Lusitania
Greyhound of the Atlantic
The Lusitania was groundbreaking in every aspect. Her size, her luxury, and especially her speed. She was an extraordinary vessel, beloved by the whole of Britain, celebrating triumph over their German rivals. She would later be joined by her sister, Mauritania, who would steal the spotlight for a while, proving slightly more popular. And then, with the introduction of the Olympic-Class liners, the duo would be dethroned as the largest ships in the world. But even still she held her own, a beautiful liner voyaging across the Atlantic, but one torpedo would ruin everything...
Conception and Design
At the end of the 19th century, the shipping industry was ruled by Britain. They had large and fast liners, marvels of modern technology, especially the White Star Line's RMS Teutonic. But this was all being threatened by Germany. Emperor of the German Empire, Wilhelm II, had seen the might of Britain's naval expertise and had gotten inspired, specifically by the Teutonic. He wished to increase Germany's presence on the sea, and thus turned to Germany's premier line, Norddeutscher Lloyd. NDL, as it was often referred, had some amount of influence on the Transatlantic trade, a trait that no other German lines exhibited, so they were the prime candidate to carry out the Emperor's grand plans. So designs were drawn up, plans drafted, and construction began with the laying of the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse's keel, the first of the so called "Four Flyers." This set of four German super-liners set the standard for oceanic travel for the coming decades. But they would not stay the largest liners in the world (discounting the SS Great Eastern) for long.
Enter; Cunard. This rebellious line was one of Britain's finest, pioneering new technology. They saw the German threat to their empire and new that they had to react. And on top of this, another danger loomed on the horizon. American millionaire and businessman J. P. Morgan had decides to make investments into transatlantic shipping and formed his own company, International Mercantile Marine, known as IMM for short. Immediately he began purchasing lines, first buying up Frederick Leyland & Co. and a majority share in Cunard's main rival, the White Star Line, wresting them under the influence of IMM. In 1902 IMM, NDL and Hamburg America Line (HAPAG) entered into contracts to fix prices among other things. The partners would go on to purchase a majority stake in the dutch Holland America Line. And now IMM was making offers to buy Cunard and the French premier line, Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (CGT,) now Morgan's main rivals.
Under these new threats, the Chairman of Cunard, Lord Inverclyde, pleaded with the British Admiralty for help. And because the country was now faced with the complete collapse of the British fleet of liners, loss of national prestige, and depletion of shipping resources in the event of war, they of course agreed to help. And so, Cunard was given a loan of £2,600,000 to build a pair of super-liners that the world had never before seen. And the only way to beat the competition was to go bigger, faster, better. They would take successful features of the SS Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, like the four funnels, and work them into their own designs.
So, designs were drawn up for two liners, each around 800 feet long and with a tonnage of around 31,000. They would be designed by naval architect Leonard Peskett, and the first of the pair had her keel laid down in 1904 and the hull was launched on the 7th of June, two years later. The largest, fastest, most luxurious ship in the world, this was the Lusitania.
A Floating Palace
When Lusitania began her maiden voyage on the 7th of September, 1907, it was immediately clear to all those sailing on her that the ship was an absolute monster. This is captured perfectly in the book on the ship by Erik Larson, saying that the Lusitania was quote "less the product of human endeavor than an escarpment rising from a plain." And indeed she was; a giant wall of steel plating and rivets rising to tower over the wharf, casting a huge shadow on the dock. When her passengers stepped aboard though, they were impressed in a different way.
The sheer opulence of James Miller's Interior designs were striking, her lounge paneled in dark mahogany, lusciously carpeted in jade green. Two matching green marble fireplaces lay at either end of the room, and crowned by a huge barrel-vaulted glass skylight with gorgeously decorated panels. The reading and writing room walls were adorned with white molding which framed soft gray panels of silk brocade. The entire space was carpeted in rose pink, with silk curtains and upholstery of the same color. The furniture was mahogany, and the room was supported by carved wood pillars and topped off by a glass dome in the center of the ceiling.
The smoking room was paneled in the Queen Anne style, Italian red furniture complimenting the walnut paneling of the space, finished by another barrel vaulted glass skylight. Her other rooms may have been quite luxurious, but the crowning glory of Lusitania's first-class spaces was the dining room. Paneled in white, it's crown molding painted gold, it was a glorious room to have a meal in. Spanning two decks and pierced by an opening in the center that was capped by a large dome; bedecked with molding and frescos, the entire room was decorated in the French Louis XVI style.
Connecting all of these spaces was the grand stairwell, piercing all six decks available to passengers aboard the ship, each landing having direct access to long hallways leading off, and the two lifts. First-class cabin arrangements came in all forms, from simple (yet expensive) one-room suites to palatial multi-room suites with multiple bedrooms and living spaces for a large groups of people. There were many more spaces, including the veranda café, but if we went through the decor of every room we'd be here forever, and that's just first-class!
To Cross the Wild Atlantic...
Crossing of the most dangerous of the seven seas is, without a doubt, quite a difficult endeavor. But the Lusitania had been designed from the ground up to battle the monstrous waves and face the stormy seas. And with the speed and elegance of a modern day yacht, she did so with great comfort to her passengers. Of course no ship is invulnerable to the rolling of the sea, but Lusitania held her own, and would weather many storms during her illustrious career. But of course she wouldn't come out unscathed every time, and on the 10th of January, 1910, the Lusitania entered a storm. It wasn't the worst storm she had ever encountered, and she was doing just fine, until suddenly, after going through a wave and beginning to come down into the trough between waves, the crew saw a massive wall of water looming over them, blocking the horizon, directly in front of them. The Lusitania's bow was designed to go through waves; not ride over them. So there was nothing those on board could do, as the ship pitched forward and slammed into the wave. It blew out the bridge windows and took out the steering wheel, water pouring into the bridge and then sloshing out again. Later estimates put the height of the rogue wave at 75 feet (23 meters) tall. Miraculously, Lusitania survived the wave, and no one on board was harmed.
Her passenger numbers had taken a hit back in 1906 when her sister, Mauritania, entered service, but she had since recovered. One event that marked her career was her participation in the Hudson-Fulton Celebration in New York. Among the festivities was a display of different modes of transportation, and the Lusitania was called in to represent the newest in steam travel. Also at the exhibition was Wilbur Wright who had brought one of his flyers. He performed a few demonstration flights to millions of gawking New Yorkers. One flight went directly over the Lusitania. No one would have guessed that four decades later air travel would become commercially available, and eventually kill the Transatlantic ocean liners.
But not right now, because business is booming for Cunard! At this point we're smack in the middle of the golden age of the Transatlantic ocean liner, and would be a shame if say, a World War came along and ruined it all...
oh, sh*t.
Lusitania and the Advent of WWI
So after Lusitania's golden age had lasted all of three seconds, someone decided to shoot Franz Ferdinand, the Archduke of Austria, and the world entered into one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Immediately, Britannia requisitioned all of her large ships to become Armed Merchant Cruisers, including the Lusitania. But, surprise! Armed merchants cruisers turned out to be ineffective wastes of coal, and so Lusitania was returned to Cunard. Who promptly returned her to commercial service as cover for secretly carrying war munitions. War munitions. On a civilian liner. *Sigh.*
So, Lusitania had her funnels painted black, and once again began to carry passengers across the Atlantic. This went well for a time, but in February of 1915, in response to Britain's blockade, Germany declared the waters around the British Isles an active war zone and began unrestricted submarine warfare (they still tried not to sink neutral vessels, but all allied shipping would be torpedoed without warning.) Lusitania became a target, and it wouldn't be long before they got their opening...
May, 1915
It seemed it would be like any other crossing. They would be taking every precaution, not flying flags in the war-zone, zig-zagging along to prevent U-boats from getting a clear shot at them. And besides, her speed would be enough to outrun any submarine that she came across, Right? Next to the advertisements for the Lusitania in the paper, a warning had been placed. It read:
NOTICE!
TRAVELLERS intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on the ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.
-IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY
Washington, D.C., 22 April 1915.
But the public was unfazed, and so, on the 1st of May, 1915, Lusitania departed pier 54 for the last time, and no one guessed that she would never arrive in Liverpool.
On the 7th of may, 6 days after departing New York, Lusitania entered the war-zone. warnings had previously been sent out that the German U-20 was in the area, and Lusitania proceeded with caution.
U-20 was low on fuel and with only three torpedoes left, he decided to head home. But then, while the sub was surfaced, at 1:20 pm, something was spotted on the horizon. At first the shape was thought to be multiple ships, due to the number of funnels, but as the silhouette became more and more recognizable captain Schwieger realized that the ship he had spotted was unmistakably the Lusitania. Britain's pride and joy. A glorious opportunity had presented itself, and he intended to capitalize it. A single torpedo was fired from the German sub, and that one act would change the course of the war forever, and condemn nearly 1,200 innocents to death.
Death Blow
The torpedo struck Lusitania's starboard bow at around 2:10 pm on the afternoon of the 7th of May. A large plume of water shot up where the torpedo struck, the actual location of the strike is disputed, but it was most likely directly under the bridge. Less than a minute later, a second explosion rocked the ship. It is theorized that this much larger explosion was the munitions in her hold detonating. This caused tremendous interior damage, and turned one torpedo hit, that she would ordinarily have survived easily, into a death blow that sealed the ship's fate. This second explosion was mistaken for a second torpedo strike by many of her poor passengers who had no idea that their ship was carrying explosives.
Immediately, captain Turner ordered the ship hard-a-starboard towards land in an attempt to beach the ship, but the rudder failed to respond and she kept going forward. Turner then ordered the propellers reversed to stop the ship, and while the order was received via telegraph in the engine room, nothing could be done as the fires in the boilers were going out and steam power was rapidly being lost. Lusitania immediately sent out a wireless SOS to anyone who would listen, but only moments later the engines slowed down enough that they could no longer generate electricity, and all power failed, plunging the ship into total darkness and leaving the majority of her passengers stranded in the pitch black interiors of the ship as she slowly submerged. One minute after the power went out, capt. Turner gave the order to abandon ship, and all hell broke loose.
Lusitania's bow was quickly going under with water surging across the forecastle, and her prow dipping below the surface. The ship was plunging fast, driven down into the water by her own momentum. Chaos ensued on the boat deck, as passengers scrambled to get on lifeboats, an action that was extremely hard because the ship was listing. Her longitudinal coal bunkers had flooded first; the imbalance of weight causing her to tip to starboard, rendering all port-side lifeboats useless. Even worse, many of her starboard lifeboats tipped over on their way down, or fell from their davits, spilling their occupants into the water and further increasing panic. Out of her 48 lifeboats, only 6 were successfully launched.
Minutes later Lusitania's final plunge began and the entire forward end of the ship submerged. Capt. Turner was swept off the bridge, but he saved the ship's logbook and charts. Because the waters in which she sank were only 330 ft (100 meters) deep and Lusitania was 787 ft (240 meters) long, her bow slammed into the seabed, snapping open the hull and nearly breaking the ship in two. In the final moments of the sinking, her stern rose up out of the water high enough for her propellers to be seen, and towered over the survivors. Seconds later, she sank beneath the waves, and disappeared from the world above.
Aftermath
When news of the sinking reached London, the public was horrified. Germany had torpedoed a passenger liner without hesitation and murdered hundreds of civilians in the process. But the outrage wasn't confined to Britannia, as 123 Americans were killed in the indecent, and the USA was having none of it. Back in Germany, the crew of U-20 had gained hero status, and the sinking of the Lusitania was hailed as a glorious victory over the allies, and the German government immediately began minting all kinds of propaganda.
While the sinking was not the turning point for the US like it is often portrayed, it did influence the county's decision as to which side it would enter the war on. After the allies won, they attacked Germany for their actions and they provided a very weak excuse, but also felt that their actions were justified as, per rules of war, the Lusitania had been carrying munitions at the time and was therefore technically fair game, but everyone else still thought it was very uncool of Germany to fire that torpedo. Captain Schwieger of U-20 was considered a war criminal amongst the allies, but was killed before the war's end and was never brought to justice. Britain and America had taken up an "avenge the Lusitania" mindset during the war, but upon it's conclusion didn't take things much further.
Lusitania left a lasting mark on society, and while often overshadowed by the Titanic disaster a few years prior, she, along with the 1,195 who died aboard her, deserve to be remembered.
