RMS Lusitania- the ship with short life and a long history

A cover from Ireland with a minisheet showing an important event in World War One! 

RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner and briefly the world's largest passenger ship. The ship was sunk on 7 May 1915 by a German U-boat 11 mi (18 km) off the southern coast of Ireland. The sinking presaged the United States declaration of war on Germany in 1917.

Lusitania was a holder of the Blue Ribandappellation for the fastest Atlantic crossing, and was briefly the world's largest passenger ship until the completion of her sister ship Mauretania, three months later. The Cunard Linelaunched Lusitania in 1906, at a time of fierce competition for the North Atlantic trade. She sank on her 202nd trans-Atlantic crossing.

Both Lusitania and Mauretania were fitted with revolutionary new turbine engines that enabled them to maintain a service speed of 25 knots(46 km/h; 29 mph). Germany was the main contender for the North Atlantic trade and Germany also relied upon her northern sea route for her food supplies since her other borders were at warfare ! 

The Royal Navy had blockaded Germany at the start of the First World War. The UK declared the entire North Sea a war zone in the autumn of 1914, and mined the approaches; in the spring of 1915 all food imports for Germany were declared contraband. When RMS Lusitania left New York for Britain on 1 May 1915, German submarine warfare was intensifying in the Atlantic. Germany had declared the seas around the United Kingdom a war zone, and the German embassy in the United States had placed newspaper advertisements warning people of the dangers of sailing on Lusitania.

On the afternoon of 7 May, a German U-boat torpedoed Lusitania 11 mi (18 km) off the southern coast of Ireland and inside the declared war zone. A second, unexplained, internal explosion, probably that of munitions she was carrying, sent her to the seabed in 18 minutes, with the deaths of 1,198 passengers and crew.

The Germans justified treating Lusitania as a naval vessel because she was carrying hundreds of tons of war munitions, therefore making her a legitimate military target, and argued that British merchant ships had violated the Cruiser Rules from the very beginning of the war.

The sinking caused a storm of protest in the United States because 128 American citizens were among the dead. The sinking helped shift public opinion in the United States against Germany and was a factor in the United States' declaration of war nearly two years later.

Thanks Fabio for this cover with these stamps !