Funeral services for the victims of the catastrophe of the British-flagged Lusitania, sunk by a German submarine U-boat, were held on May 10, 1915, at a graveyard in Queenstown, Ireland. Of the victims of the sinking of the Lusitania at Kinsale in the waters around Ireland, about 120 bodies were pulled from the Atlantic Ocean and buried in a mass grave. On May 7, 1915, the German submarine U-boat torpedoed and sank the British-owned steamship Lusitania. About 1,195 people were killed, including about 128 Americans. This catastrophe set in motion a series of events that led to America's entry into World War I.
The Lusitania catastrophe eventually fueled anti-German sentiment in the neutral United States, which eventually led the United States to enter World War I. After World War I began in 1914, the British secretly converted the passenger ship Lusitania into a transport ship. In February 1915, the Germans declared the waters surrounding Britain a war zone, and German submarines ignored warnings against merchant ships, contrary to international treaties. Allied troops were unable to transport arms and supplies from the United States.
The German embassy had declared on April 20, 1915 that the U.S. was at war with Great Britain and that ships under the British flag were targets for attack. Later on May 1, the Lusitania, sailing from New York to Liverpool, was torpedoed without warning by a German U-boat and sank about 20 minutes later. Passengers died in the water without having time to get on a lifeboat. The tragic fate of the distant ocean liner Lusitania was reported in the newspapers on May 18, 1915. Immediately, the British clamored emphatically for condemnation and outrage over the German attacks on civilians. Riots broke out in London as groups of British citizens took revenge against the Germans.
German U-boats also sank another British vessel, the SS Arabic, in August 1915. The succession of incidents heightened the tension of hatred between the US and Germany. The U.S. government warned that it would break off diplomatic relations with Germany and join Britain in World War I if it attacked ships without cause. Germany had announced in September 1915 that it would warn ships before attacking them. British intelligence intercepted a Zimmerman telegram in early 1917 in which Germany resumed indiscriminate ship attacks in central alliance with Mexico, and the newspaper published it on March 1. Shortly after the Germans resumed full-scale indiscriminate submarine attacks on February 3, the U.S. Congress declared war on the Central Allies on April 6, 1917, and entered the Allies in World War I.
