The Sinking Of The RMS Lusitania
Wikimedia CommonsThe Lusitania arrives at a port between 1907 and 1913, possibly in New York.
The British ship, RMS Lusitania, shared a similar fate with the Britannic. It predated Britannic by a few years and was very briefly the largest ship in the world before it was overshadowed by its sister ship, the Mauretania.
Lusitania met its end when a German U-boat torpedoed it during World War I in 1915. The Germans claimed that the boat, which was carrying passengers, was actually aiding Britain in the war. The Brits, in turn, accused the Germans of breaching international law by destroying a non-military vessel carrying civilian passengers.
TwitterThe Lusitania was indeed carrying weapons of war.
But unknown to ticket-holders aboard the Lusitania, there were indeed 173 tons of weaponry bound for the war in the ship’s hull. Britain had actually violated an international law of wartime by allowing passengers aboard a ship that was transporting weapons for battle.
The Brits had clearly hoped the Germans wouldn’t attack the Lusitania if they disguised it as a routine cruiseliner. As a result of this assumption, however, 1,196 passengers died. There were 736 survivors.
Wikimedia CommonsThe pilot used this telegraph to communicate with engineers in the ship’s engine room and to determine the ship’s speed.
Nowadays, the sunken ship can be found near the lighthouse at Kinsale, Ireland, lying on its starboard side. Unlike other wrecks of its time, the Lusitania has not aged very gracefully. Experts estimate that at this rate it won’t be long until the ship becomes so decrepit that it collapses on itself entirely.
