The passenger lists posted in America and England became more accurate following the arrival in Queenstown. The crowds outside Cunard and the newspaper offices watched with hope and fear for familiar names. Liverpool was hardest hit by the news that only about one hundred and thirty nine of Lusitania's three hundred and nine crewmembers were saved. The Liverpool Daily Post reported:

"Not all of them had recovered from their daze and stupor..."

The Nation delivered a tone of outrage.

"It indicates disposition to follow civilized ways from the discussion of what our Government may present for the consideration of the German Government as a result of the Lusitania slaughter and of preceding violations of our maritime rights."

On Monday, May 10th, Ireland observed a national day of mourning for Lusitania. Roughly two hundred and eighty nine bodies that had been washed ashore were recovered, catalogued, photographed and identified. The rest were recovered by ships and then later embalmed by undertakers. Passengers of all classes were placed in coffins and taken back to port. A sad cargo of corpses were escorted by a crowd of soldiers and sailors into Queenstown where the coffins were kept open for one final chance of identifying the deceased. Some like Charles Frohman and Elbert Hubbard reached their final resting place in their hometowns, with over three thousand people attending Hubbard's own memorial service in East Aurora, New York. Other bodies, known and unknown, were finally buried in Old Church Cemetery. Cunard offered a one pound reward to pay for the reporting and retrieval of additional bodies. The dead were properly mourned and prayers of thanks were offered to those who were rescued. Churches and other cities were also crowded with those gathering to remember the tragedy and pray for it's victims. In Cobh Harbour, flags flew at half-staff for the sons and daughters of Ireland, who would never return home from the new world.

Even as the United Kingdom mourned, America was in a state of sharp reactions. Coroner John Horgan convened an inquiry in Ireland the morning after the rescue ships docked. America was still enraged by the Germans involvement in the disaster and President Woodrow Wilson had moved quickly to write a note of protest while the incident was still fresh. His colleague, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, signed and created the first note delivered to the German government on May 13th, mentioning other U-boat incidents to his opponent James W. Gerard. Lusitania's loss might have proved to be an avenue of attack against the ambassador of the German embassy. After two days in Queenstown, the hearings would be moved to Westminster Central Hall in London. Those crewmembers and passengers who had not received a congressional subpoena were free to return to their lives.

The first witness called to the hearings was Alexander Galbraith, Cunard's assistant superintending engineer. He described the ship in technical detail, how many tons she weighed, how long she was, how she met the standards, as well as her top speed. This allowed the Wreck Commissioner's Court with preparations to understand and question the rapid sinking. Given his previous inquiries, Lord Mersey had become a semi-nautical expert while remaining true to his post as a judge who had been appointed Wreck Commissioner in 1912, with the understanding that he shifted the blame on the Titanic disaster away from the Board of Trade. After providing the court with profile plans representing various sections of Lusitania, Galbraith withdrew himself and the court was ready to begin with the survivors.

The fourth witness called to the inquiry was Captain Turner. His answers were short, some descriptive and others, including questions, were controversial. He claimed that Lusitania was never carrying any weapons, that he never conversed with Professor Holbourn about the lifeboat drill, and that he left the ship only when he thought there was no one else around him. The Admiralty was not happy with Turner's final actions onboard the sinking vessel. Whether they disbelieved Turner or simply disliked him for not going down with his ship, they seemed determined to hold him responsible for the crime. There was hope that, whatever the verdict, he would be arrested immediately after the inquiry.

First Officer Jones was the thirteenth witness to appear on the second day. He spoke of the ship's list, how many degrees she was at, how the sinking commenced and the difficulty in walking he had during the list. He also described his dramatic transferring of his overloaded lifeboat into an empty one and going back in search of other passengers and crew in the water. When Captain Turner was called to testify again the day after, he would speak about the collapsible boats, saying that there was no general practice aboard the ship and that all watertight compartments were closed prior to the attack.

Upon his return to Boston, Charles Lauriat published the first and one of the most exciting survivor accounts yet, titled The Lusitania's Last Voyage. He spoke of helping the passengers in Lifeboat 7, of being dragged down by the wireless aerials, of spending hours aboard the upright collapsible. As a man who nearly gave his life to honor the rule of women and children first, Lauriat mentioned the increase in panic by the swarm of steerage passengers, who arrived on deck just in time to assist the others in helping to launch the boats. His sentence in the book illustrated the strong voices of the third class passengers, it also raised the abnegation of his heroic actions.

In Wilhelmshaven on May 12th, U-20 broke radio silence and took credit for sinking Lusitania, and was criticized for the brutality of the action. Beginning with Liverpool on May 8th, German establishments in the United Kingdom were dealt with rioting and looting. Policemen intervened the destruction until the matter could be settled, resulting in the injuries of one hundred and seven officers. From this point on, London would receive further destruction from Germany's own aerial defense system of zeppelins that bombed the city. On a positive note, however, an industrial boom called for labor demand that was without parallel to any previous point in the city's history.

The first passenger to testify before the Board of Trade was Mabel Learoyd. The separation between herself and her husband Charles had come back to haunt her. Fortunately, her testimony added further detail about the sinking and how the passengers behaved, with several women calling for lifebelts. Sir Edward Carson, the Board of Trade's Attorney-General, had Mrs. Learoyd explain her actions in the water.

"And do you remember what happened to you after that?"

"Well I was in the water. I had a lifebelt on and I was underneath for a few seconds, and then I came to the surface again and I thought I was in the water about a quarter of an hour or 20 minutes, but when I was picked up by some stewards who were on an upturned boat, I asked them to look round to see if they could possibly see my husband in the water. I said I had only been a few minutes in the water. One of them said 'Oh, I think you have been longer than that as it is now by my watch after 3 o'clock, and the ship went down about a quarter past two.'"

"And I think you never saw your husband again?"

"I never saw him again."

In spite of all evidence pointing to Walther Schwieger, Lord Mersey found the perfect scapegoat in Captain Turner. Because of his disobedience to steer Lusitania in a zig-zag manner among other incidents, the Secret Elite was already prepared to treat Turner harshly. Fortunately, the Admiralty was indeed seeking the very person who could take the full blame for those one thousand, one hundred and ninety eight needless deaths in the Irish Sea on their wanted list of possible war criminals. The press stuck to their story of calling Schwieger "The Baby Killer", and he was met with further disgust upon his return to Berlin, where he formally apologized his actions to the Kaiser, but the increasing provocation of the United States only resulted in a restriction of submarines attacking civilian vessels without warning.

Back in London, Lord Mersey concluded the Board of Trade Inquiry on Wednesday, July 1st. Over the last five days, his committee had interviewed thirty five witnesses, generating over one thousand and two hundred pages of testimony. The Mersey Report, delivered July 17th, blamed Lusitania's rapid foundering on a second torpedo from another submarine and the ship's speed. It blamed the German Government for deliberately attempting to murder the passengers and the loss of life on the difficulties of the sailors trying to launch the lifeboats. It also found no munitions or ammunition onboard the ship. The relieved Captain Turner was forgiven. No blame was attached to the owners of the ship or that Captain Turner behaved improperly. The report did not make any recommendations or acknowledged any of the technical issues, leaving the location of where the torpedo hit a complete mystery.

In September 5th, 1917, Kapitänleutnant Walter Schweiger was killed in action when his current submarine of command, U-88, collided into a British mine. At thirty two years old, he had received the Pour le Mérite for being the sixth most successful commander of a submarine during the war, but his involvement in the Lusitania disaster would continue to be the best, if not worst, of his long-remembered career. Captain Turner would survive the sinking of another Cunard vessel, Ivernia, waiting until all of the ship's crew and troops were safely evacuated until he himself swam away. He retired in 1919 and would try to avoid any reference to Lusitania until his death fourteen years later.

Now that the British government had addressed the Lusitania disaster, August saw the first civil lawsuits appearing in American and German courts. Maude Thompson filed a claim for the loss of her husband Elbridge. Robert Dyer sought over one thousand and two hundred dollars in lost property damages. Other claimants wanted to be paid for jewelry, artwork and family heirlooms. Faced with six million dollars in lawsuits, the Cunard Line rushed to prove it was not at fault. When the German government announced the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare, Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann sent a telegram proposing a military alliance between Germany and Mexico. On April 6th, 1917, America entered the Great War in an eighty two to six congressional vote. The Lusitania survivors ended up in another inquiry held in America with Judge Julius Meyer presiding, and in the process, the world heard many new stories not revealed by the British hearings.

While Adrien Agreste and Marinette Dupain-Cheng would go on to live happily ever after, Lusitania would live on in their hearts as a subject of study, as a cultural metaphor, as reminder of human ambition, and how love conquers all against the vast impersonal forces of war.