The Sinking Lusitania (War Illusrated Vol 3)

In May 1915, a single torpedo from a German U-Boat sank the Lusitania,  a British passenger liner of the Cunard Fleet. The vessel went down in 18 minutes. It was a terrible maritime disaster.

Nearly 1,200 perished – both passengers and crew. Approximately 100 were children and more than a tenth of the casualties were American citizens. Coming only a few years after the Titanic tragedy, the sinking of the Lusitania captured the public imagination on both sides of the Atlantic.

The British media howled outrage. The ‘Piratical Hun’ had sunk a passenger ship. A civilian target!

The Lusitania Disaster reported in the New York Times

In the USA, supporters of Britian went into overdrive. It took all the skills of the German Ambassador of the day to calm down the Wilson Administration. In the event, the USA did not enter the Great War until two years later.

Part of the German ‘defense’ was their claim that the Lusitania carried armaments for the British war effort. On that basis, it was a legitimate military target. Germany argued the British were guilty of smuggling armaments on a civilian vessel, inviting massive loss of civilian life.

Germany lost World War One; the USA and Britain were victorious. Winners typically write the history books. Winston Churchill once remarked “History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it”

1915 British War Propaganda

Even so, by the mid-1920s, the British establishment had the decency to disown at least some of their most outrageous wartime propaganda.

For instance, they no longer maintained the Germans had used a ‘corpse factory’ to manufacture lubrication oils, as claimed in 1917. Even former wartime Prime Minister David Lloyd George had no appetite for upholding that ridiculous wartime lie  (see Falsehood in Wartime published in 1928, especially Chapter XVII). Lloyd George said:

“The story came under my notice in various ways at the time. I did not believe it then; I do not believe it now. It was never adopted as part of the armoury of the British Propaganda Department. It was, in fact, “turned down” by that department.”

The usual British establishment way. Oops. We lied by mistake, would you believe it! A clerical error! (How odd, in that case, that the mythical German corpse factory was so widely reported in the British press back in 1917.)

British War Propaganda c.1917

By contrast, long after World One One the mystery of the Lusitania was never really cleared up. Rumours persisted over the years that the British may have lied, but there was no proof.

Now, it seems, there is.

In late 2008, reports began to filter back of new evidence brought to the surface by a diving team sent to explore the wreckage. Just before Christmas, the Secret of the Lusitania: Arms find challenges Allied claims it was solely a passenger ship appeared in the British Daily Mail. It’s a ripping yarn!

Armaments carried by the Lusitania made the vessel an explosion waiting to happen. Almost certainly, this is why it made a rapid plunge to the depths, resulting in exceptionally high loss of life. An orderly exit using lifeboats was impossible.

Winston Churchill: Self-Appointed Wikipedia of his Era

The Head of the British Admirality at the time was none other than Winston Churchill. Churchill is one of the 20th Century’s most ubiquitous ‘usual suspects’. There is even speculation the old fox arranged for the sinking of the Lusitania, but no proof (emphases added):

Whether Churchill actually arranged for the sinking of the Lusitania on May 7, 1915, is still unclear. A week before the disaster, he wrote to Walter Runciman, President of the Board of Trade that it was “most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores, in the hopes especially of embroiling the United States with Germany.”

Not all the lose ends of modern history have been cleared up yet.

Socrates, who advocated open discussion, even with a muse

We’re lucky that historians are at work, poring over humanity’s past so we can better understand how we got to this juncture.

Thank heavens these historians work so fearlessly in all areas of their subject matter (the whole of human history).

Yes, we’re fortunate the mainstream historical profession in the western world has such a deeply ingrained commitment to open inquiry and free speech.