Some 83 years after it was sunk by a German submarine off the Cork coast, the Lusitania retains the power to fascinate. Mystery remains as to exactly what treasures were on board.
Sir Hugh Lane, the then director of the National Gallery of Ireland, was a passenger on the liner, returning from a purchasing expedition to the United States with a case of paintings. Reports vary as to what he had with him, with one official record listing a Rubens, a Titian and a number of works by early Florentine masters. Others have claimed there were paintings by Monet and Rubens in containers.
Although it is likely they have been destroyed, it is possible the paintings were stored in protective lead cylinders and may have survived.
A further mystery surrounds the circumstances of the sinking of the 46,328-ton luxury ship. While it was regarded as the flagship of the Cunard Line after breaking the record for an Atlantic crossing in 1907, it was also classified as an auxiliary cruiser.
The manifest of the Lusitania showed it was carrying 4,200 cases of rifle ammunition, 1,250 cases of non-explosive shrapnel and 18 boxes of percussion fuses. Further research suggests it may also have been carrying 12 naval cannon and was transporting a shipment of arms from New York to Liverpool.
Germany had claimed the attack was justified as the vessel was furthering its enemies' aims. Before it was sunk by a single torpedo on May 7th 1915, the Germans had issued a warning that if the Lusitania entered a war zone it would be treated as hostile and attacked. Of its 1,959 passengers, 1,198 died.
Controversy still reigns over whether the US and British governments have a case to answer by putting the passengers' lives at risk. One contentious theory, in a 1972 book by Colin Simpson, is that the British secretly provoked the attack to bring the US into the war. Some 128 of the passengers were American.
