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 make her less visible to enemy submarines. Clearly, there was no hope of disguising her identity, as her profile was so well known, and no attempt was made to paint out the ship's name at the bow. Captain Dow, apparently suffering from stress from operating his ship in the war zone, and after a significant "false flag" controversy, left the ship; Cunard later explained that he was "tired and really ill". He was replaced by Captain William Thomas Turner, who had previously commanded "Lusitania", "Mauretania", and "Aquitania" in the years before the war. On 17 April 1915, "Lusitania" left Liverpool