.:
steam turbines, 4 screws; 25 kts. Des.:
Leonard Peskett. Built:
John Brown & Co., Ltd., Clydebank, Scotland; 1907.
Although Lusitania is best remembered for her tragic sinking by the German submarine U-20 on May 7, 1915, this horrific event has overshadowed Lusitania's place in the dramatic history of turn-of-the-century passenger shipping. To counteract the demise of the U.S. merchant marine, in 1904 American financier J. P. Morgan formed the International Mercantile Marine, which acquired a controlling interest in a number of major shipping companies, including Germany's Hamburg-Amerika Linie and Norddeutscher Lloyd and Britain's White Star Line. Alarmed at this trend, which threatened to rob England of a valuable wartime auxiliary fleet, the British government approached Cunard Line with the offer of a £2,600,000 loan and an annual mail subsidy of £75,000 per ship for the construction of two passenger liners, provided that the company remain wholly British for twenty years and that the ships could be requisitioned as auxiliary cruisers in wartime. Thus enriched, Cunard built Lusitania—named for the Roman province of what is now Portugal—and
Mauretania, the largest, fastest, and most luxurious liners of their day. Lusitania's maiden voyage from Liverpool to New York began on September 7, 1907, and the next month she crossed between Daunt's Rock and Sandy Hook at a record speed of 23.99 knots. The same month she set an eastbound record of 23.6 knots. Lusitania's fastest crossing was westbound at 25.7 knots (4 days, 16 hours, 40 minutes; August 8-12, 1909). In her day, only Mauretania was faster.
Owing to the infeasibility of maintaining a close blockade of Germany, on November 3, 1914, Britain illegally declared a "military area" in the North Sea and all the waters bounded by Iceland, Norway, and Scotland. Germany responded with the equally illegal declaration of "an area of war" around the British Isles and Ireland, and advised the world community—the United States especially—that the sinking of neutral shipping, or passengers, might not be avoidable. The German government knew that the loss of American lives to a subma- rine attack—even on a British ship—might draw the United States into the war on the side of the Allies. Following the sinking of Falaba on March 28, 1915, the German embassy in Washington authorized publication of a warning advising that "in accordance with formal notice [of a declared war zone] given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain ... are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain ... do so at their own risk." The notice first appeared on May 1, the day Lusitania sailed from New York with 1,965 passengers and crew, under command of Captain William Thomas Turner.
Five days later the ship entered the war zone. Although the British Admiralty was fully aware of the presence of German submarines off southern Ireland—U-20 sank three ships on May 6—no escort was provided for Lusitania, whose safety was her speed. Captain Turner had been issued explicit orders to steam a zigzag course and to remain in midchannel well away from headlands and ports. By the afternoon of May 7, Lusitania was steaming at between 15 and 18 knots along a straight course only 12 miles south of the Old Head of Kinsale, near Queenstown (Cork)—or 25 miles north of "midchannel." At 1320 she was spotted by Lieutenant Commander Walter Schwieger in U-20. Twenty minutes later, at a range of 700 meters, U-20 fired one torpedo that hit abaft the bridge on the starboard side. The ship listed 15 degrees within seconds, and sank 18 minutes later in 315 feet of water. Only 6 of the ship's 48 lifeboats survived the sinking—many crushed the passengers for whom they were intended—and only 764 people survived; 1,201 passengers and crew died, including 128 Americans. Many survivors testified that there was a second explosion, and some claimed they saw a second torpedo. Although Schwieger fired only one, he wrote in his log that "the explosion of the torpedo must have been followed by a second one (boiler or coal powder)." While some have argued that Lusitania must have been carrying munitions detonated by the torpedo—her manifest shows 51 tons of shrapnel and 10 tons of .303 ammunition—the subsequent explosions were probably caused by the rupture of boilers and high-pressure steam lines, the subsidiary cause of the loss of many ships torpedoed in World War I. According to one study, about half of these ships sank in 10 minutes or less.
A great deal has been written about Lusitania's wartime service. At one extreme is the claim that the British—and First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill in particular—deliberately put Lusitania in harm's way in the hope that the loss of American lives would drag the United States into the war. At the other extreme is the claim that the sinking was just another in a long line of German atrocities. In fact, the Germans reined in their U-boat campaign and the United States would not enter World War I until 1917. The most that can be said with certainty is that Lusitania's dead were casualties of war.
Ballard & Archbold, Exploring the "Lusitania." Ryan & Bailey, "Lusitania" Controversy. Shipbuilder and Marine Engine-Builder, Cunard Express Liners "Lusitania" and "Mauretania.".
