The story of Lusitania, the eight year wonder of her career and the tragedy of her sinking, is only a chapter in the saga of World War I. As late as the mid nineteenth century, ocean voyages were grim necessities instead of pleasure cruises. English author Charles Dickens called his Boston-bound ship, the Britannia "not unlike a gigantic hearse with windows in the sides". Of his bunk he wrote: "nothing smaller for sleeping in was ever made except coffins". Even after commercial ships began to sail on fixed schedules, passengers endured cramped, unsanitary conditions for up to a month. Food was bad, disease was rampant and the sea was unpredictable. Of every hundred ships that would set sail, sixteen would never reach port. Some like the City of Glasgow even disappeared without a trace.

The North Atlantic may have been harsh, but the world was getting smaller. Travel and mail between Europe and North America were increasing. By the late nineteenth century, technology and ship design were advancing to meet these needs and shipbuilders focused on comfort, style and speed. With each advance, the transatlantic run took less time. Seeking to make the most of this trend, a Canadian businessman named Sir Samuel Cunard legally founded the Cunard Line in 1839. He and his colleagues bid £45,000 for the service to take the English mail between his homeland and the United States. The new British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company ordered six innovative liners. The first ship was Britannia and she sailed on July 1840.

The new luxury liners were built for a new kind of passenger who can afford them. In their world, Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish and her dog arrived at a party in a fifteen thousand dollar diamond collar. C.K.G. Billings hosted an elegant dinner served entirely on horseback. Newfound wealth found a new style during the Gilded Age, a name given by American author and social critic Mark Twain to the last three decades of the 19th century. The industrialized western world was secure and prosperous in the years following the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War. Poverty was still everywhere, but the growing middle class now enjoyed leisure time and the upper class flaunted it's wealth. The great minds of science and business were speeding up a pulsing, industrial beat that drowned out Mother Nature's slower, gentler rhythms. Progress was the new God for those who want to see results larger than life. Few thought about the consequences.

During the Gilded Age, bigger certainly was better in the war of commerce between shipbuilders. Increasing trade and immigration demanded ships that would accommodate both steerage passengers and the thrill seeking rich. In March 1885, John Elder and Co laid the keels for two Cunard ships that would be considered the first modern ocean liners: big, fast and comfortable, Etruria and Umbria. 7,000 tons each would reach a speed of 19 knots, crossing the Atlantic in a mere seven-and-a-half-days. Cunard's chief rivals, the British White Star Line and the German Hamburg-America Line would have to rise to the challenge.

One American with no fear of progress was financier J. P. Morgan. The booming Atlantic passenger trade had caught his eye. He started a price war with the lines he already owned and made attractive offers to those British, European and American lines that were losing money. His International Navigation Company grew to become International Mercantile Marine. Morgan's desire to own a major British shipping enterprise focused on the White Star and Inman lines. In December 1902, he bought White Star for ten million pounds, ten times it's earnings in 1900. The liners continued to sail proudly under the Union Jack, but now an American hand rested heavily on the tiller.

The Cunard Line's rivals flourished with International Mercantile Marine's backing. The same year of the purchase, George Burns, the second Lord Inverclyde had been setting up an agreement with Morgan to keep Cunard out of IMM. As the son of the recently deceased first Lord Inverclyde, Burns had taken charge as chairman of Cunard and it's subsidiaries one year earlier and impressed his employers with his abilities and vision. The influence of the Inverclyde family on transatlantic passenger trade had come a long way since Sir Samuel Cunard first founded the company for a simple bid.

In 1897, the Norddeutscher Lloyd Company amazed the world with four revolutionary ships: Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse, Kronzprinz Wilhelm, Kaiser Wilhelm II and Kronzprinzessin Cecilie. At 14,000 tons, their two screw propellers could drive them across the Atlantic in less than five days, at a speed of 22 knots. Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse would hold the honor as the world's first four funnel ocean liner. The Four Flyers, as they were called, featured the unlimited elegance of Europe's great hotels, complete with beautifully appointed drawing rooms and plush lounges built by master craftsmen. North German Lloyd now had the fastest German ship, an honor that once belonged to Cunard's 12,000 ton Campania. The next step up in size and luxury would have to be something even more spectacular.

Cunard had positioned itself for speed, while White Star attempted to astound the world with sheer spectacle. Over a business meeting with the admiralty, Lord Inverclyde conceived a new line of ships. He envisioned what was to be at the time the largest moving object ever made by man. Three liners to surpass both White Star and their German rivals, at thirty-one thousand tons, these ships would be fifty percent bigger and fifty feet longer than anything yet built, able to carry more passengers to America than ever before. These three liners would be constructed to lure the world's wealthiest travelers with their magnificence. They would be called Mauretania, Lusitania and Aquitania.

In June 1903, an agreement was arraigned between the Admiralty and Cunard's Marine Superintendent James Bain, and the dream was set in motion. Rear-Admiral H. J. Oram, Charles Parsons and other ranking members of Cunard's offices arrived at Clydebank, Scotland to review John Brown & Company's construction plans for the three new wonder ships. Leonard Peskett presented the drawings assisted by his colleagues and managing director Charles McLaren. The contract signed on July 30th stated that John Brown & Company would begin construction on the first two liners now and the third later. Lusitania and Mauretania were originally conceived with three funnels, but a fourth was added a year later for extra boilers. A similar ordeal with the ship's propellers also changed with an additional number for extra speed, allowing the innermost two propellers to rotate inwards while the outer propellers rotated outwards. The ships would also use a balanced rudder and all machinery, as per Admiralty stipulations would be below the waterline. This agreement signaled an annual operating subsidy of seventy five thousand pounds each in addition to a mail contract worth sixty eight thousand pounds. Additionally in times of war, the twins would also be used as auxiliary cruisers.

Before construction began, the planners and draftsmen, encouraged by Cunard's committee for the twins, proposed a unique design that would rival the Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse and her sisters. First class passengers would make dramatic entrances and exits in a twisting rectangular grand staircase of black wrought iron. First and second class passengers would also have elevators to carry them between six decks of the ship. The shelter deck featured a dining saloon and nursery for children whenever their parents went to breakfast, lunch and dinner in the glorious dome capped dining room decorated in the style of the Petit Trianon at the Palace of Versailles, making relaxation possible for children and adults on the high seas. The extravagance was obvious to all and Leonard Peskett was praised and congratulated for bringing to life every detail of the twins.

The next generation of ocean liners moved from the draftsman's table and into the real world of the shipbuilders. To accommodate the unprecedented size of these massive liners, John Brown & Company had to reorganize the shipyard and convert three of their already enormous berths into two bigger slipways. Railway tracks brought in supplies by the mark and the first set of building materials arrived by the end of the year. American architect firm Warren and Wetmore did their part by doing whatever was necessary to ensure that the piers in New York City were long enough for the new liners to dock. Construction on Lusitania took place next to Mauretania, starting with the bow and moved towards the stern due to the turbine engine rotors being built on the site. Once the names were officially settled on February 15th, 1906, Cunard prepared the world for the first ever floating palaces to exceed twenty thousand tons. To evoke their mythic stature, Lord Inverclyde drew his ships names from Roman provinces. Mauretania was named for the province ruled by King Atlas, inventor of the celestial globe. Lusitania honored Hispania Lusitania, an Iberian province that would soon become Portugal and was also the site of the Lusitanian War, a battle of resistance fought by the tribes of the Hispania Ulterior, only to be defeated by the Romans. Lord Inverclyde was obviously impressed by the Lusitanians strategy and power, not their ultimate fate.

In 1904, all ships need to carry lifeboats, but not everyone agreed on how many under the terms of deck space rather than the very souls onboard. Final plans for Lusitania and Mauretania called for sixteen boats each with the standard round bar davits installed on the outer superstructure. Following the disastrous maiden voyage of White Star's Titanic in 1912, Cunard kept changing the arraignments to ensure that there would be enough boats for everyone on board. In the end, twenty two wooden boats and twenty six collapsibles added up to forty eight boats and rafts with a total of two thousand six hundred and five seats that were considered adequate for three thousand one hundred and twenty five passengers and crew. In fact, it was indeed the Titanic inquiry that actually exceeded the outdated British Board of Trade requirements on an up-to-date basis. But at the time of Lusitania and Mauretania's construction, there were not enough lifeboats to accommodate every passenger.

On June 7th, 1906, Lady Mary Inverclyde, widow of the late Lord Inverclyde, hosted a group of distinguished visitors in Clydebank for the launching ceremony of Lusitania. Aided by a bottle of champagne in the tradition of christening ships, complete with tons of Russian tallow and soft soap spread on the slipway, the vessel slided gracefully into the River Clyde. Coming to a gentle stop with the assistance of six tugboats, she was then towed to the fitting out basin at Gourock for completion. Three months later, Mauretania was launched from the Wallsend slipway at Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson and she was to begin her maiden voyage from Liverpool two months after Lusitania's the following year.

The Lusitania and Mauretania's safety features had set new standards for naval technology. John Brown & Company gave the twins a double plated bottom and a system of thirty four longitudinal watertight compartments that would allow any two of them to flood without sinking the ship. They would be safe if three of the first five compartments from the bow or the first three from the stern were to flood. Even in a worse case scenario, if every single one of the first four compartments from either side or head on were to fill with water, the ship could conceivably stay afloat. Should the hull ever be punctured in one or more places, hydraulically operated watertight doors of the ordinary sliding pattern would close automatically. Then powerful pumps would empty each flooding compartment long before water could reach the top of the bulkheads and the ceiling plates. Should any crew member be shut in, they would still have a chance to escape using a control lever with enough time to escape through the doors to safety before the doors shut back again. The Shipbuilder described the new ships as "unsinkable", a term that would later be used for White Star's own trio of luxurious superliners. The public mind was now reflecting on how much these ships brought satisfaction to them as the fastest most technologically advanced ships in the world. Expectations for Lusitania and Mauretania now ran even higher.

To the people of Clydebank, the wonder ships that rose above the local skyline were the pride of their city. John Brown & Company employed nearly 7,000 men, most of whom who had bent their backs in labor over Lusitania and Mauretania. Although the work was hard, hours long, vacations few and they certainly could not afford a first class passage on the ships they built. The men and their families felt a personal attachment to these great liners. For these craftsmen, there was no greater satisfaction than to have the eyes of the world rest admiringly upon their work.

On July 27th, 1907, Lusitania, nicknamed "Lucy" was completed. Her seven hundred and eighty seven foot hull was built than more of twenty six thousand inch-thick steel plates held together by more than four million rivets. Two hundred miles of electric wiring supplied power to five thousand lights. Two massive anchors would hold her in place, one for each side with a third stored in reserve on the forecastle. Twenty three double ended and two single ended boilers drove her four colossal turbine rotors, generating up to seventy six thousand horsepower. Her displacement weight was thirty eight thousand tons, even less than Mauretania. The cost of building and fully equipping Lusitania had come to two-point-six million pounds or three-point-six million dollars, nearly two hundred and sixty million by today's standards. Cunard anticipated a quick and glorious return on it's investment.

With the fitting complete, Lusitania's officers conducted a two day sea trial on the Clyde. This was followed by her acceptance trials and having all second class accommodation in the stern gutted due to a twofold vibration during the previous acceptance trials. They tested her engines, practiced turns and to their delight, the ship reached a ground-breaking speed of twenty six-point-seven knots. They brought her back to Cunard on August 26th, satisfied with her performance and the officials of Cunard and John Brown proclaimed Lusitania fit to sail. Senior Commodore James Watt accepted the honor of becoming her very first captain. At 8:00 PM on September 7th, the largest ship in the world would leave Liverpool for her maiden voyage. History was made six days later when she arrived at Pier 54 in New York City to a hundred people and horse-drawn carriages who gathered to watch the marvel of British engineering make her way towards the very last second of her final destination.