RMS Lusitania

RMS Lusitania is a Transatlantic liner British armed by the Cunard.

Its name comes from that of the Roman province of Lusitanie, current Portugal. It is the Navire-jumeau ( sistership ) of the steamer Mauretania . Its torpedoing by an Underwater German, the May 7th 1915, off Ireland, with more 1 200 passengers (whose nearly 200 Americans) and a secret loading of ammunition strongly seems to have contributed to the entry in war of the the United States.

Career

The Lusitania was built in two years and was launched the June 7th 1907 with Clydebank, to Scotland. It left Liverpool the September 7th 1907 for its inaugural voyage. It was equipped with the most modern technologies of the time, thanks to important loans of the British government. These loans had been granted against the possibility for the Amirauté of requisitioning and of arming the Lusitania (and/or its sistership) in the event of guerre ; what was made in August 1914. The steamer was equipped with a light armament to the “ Canada dock ” of Liverpool (12 guns of 6 inches).

At the time, this ship and its sistership were largest, most powerful and fastest in the world. As of October 1907, the Lusitania obtained the blue Ruban, by beating the preceding record of the German steamer Kaiser Wilhelm II and by putting fine at 10 years German domination. With 24 nodes of mean velocity and points to 48 km/h for a push of 27 000 T these steamers were designed to exceed the Kronprinz Wilhelm and the Kaiser Wilhelm II , but with an enormous fuel consumption.

With the arrival of the Mauretania in November 1907, the Lusitania and the Mauretania were alternatively holders of the blue Ruban. In September 1909, the Lusitania definitively lost it with the profit of the Mauretania , which will preserve the record during 20 years.

At the beginning of the First World War, in August 1914, the Lusitania , the Mauritania and the Aquitania were requisitioned by the Royal Navy like auxiliary cruisers for functions of war. The Mauritania and the Aquitania would have received official orders, but the Lusitania could continue its transatlantic crossings of passengers for Cunard Line, perhaps because of its fuel consumption, but for economic reasons, with a number of transatlantic voyages reduced to one per month and a maximum speed reduced to 21 nodes.

Shipwreck

RMS Lusitania was cast the May 7th 1915 with 14 h 10 close to the Fastnet, with approximately with 12 marine miles of the coast, with broad of the southern point of the Ireland (Old Head off Kinsdale), by a German submarine, the U-20. The Lusitania was ordered by the captain William " Bowler Bill" Turner, 58 years old, experienced officer who carried out his 102e voyage there. Left New York on May 1st 1915 bound for Liverpool, after a one week stopover (it had arrived at New York on April 24th, 1915). It should have been protected by a British cruiser, the Juno , which earlier seem to be withdrawn from this zone two days, by the admiral Fisher and Winston Churchill itself, then First Lord of Admiralty.

The Lusitania was touched by starboard whereas it sailed at relatively reduced speed towards the port of Queenstown (current Cobh), to 40 km from there on the southern part of Ireland. This zone had just been declared “ zone of guerre ” by the Germans, and the captain had seems it informed of the presence of a German submarine by the British authorities.

According to testimonys of survivors, the noise of the explosion to the impact of the torpedo was followed of one second explosion much more violent, and abnormal. It was officially allotted to the explosion of a boiler, but caused many interrogations quickly. This solid, ultramodern ship for the time, ran abnormally quickly and by the prow, whereas it had tight compartments that the captain had made close by tight doors after having received an opinion of Royal announcing that a German submarine crossed in trimmings (it had also made prepare the lifeboats). The steamer sank into 15 to 18 minutes, making it possible only 6 boats out of 48 to be launched. Its hull always rests by 93 meters of depth in a zone brewed by strong currents.

The notes of the captain of the German submarine the Kapitanleutnant Walther Schwieger, which came in the week May 5th and 6th to run three cargo liners in this sector, teach us that it drew his torpedo with 700 meters (500 yards) from distance to 14 h 10 and that the impact was followed of a “ detonation exceptionally importante ”, with a large and cloud of smoke “; remains projected to the top of the cheminées ”. A second explosion was heard (“ boiler, coal or poudre ? ” he questioned himself). Do later notes of this captain say than the submarine had already drawn its best torpedes and than there remained to him only two (3?) bronze torpedes, less powerful.

The precise site of the wreck seems to remain unknown or forgotten during 20 years, until 1935, when an officer surviving of the Lusitania , Albert Bestic paid to the Turner captain, who finished his days with Crosby, close to Liverpool, an almost illegible paper on which it had griffonné the position at the time of torpedoing.

Number of the passengers and survivors

It varies according to the sources: there would have been 1 257 passengers on board (including 197 coming from the United States). 1 195 or 1 198 would have died drowned (including nearly 100 children). 123 or 128 victims would have been American (128 according to the embassy from France to Washington). According to other sources, 703 people will survive on 2 160 passengers and sailors.

The secret cargo

In spite of the hidden documents and/or falsifiés* at the time, one knows - at least since 1972 - that the Lusitania was well a " auxiliary cruiser armed ".
At the time of the attack, it transported probably 5 248 cases of Shell, 4 927 boxes of 1 000 cartridges each one and 2 000 cases of ammunition of handguns. (Howard Zin, university of Boston, in " the 20th American century " , ED. AGONIC LINE) or 5 468 cases of shell shrapnell and cartridges

For others, they was 4 200 cases of cartridges of rifle, 1 248 cases of artillery shell and 18 cases of rockets. Some believe there that it could have had much more ammunition in the holds and a rumor evokes gold ingots.

Other authors still evoke the presence of explosive hidden in a pseudo batch of 323 balls of furs intended for the company of Liverpool de B.f. Babcock and Co. Babcock being never occupied of fur, but having previously received several deliveries of “ cotton-poudre ”, powerful explosive containing nitrates. Among the embarked goods, appeared 3 863 " boxes of fromage" of 40 books each one intended for a P.0. box of Liverpool, which proved to belong to superintendant Naval Experimental Establishment of Shoeburyness.

They are 51 tons of shell shrapnell (three-inch bullet shells), six million bullets (cal.303) and an unspecified quantity of “ gun-cotton ” (explosive containing nitrate) and 200 T of ammunition for handguns which Queen Margareth had not been able to embark because of technical difficulties. As from 1914, he would have violated the law while transporting ammunition at the time of all his voyages (except the first), knowing that the transport of ammunition by civil boats was probably frequent at that time.

Consequences of the shipwreck

The British steamer is presented at once to the world press like " neutre" and victim of German cruelty. In France, information is disseminated by the review the Illustration n° 3767 of the May 15th 1915. Conferences, posters incentive with the war are diffused in all United States, often inviting to avenge the Lusitania . The Germans, anxious by the prospect for an entry in fast war of the United States justified by claiming that the ship transported weapons, which the British denied immediately and savagely, before in 1972, of the files do not show that the Lusitania convoyait indeed a secret loading of Munition S and that it was armed with 12 guns.

This attack whose circumstances are not clearly established contributed to make rock the American opinion in favor of the war, which them government had decided not very front.

Following the shipwreck, the president of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, threatened the Germany and required repair. Anxious of the irruption of the the United States in the war, because they would then make rock the fate of this one, Berlin (on August 27th, 1915) decides temporarily to suspend or strongly restrict its underwater offensive. But nothing made there: previously hostile with the war, the American public opinion evolves/moves little by little in favor of an engagement in the war at the sides of the Entente (French Empire, British Empire and Russian Empire), against the central Empires (German Empire, Empire of Austria-Hungary and Ottoman Empire). Germany will take again its underwater war in January 1917.

It is the German decision of January 1917 to start - in spite of the negotiations in progress - a blockade in fact of the United States by issuing the total underwater war against all the ships, even neutral, which would trade with the allied nations, which probably really launched the United States in the war. But the attack of the Lusitania had prepared an American opinion which was rather pacifist or neutral before this event. The United States broke their diplomatic relations with Berlin and launched a mobilization campaign after the torpedoing of the Vigilentia (the April 6th 1917 to 13 h 18) which justified the vote of the American Congrès favorable to the entry in war.

Environmental consequences

If the loading were really what the sources quoted let foresee above, the steamer not having been pulverized, one can suppose that all the ammunition and explosives did not jump before the shipwreck. An significant amount of ammunition were immersed with Plomb, mercury and Nitrate S eutrophisant, running with the ship and whose wreck many years after was used as site of exercise with the Royal Navy. This site thus could be an important source of underwater emission of pollutants. Did Admiralty thus want to erase the evidence of the presence of significant amounts of ammunition with bord ?

Legal continuations

The British Admiralty and W. Churchill itself showed the captain not to have respected the security measures recommended. Lord the Mersey who supervised the lawsuit aiming at establishing the responsibilities for the captain, the authority of defense or the company then informed the Asquith Prime Minister that he refused to continue to work for English justice. He would have described the business of the Lusitania to his family like “ has damned dirty business ”.

In 1968, the wreck of the Lusitania was acquired by a rich person American business man, Gregg Bemis, which was disputed by the Irish government which prohibited the divings on the site.

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