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 1,962 passengers and crew aboard "Lusitania" at the time of the sinking, 1,198 lost their lives. As in the sinking of "Titanic", most of the casualties were from drowning or hypothermia. In the hours after the sinking, acts of heroism amongst both the survivors of the sinking and the Irish rescuers who had heard word of "Lusitania"s distress signals brought the survivor count to 764, three of whom later died from injuries sustained during the sinking. A British cruiser , which had heard of the sinking only a short time after "Lusitania" was struck, left her anchorage in Cork Harbour