Lusitania puppet Kingdom of Northern Lusitania as one of the successor states to Portugal under the assumption that such a campaign would result in an easy French victory. The province was also the namesake of the North Atlantic Ocean Liner RMS Lusitania infamous for being torpedoed by a German Uboat in 1915. The ship’s owners the Cunard Line commonly named their vessels after Roman provinces with the Lusitania so being called after the Roman Iberian province to the north of the Strait of Gibraltar while her sistership RMS Mauretania was named after the Roman North African province on the south side
RMS Lusitania ammunition for years. The fact that "Lusitania" had been carrying shells and cartridges was not made known to the British public at the time. In the 27-page additional manifest, delivered to U.S. customs 4–5 days after "Lusitania" sailed from New York, and in the Bethlehem Steels papers, it is stated that the "empty shells" were in fact 1,248 boxes of filled 3" shell, 4 shells to the box, totaling 103,000 pounds or 50 tonnes. President Woodrow Wilson refused to immediately declare war. During the weeks after the sinking, the issue was hotly debated within the U.S. government, and correspondence was