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Lot Essay
Lusitania and Mauretania were conceived as the British response to J. Pierpoint Morgan's acquisiton of the White Star Line, a move which not only threated Cunard's domination of the transatlantic ferry but also wounded national pride. Designed on the grand scale, the pair had to be financed from government loans in return for a promise that both ships could be used as auxiliary cruisers in time of war. In view of their size, the orders for the two vessels went to separate yards, with that for Lusitania going to John Brown at Clydebank where she was launched just ahead of her sister on 7th June 1906. Luxuriously appointed, with accomodation for 563 First, 464 Second and 1,138 Steerage passengers, she was, when delivered on 26th August 1907, the largest ship in the world. Registered at 31,550 tons gross, she measured 787 feet in length with a 87 foot beam and could cruise at 25 knots driven by quadruple screws. Clearing Liverpool on 7th September for her maiden voyage to New York, she seized the 'Blue Riband' the following month when she set record times for both outward and return crossings. Even though she subsequently surrendered these records to Mauretania, the courageous decision to fit both sisters with turbines rather than conventional reciprocating engines had proved a triumph and in the years up to 1914, no ship afloat could match the two Cunarders for speed.
When war was declared in August 1914, the authorities immediately realised that the twin sisters were actually too large for conversion to armed merchant cruisers, but whilst Mauretania was laid up pending duty as a troop transport, Lusitania continued her regular Liverpool to New York service as if immune to the international situation. Well patronised by passengers who perceived her speed as their best safeguard against enemy attack, her Atlantic crossings soon became almost routine and there was an element of complacency about the risks involved. On 4th February 1915, the German Government had declared the waters around Great Britain and Ireland to be a war-zone within which all enemy shipping was liable to be sunk and on 1st May, the German Embassy in Washington published a reminder of this declaration in the New York papers alongside Cunards' sailing schedules. Such was the belief in Lusitania's invulnerability, that only a handful of passengers cancelled their bookings for that day's departure and the liner left Pier 54 at 10.30 a.m. with 189 Americans, included amongst the 1,959 people aboard. On the evening of 6th May the Lusitania rounded the Fastnet Rock. Her master, Captain Turner, had already received warnings of subarine activity in the Irish Sea and had reduced speed so as to approach the area in darkness. The next morning was calm but foggy and Turner was doubly glad that the cruiser H.M.S. Juno would soon be arriving from Queenstown to escort him in to Liverpool. As the day wore on with no signe of Juno making her rendezvous, Turner altered course to take Lusitania closer inshore, a fatal decision and one which was to haunt him for the rest of his life.
Unbeknown to Turner, his new course lay directly across that of the German submarine U-20, which, under the command of Kapitanleutnant Walter Schwieger, was patrolling the Irish Sea under orders to sink any British vessels he encountered. He carefully maneouvered into position and at 2.p.m fired a single G-type torpedo. It hit Lusitania on her starboard side and just eighteen minutes after the torpedo had struck, Lusitania slipped beneath the waves taking almost 1,200 people down with her.
The sinking of the Lusitania shocked the civilised world more profoundly than almost any other single event of the War and it remains to this day one of the greatest maritime tragedies of all time.
When war was declared in August 1914, the authorities immediately realised that the twin sisters were actually too large for conversion to armed merchant cruisers, but whilst Mauretania was laid up pending duty as a troop transport, Lusitania continued her regular Liverpool to New York service as if immune to the international situation. Well patronised by passengers who perceived her speed as their best safeguard against enemy attack, her Atlantic crossings soon became almost routine and there was an element of complacency about the risks involved. On 4th February 1915, the German Government had declared the waters around Great Britain and Ireland to be a war-zone within which all enemy shipping was liable to be sunk and on 1st May, the German Embassy in Washington published a reminder of this declaration in the New York papers alongside Cunards' sailing schedules. Such was the belief in Lusitania's invulnerability, that only a handful of passengers cancelled their bookings for that day's departure and the liner left Pier 54 at 10.30 a.m. with 189 Americans, included amongst the 1,959 people aboard. On the evening of 6th May the Lusitania rounded the Fastnet Rock. Her master, Captain Turner, had already received warnings of subarine activity in the Irish Sea and had reduced speed so as to approach the area in darkness. The next morning was calm but foggy and Turner was doubly glad that the cruiser H.M.S. Juno would soon be arriving from Queenstown to escort him in to Liverpool. As the day wore on with no signe of Juno making her rendezvous, Turner altered course to take Lusitania closer inshore, a fatal decision and one which was to haunt him for the rest of his life.
Unbeknown to Turner, his new course lay directly across that of the German submarine U-20, which, under the command of Kapitanleutnant Walter Schwieger, was patrolling the Irish Sea under orders to sink any British vessels he encountered. He carefully maneouvered into position and at 2.p.m fired a single G-type torpedo. It hit Lusitania on her starboard side and just eighteen minutes after the torpedo had struck, Lusitania slipped beneath the waves taking almost 1,200 people down with her.
The sinking of the Lusitania shocked the civilised world more profoundly than almost any other single event of the War and it remains to this day one of the greatest maritime tragedies of all time.