Lusitania who is to blame

This aspect of the story unfolds in documents in the British National Archives, the papers of the Times of London correspondent Arthur Willert at Yale and in other archives. In the United States this work was surreptitiously carried out by the novelist Sir Gilbert Parker, journalist Willert, and others who wooed opinion molders and planted stories in the American press. The British could be as heavy-handed as the German military. Then in a flurry of diplomatic activity, which produced hundreds of memoranda and cables, Foreign Office officials persuaded Commonwealth countries to do the same.

Shortly after the sinking of the Lusitania, an artisan in Munich produced a medal depicting the event. This was a small, commercial endeavor involving fewer than five hundred medals, but the British made it appear yet another instance of the whole of Germany celebrating its brutality.

The British distributed pictures of the medal to newspapers and magazines both inside and outside Britain. Wellington House reproduced 50, copies of the medal. It was the fastest, most luxurious passenger ship ever to have sailed the seas and, like the Titanic , was believed to be invulnerable.

But of the 1, passengers on board, 1, perished, among them American citizens. But to the dismay of the First Lord of the Admiralty, a certain Winston Churchill , it would take another two years and millions more deaths on the Western Front before President Woodrow Wilson ordered American boots on European ground. Dead wake is an old maritime term for the disturbance that remains on the water long after a boat has passed.

But in the case of a liner, the wake can persist for many thousands of yards, if not miles, behind the ship. And that was called, at one time, the dead wake. The war had broken out in August We all know about the horrific land battles. The submarine proved to be a very effective weapon in that respect and one that Germany decided to use in a major break with naval warfare against merchant and civilian vessels.

The Lusitania was thought to be immune from such an attack because nobody could possibly imagine it. It was hard enough to imagine the German Navy going after merchant vessels. But the Germans had started sinking merchant vessels, often without warning. Then, along comes the Lusitania in May in waters that Germany had determined to be a war zone. Why did this ship even set sail from New York when there was a war zone declared and German submarines were everywhere, attacking without warning?

They saw this ship as so fast it could outrun any submarine. They saw it as being so immense, so well built, so safe, and so well equipped with lifeboats in the wake of the Titanic disaster that even if it were hit by a torpedo, no one imagined this thing actually sinking.

But no one could imagine a submarine going after the Lusitania in the first place. That seemed such an absurd and immoral concept. So in the end only a couple of people actually canceled. And I have a feeling that Churchill, if he were with us on this conference call today, would have argued very much in the opposite direction, though he had his own motives.

Turner was a staunch Cunard captain of the old school who had come to Cunard after serving in the hard school of sailing vessels. He believed in doing things the classic way, like making his crew tie absurdly complex knots that they would most likely never use.

But he was utterly unprepared for the new age of submarine warfare, as were all captains. Nobody understood the submarine. So, here was this captain of the old school forced suddenly to confront this horrendous situation of submarines hunting his ship. Walter Schwieger was, by all counts, loved by his men.

He rescued a dachshund that was adrift after he had attacked the ship in which the dog was traveling, and brought it aboard. So here was this young, humane, handsome guy, who was dispatched by the German Navy to do what submarines were supposed to do.

He is clearly in my view the villain. Nobody made him press the button and launch the torpedo that sank that ship. The British Admiralty later tried to lay the blame on Captain Turner. But in the end it all comes down to Schwieger. He killed almost 1, people at the push of a button.

Beds Lusitania survivor remembers. World War One at Home reports from Cobh. Holy Trinity Church, Drumbo. This video can not be played To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. On the th anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania Colleen Watters tells the story of her grandmother's survival. Nettie Moore with her husband Walter and son Walter Jr.

Colleen Watters reflects on her grandmother's incredible survival. Image source, BBC Sport. Nettie's brother John helped save her life. More on the sinking of the Lusitania. Image source, TopFoto. Image source, Getty Images. Soldiers dig a mass grave for the dead in a churchyard near Cobh. But amid the anger there were unanswered questions. Image source, Empics. The Lusitania was used to encourage volunteers to sign up to fight in the war. Published 27 March Published 1 May Sign in.

Thanks for reading Scientific American. Create your free account or Sign in to continue. See Subscription Options. Go Paperless with Digital. Reports and opinions in Scientific American on a key tragedy in World War I May 8, When the German submarine U torpedoed the British civilian ship Lusitania on May 7, , the grand ocean liner sank in only 18 minutes. The editorial in Scientific American in the May 29, , issue, vehemently disagreed on technical grounds: The grand RMS Lusitania as the vessel appeared in , shortly after being launched.

Image: Scientific American, August 10, In a test of small-arms ammunition, cases of shells were dropped, smashed, burned and in this test, blasted three times with a shotgun. Two of the cartridges in the case were ignited, but the nitrocellulose smokeless powder burned slowly and they soon extinguished themselves. Image: Scientific American, June 12, Load comments. Get smart. Sign up for our email newsletter. Sign Up.