Before Lusitania left New York for Ireland on May 1, 1915, a message from the German Embassy was printed in dozens of American newspapers, warning any who boarded the British liner that they were risking their lives in doing so:
…in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on the ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.
Despite this warning, 1,265 people boarded the ship as passengers, including over a hundred American citizens. Ships sailing through war zones constantly ran the risk of attack, but Lusitania’s voyage (despite some submarine warnings) went fairly smoothly. However, as Lusitania neared the coast of Ireland on May 7, the SM U-20, a U-boat that happened to be in the right place at the right time, fired a single torpedo at the ship. She sunk in only eighteen minutes. Unlike Titanic, Lusitania reportedly had more than enough lifeboats for all its passengers to evacuate to safety - yet 1,195 people died of the 1,959 aboard, including 128 Americans.
The British and Americans were understandably outraged; some condemned the attack as a war crime. German officials countered that the sinking was justified, because Lusitania had (according to their official statement) been carrying “large quantities of war material in her cargo” at the time of her sinking. Stubbornly upstanding President Wilson declared that “there is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right”, affirming his intention to keep his country neutral. Even so, the sinking of Lusitania had permanently turned the opinion of the American public against Germany, although it would take strikes against their own ships to push the United States to enter the war.