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Podcast Transcript
On May 7, 1915, nearly a year into the First World War, the British steamship RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat off the southern coast of Ireland.
Over 1,100 people were killed, many of whom were civilians from the United States who were not participants in the war.
Although the loss of life in the attack was great, the sinking of the Lusitania stands out due to its indirect role in encouraging the United States to enter the conflict.
Learn about the sinking of the Lusitania and its impact on World War I on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
The RMS Lusitania was one of two ships commissioned in 1906 by the British-owned Cunard Line. Its sister ship was the RMS Mauretania.
In the early 1900s, the Cunard Company faced competition from other passenger ship companies. This competition mainly came from German shipping lines, which were developing faster and larger ships that were more modern and luxurious.
The German companies posed a threat because they were more established among European immigrants seeking to cross the Atlantic and settle in North America. This led a large portion of potential Cunard customers to choose their competitors.
In order to compete, Cunard took out a 2.6 million pound loan to build two ships. This loan was issued with the condition that the ships be built to British Admiralty specifications, allowing them to be transitioned during wartime.
These stipulations were that the ship needed to have pillars and supports so the Navy could place naval guns on the ship in the event of war. Additionally, the ship would be listed in the official Navy list as a “Royal Naval Reserve Merchant Vessel,” meaning it could be converted for military use if needed.
When the Lusitania was first completed, it was the largest ship in the world, measuring 787 feet, or 240 meters, in length and weighing 31,550 tons. It held this distinction for only about a year, until the launch of the Mauretania.
Though the Mauretania was slightly larger, the Lusitania was better known for its speed, having won the ‘Blue Riband.’ The Blue Riband is an unofficial award for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic by a passenger liner. While the Mauretania later took this title, the two ships continued to jockey for the honor.
The RMS Lusitania had several notable design flaws.
One major flaw was its instability for a vessel of its size. If any one of the three coal bunkers flooded, the ship’s center of gravity would shift, increasing the risk of capsizing.
The Lusitania also had significant issues with lifeboat capacity. Before the Titanic disaster, it did not carry enough lifeboats for all passengers. After the Titanic sank in 1912, additional lifeboats were added, but this created new problems.
The added lifeboats could not all be placed on the sides due to the ship’s design. As a result, collapsible lifeboats had to be used. However, there was not enough time or space to properly assemble and launch these lifeboats in the event of an emergency.
The Lusitania’s initial career was primarily as an ocean liner. During these voyages, a massive rogue wave broke over the ship’s deck. Despite some damage, the ship was able to make it to its destination.
When World War I broke out, the Lusitania was declared by the government to become an armed merchant cruiser, as stipulated in its loan agreement.
However, this status was short-lived. Although it could easily be converted into a warship, the Lusitania remained a passenger liner during the outbreak of World War I, and guns were never installed on its deck, although it did transport some war material.
The decision not to arm the Lusitania was due to its enormous size. The ship required a large amount of coal to operate, which would be a massive drain on the Royal Navy’s fuel reserves. That, and the fact that she was an easily identifiable target, made it more effective to let it remain as a passenger ship.
As World War I commenced, the Germans declared the waters around Britain a war zone. By declaring the area a warzone, the Germans could sink any ships, regardless of whether they were for civilian or military purposes, so long as they were in British waters. In 1915, Ireland was still part of the British Empire.
At the start of the conflict, the Germans followed a philosophy of ‘prize rules.’ This essentially meant that U-boats needed to surface before attacking merchant ships. When the U-boat surfaced, they would complete a formal search of the cargo and allow the passengers and crew to escape before torpedoing the ship.
However, the British had begun to introduce “Q-ships,” which were warships cleverly disguised as passenger and merchant ships. This led to the Germans abandoning their ‘prize rule’ philosophy in favor of unrestricted submarine warfare, which is where they would sink any type of ship without warning.
Initially, many citizens were rightfully afraid of sailing across the Atlantic due to potential hostility. To help ease fears, the ship was painted gray to hide its identity as a British ship and to make the Lusitania blend into the background.
Later, these fears were eased as the British Navy effectively kept the German Navy in check, making people more willing to cross the Atlantic.
With concerns for civilian safety subsiding, the gray paint scheme was abandoned, and the ship reverted to its standard civilian colors, and resumed its passenger service.
On May 7, 1915, the RMS Lusitania was six days into its transatlantic journey, sailing from New York to Liverpool.
There had been previous submarine activity reported off the southern coast of Ireland, causing the British Admiralty to give a warning to the Lusitania to avoid the area and begin to take evasive maneuvers.
These evasive tactics involved sailing in zig-zags and changing the direction of the boat at irregular intervals. By doing this, the hope was to make it too confusing for any U-boats to torpedo.
Instead of listening to the British Admiralty, the captain of the Lusitania did not follow these recommendations.
This would prove to be a fatal choice, as a German U-boat was submerged in proximity of the Lusitania’s route.
At approximately 2:10 p.m., the German u-boat U-20, commanded by Walther Schwieger, fired a single torpedo without warning from a distance of roughly 700–800 yards.
This torpedo hit the center of the Lusitania, causing damage to the ship. Following the hit in the middle of the ship, a second, much heavier explosion was reported by many of the survivors. The source of the second explosion has never been confirmed and has been a source of controversy for decades.
The crew went to work quickly, trying to get as many passengers in lifeboats as possible, but due to the ship’s condition and the chaos on deck, it was extremely difficult to do so. This resulted in only 6 of the 48 lifeboats being successfully launched.
The entire sinking of the Lusitania occurred in just eighteen minutes. Approximately 61% of the passengers aboard were killed. The exact number of people who died in the sinking of the Lusitania varies based on the source, but it was approximately 1200 people. Of that number, about 128 were American citizens.
As you can imagine, the United States, neutral at this point in the war, was far from pleased about the loss of civilian American lives.
When World War I broke out, the United States initially attempted to remain neutral in the conflict. This is widely due to American public opinion being strongly anti-war, with many people viewing the “Great War” as a European problem.
There are benefits to being a neutral country during wartime, mainly that you can trade with either side of the conflict. However, in the American case, the US ended up trading with the Allies due to an intense naval blockade against Germany.
Germany, desperate to cut off the flow of neutral goods to Britain, tried to deter the Allies from receiving resources like food, ammunition, and weaponry, and as such, sank neutral ships, a policy that created international outrage.
Despite the official policy of neutrality, American newspapers were strongly in support of the Allies. They would often publish propaganda to get the American public to support the war and create anti-German sentiment. News from the front typically discussed the strength and courage of allied fighters and the worst qualities of the Germans.
As the war dragged on, many Americans began to view Germany as the aggressor and began to view it more and more as an enemy.
When the Lusitania sank, there was a great deal of international outrage, especially in the United States. Anti-German propaganda could already be found in the media, and this only furthered their case, increasing American anti-German sentiment.
Though the sinking of the Lusitania was not a direct cause in bringing the United States into the war, it was undoubtedly a contributing factor.
The American public became fascinated by the details of the sinking, which led to extensive news coverage and widespread public discussions, most of which portrayed Germany as the villain.
This was further proven when Germany justified their attack by saying the Lusitania contained contraband and was classed as an auxiliary cruiser, meaning they had every right to destroy it. While this claim helped bolster German public opinion, it did little elsewhere.
The Germans claimed that the second explosion proved the liner was carrying clandestine explosives. Britain argued for a non-munitions cause such as ruptured boilers, steam lines, or coal dust igniting.
Later inspection of the wreck found that the Lusitania did carry war material, notably about 4.2 million rounds of .303 rifle ammunition, empty shell casings, and fuzes.
However, ammunition of this type is not considered bulk explosives and experts argue it would not produce the kind of large, ship-killing detonation suggested by the blast reports.
Work associated with a 2012 National Geographic project and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory concluded the torpedo damage and rapid flooding near the forward boiler rooms were sufficient to doom the ship, with any “second explosion” likely tied to steam or boiler effects rather than contraband detonating.
Regardless of what the ship was carrying, the United States was enraged because the Germans did not allow the passengers to escape before destroying the ship due to the aforementioned ‘prize rules’ being revoked.
Another contributing factor to the strong reaction in the United States was due to who was killed in the shipwreck. One of the victims was Alfred Vanderbilt, a member of the famous Vanderbilt family.
To help ease tension with the United States, Germany temporarily suspended its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, fearing that the US would enter the war. However, this action did little to calm public opinion and instead just postponed American entry into the conflict.
The more immediate impact of the sinking of the Lusitania was that the attack was more the “point of no return” on the policy of neutrality. It served as a push for the US to align with Britain should they enter the conflict in the future.
On February 1, 1917, Germany made matters worse by announcing the return of unrestricted submarine warfare and the breaking of diplomatic relations between the United States and Germany.
If the sinking of the Lusitania was the setup that prepared the United States for war, it was the Zimmerman telegram that spiked the ball.
As I mentioned in my previous episode on the subject, the Zimmermann Telegram was a communication from Germany to Mexico, stating that the Mexican government would recover territory it had lost during the Mexican-American War if it sided with Germany.
The Germans were encouraging Mexico to launch a new front in the war to occupy the United States so they wouldn’t fight in Europe.
The British had intercepted the message on February 5 but didn’t pass it on to the United States until February 19, as the British didn’t want to reveal that they had cracked the German codes.
The United States remained technically neutral until April 6, 1917.
Although the return of unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmermann Telegram were the immediate causes of the American entry into the war, it was the sinking of the Lusitania that set the stage for the eventual entry of the United States into the conflict on the side of the Allies.