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The RMS Lusitania Disaster
The Royal Merchant Ship Lusitania was an early 20th century British ocean liner that gracefully plied the North Atlantic between Liverpool and New York City one time each month until it was mortally struck by a German submarine torpedo off the southern coast of Ireland on Friday, May 7, 1915. The majestic Lusitania listed heavily to starboard and sank in only eighteen minutes in about 300 feet of water. Nearly 1,200 men, women, and children perished in the disaster, including 128 Americans. The sinking of the Lusitania, according to Arthur S. Link, had a “more jolting effect upon American opinion than any other single event of the World War.” The sinking convinced many Americans that Imperial Germany had “run amuck and was now an outlaw among civilized nations.” (1)
Important resources on the Lusitania include The Lusitania Disaster by Thomas A. Bailey and Paul B. Ryan (1975); The Lusitania’s Last Voyage by Charles E. Lauriat (one of the survivors) (1915); The Military History of the Lusitania by Louis Leo Snyder (1965); and The Lusitania Case, a collection of primary sources on the incident compiled by C.L. Droste and W.H. Tantum (1972). (2-5) These books currently are no longer in print, but are available in the used book marketplace. In the first three years of the 20th century, the British Parliament partially paid for the construction of two grand new “ocean greyhounds” to counter the Imperial German Empire’s shipbuilding spree and American John Pierpont Morgan’s designs on Great Britain’s famous Cunard Company, founded in 1840 by Canadian-born Samuel Cunard. (6) The Imperial German Empire rapidly expanded its shipbuilding industry between 1900 and 1900, causing Great Britain concern because of her utter dependence on open sea-lanes for supplying her people with the necessities of life and the transportation of her troops in times of war. Great Britain had firsthand knowledge of the German shipbuilding expansion because she was building some of those ships for the Germans. A New York Times article published on November 2, 1900, describes the situation: Shipbuilding in Germany has become a great industry in the last decade, and, according to a communication from United States Consul Winter at Annaberg, to the Department of State, the present capacity of all the wharves does not meet the demands of the German merchant marine. This establishment now numbers 1,209 steamers, and seemingly this number cannot be increased in the empire proper as fast as is desired. Many orders are being placed in foreign countries, and for the port of Hamburg alone twenty-two ships are being built in England. Old wharves are being torn away and new ones of larger proportions are taking their places. A million-dollar wharf at Stralsund is planned, and many other new enterprises give evidence of the rapid growth of the German marine. (7-8) The British Parliament worried about Germany’s plans to transform her new merchant marine ships into war ships by mounting massive guns on their decks. Merchant ships thus armed could easily sink the “unarmed, slow-moving tramp steamers supplying the British Isles.” (9) The British also watched uneasily as American John Pierpont Morgan expanded his shipping cartel to “exclusively transport to Europe those goods that originated in the American interior and traveled on Morgan railroads to East Coast ports.” From there, his ships would transport the American goods to Europe, edging out British shipping. Chernow notes, “Pierpont had to contend with a single holdout, Britain’s Cunard Line, whose exclusion…might wreck the trust…Now, with near-panic in British shipping circles and a popular clamor for Parliament to ‘save’ the seas for Britain, a cabinet committee pressed Cunard not to sell. The British admiralty wanted transatlantic liners available as warships in an emergency and feared having Cunard in foreign hands.” (10) Parliament wooed the Cunard Company by subsidizing two new palatial Cunarders, the Lusitania and the Mauretania, which would be the world’s biggest steamships, would fend off Morgan’s overtures, and would counter the German threat. “In exchange, Cunard agree to stay in British hands and keep its fleet at the government’s disposal.” (10) In 1903, the British Parliament approved the “Cunard Agreement,” which lent 2,600,000 British pounds to the Cunard Company at 2¾ percent interest at a time when the commercial interest rate was 5 percent. Bailey and Ryan note, These ships would need maximum boiler power to attain a speed of 24 to 25 knots on the North Atlantic run, and the specifications would have to be approved by the Admiralty. The life of the loan was twenty years, with one-twentieth of it to be repaid annually, beginning form the date of the first voyage of each ship. In addition, the government would pay the company 150,000 pounds annually for maintaining both liners in war-readiness (75,000 each), plus 68,000 pounds for carrying mail in Cunard vessels. Utilization of the two giant steamers in wartime was not overlooked; they could be taken over by the Admiralty at its discretion, according to the 1903 agreement. All “certificated” officers on the twin liners, other than engineers, and “not less than one half of the crew” were required to belong to the Royal Naval Reserve or the Royal Naval Fleet Reserve. (9) The Cunard Agreement also published specifications for arming the Lusitania and the Mauretania, in case of war. “Both were to be so constructed, with such arrangements for ‘pillars and supports,’ as would permit the strategic emplacement in wartime of twelve 6-inch quick-firing guns, ‘within the shelter of heavy shell-planting,’ that is, small gun shields.” (9) In addition, the engine rooms, boiler rooms, rudder, steering gear, and coal bunkers of both vessels were placed as far as feasible below the water line for protection against surface enemy gunfire from merchant raiders. The Brits did not design the new ships, however, to withstand the use of submarines as commerce destroyers.
Leonard Peskett, Cunard’s naval architect, designed the Lusitania. John Brown & Company of Clydebank, Scotland, laid her keel as Yard no. 367 on June 16, 1904. Her length was 787 feet, beam 87 feet, and draft 33.6 feet. She weighed around 32,000 tons. Her power derived from 25 Scotch boilers and 4 direct-acting Parsons steam turbines, which produced 76,000 horsepower. Her propulsion was by four triple blade propellers, subsequently replace by quadruple blade propellers in 1909. Her top speed, attained in a single day’s run in March 1914 was 26.7 knots (30.7 mph); her usual speed was 25 knots (28.8 mph). Her capacity included accommodations for 552 first class, 460 second class, and 1,186 third class passengers (total, 2,198 passengers). The maximum crew number was 850. On June 7, 1906, the British launched the Lusitania and on September 7, 1907, she made her spectacular maiden voyage to New York City, arriving September 13, 1907. During her eight-year service, she traversed 202 times the North Atlantic Ocean between Liverpool and New York City. On June 28, 1914, an assassin murdered Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo, capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Balkan incident triggered a cascade of international events that culminated in the launch of World War I between the Allied and Central Powers. Great Britain declared war on Germany on August 4, 1914, after the German Government refused to respect the neutrality of Belgium. (11) The voluminous correspondence leading up to England’s declaration of war against Germany is available elsewhere. (12) On August 6, 1914, Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, resolutely leading the cause for America’s neutrality during the European conflict, requested that Germany and Great Britain please abide by the articles of the Declaration of London of 1909, which established rules for the conduct of naval war. (13) These rules governed blockade, definitions of contraband and treatment of neutral shipping, among other aspects of conducting naval war. (14) For example, the Declaration of London required that “a blockade must not extend beyond the ports and coasts belonging to or occupied by the enemy;…must be applied impartially to the ships of all nations;…[and] must not bar access to neutral ports or coasts.” In addition, the Declaration of London prohibited absolute contraband of war, including “arms of all kinds, including arms for sporting purposes, and their distinctive component parts; projectiles, charges, and cartridges of all kinds, and their distinctive component parts; powder and explosives specially prepared for use in war; gun-mountings, limber boxes, limbers, military waggons, field forges, and their distinctive component parts; and clothing and equipment of a distinctively military character, among other items. (15)
On August 13, 1914, Austria-Hungary replied in the affirmative to President Wilson’s request to abide by the Declaration of London. Germany followed suit on August 22, 1914. Great Britain was less cooperative, replying she would adopt “generally the rules of the Declaration, subject to certain modifications.” (14) Wilson could not persuade Great Britain to abide fully by the Declaration of London and eventually dropped the idea. President Wilson officially announced America’s policy of neutrality toward the war in Europe on August 19, 1914. (16) Of note, in the midst of the war breaking out in Europe, President Wilson’s wife of 29 years, Ellen Axson Wilson, died of kidney failure in the White House on August 6, 1914. Winston Churchill, who was First Lord of the Admiralty of Great Britain from October 1911 to May 1915, explained Britain’s naval strategy at the onset of World War I: The traditional war policy of the Admiralty grew up during the prolonged wars and antagonisms with France. It consisted in establishing immediately upon the outbreak of war a close blockade of the enemy’s ports and naval bases by means of flotillas of strong small craft supported by cruisers with superior battle fleets in reserve. The experience of 200 years had led all naval strategists to agree on this fundamental principle, “Our first line of defence is the enemy’s ports.” …When early in the present century [20th] our potential enemy for the first time became not France, but Germany, our naval strategic front shifted from the South to the East Coast and from the [English] Channel to the North Sea. But although the enemy, the front, and the theatre had changed, the sound principle of British naval strategy still held good. Our first line of defence was considered be the enemy’s ports. The Admiralty policy was still a close blockade of those ports by means of stronger flotillas properly supported by cruisers and ultimately by the battle fleets. It was not to be expected that our arrangements on this new front could rapidly reach the same degree of perfection as the conflicts of so many generations had evolved in the Channel; and so far as our naval bases were concerned, we were still in the process of transition when the Great War began. More serious, however, was the effect of the change on the utility of our destroyers. Instead of operating at distances of from 20 or 60 miles across the Channel with their supporting ships close at hand in safe harbours, they were now called upon to operate in the Heligoland Bight, across 240 miles of sea, and with no suitable bases for their supporting battle fleet nearer than the Thames or the Forth [Rivers]…The much greater distances over which our destroyers had now to operate across the North Sea immensely reduced their effectiveness. Whereas across the Channel they could work in two reliefs, they required three across the North Sea. (17)
The British tried to capture German islands to establish an oversea base “at which the beginning of the war [the] blockade flotillas could be replenished and could rest,” but the Germans caught on to the plan and began use of submarines, “making capture and maintenance of an oversea base or bases far more difficult,” if not “impossible.” The foregoing facts of the desperate naval situation led to the British policy of “distant blockade,” set out in the Admiralty War Orders of 1912. Of course, distant blockade contradicted the rules set out in the Declaration of London of 1909, which said “a blockade must not extend beyond the ports and coasts belonging to or occupied by the enemy.” Nevertheless, the British set up a huge blockade effective November 3, 1914, across a vast area of the North Sea, which it also loaded with mines. These mines did not sit well with the neutral Scandinavian countries, which protested vigorously to London against violation of freedom of the seas, a long-recognized freedom. (18) Churchill wrote, The policy of distant blockade was not adopted from choice, but from necessity. It implied no repudiation on the part of the Admiralty of their fundamental principle of aggressive naval strategy, but only a temporary abandonment of it in the face of unsolved practical difficulties; and it was intended that every effort should be made, both before and after the declaration of war to overcome those difficulties. It was rightly foreseen that by closing the exits from the North Sea into the Atlantic Ocean, Germany commerce would be almost completely cut off from the world. It was expected that the economic and financial pressure resulting from such a blockade would fatally injure the German power to carry on a war. It was hoped that this pressure would compel the German fleet to come and fight, not in his own defended waters, but at a great numerical disadvantage in the open sea. It was believed that we could continue meanwhile to enjoy the full command of the seas without danger to our sea communications or the movement of our armies, and that the British Isles could be kept safe from invasion. There was at that time no reason to suppose that these conditions would not continue indefinitely with undiminished advantage to ourselves and increasing pressure upon the enemy. So far as all surface vessels are concerned, and certainly for the first three years of the war, these expectations were confirmed by experience. (17) The British announced in November 1914 the mining of the North Sea and declared that “the entrance of neutral ships was ‘at their own peril.’” President Wilson registered no official protest to this British announcement. (19) On February 4, 1915, the Imperial German Empire’s government in Berlin proclaimed “an area of war” in the waters “surrounding Great Britain and Ireland…” (20) “The edict was not to become effective for two weeks so that hostile ships, as well as neutral vessels, might have time ‘to adapt their plans’ accordingly.” Berlin said its reasons for introducing a U-boat blockade around the British Isles was “in retaliation” for “Britain’s blocking off the North Sea with minefields, among other offenses of international laws. Moreover, the neutrals, including Americans, were blamed for having ‘generally acquiesced’ in the illegal measures taken by London and consequently for having brought the submarine danger zone on themselves.” (19)
Bailey and Ryan elaborate on the German U-boat blockade: The German proclamation was brutally blunt. All enemy [emphasis in original] vessels found within this war zone, including armed and unarmed merchantmen, would be destroyed, “without its always being possible” to avoid imperiling lives. Neutrals, including Americans, were thus warned against “further entrusting crews, passengers and wares to such ships [including the Lusitania].” Neutral shippers were also advised to avoid entering the proscribed area, “for even though the German naval forces have instructions to avoid violence to neutral ships in so far as they are recognizable, in view of the misuse of neutral flags ordered by the British government and the contingencies of naval warfare,” the torpedoing of neutral shipping “cannot always be avoided…” Neutrals were further informed that commerce in the lanes north of the Shetland Islands in the eastern North Sea and an area some thirty sea miles along the Netherlands coast “is not imperiled.” All this reveals that a major purpose of Berlin was to frighten away from British waters as many neutral ships as possible and thus tighten the U-boat blockade. From the German point of view a steamer permanently scared away was much better than one sunk because the diplomatic complications were less serious. (20) The German, like the British, blockade, was illegal, according to the Declaration of London and other international law. On February 10, 1915, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, speaking for President Wilson, told the German government that it would be held to “strict accountability” if German U-boats sacrificed an American vessel or the lives of American citizens on the high seas: If the commanders of German vessels of war should act upon the presumption that the flag of the United States was not being used in good faith and should destroy on the high seas an American vessel of the lives of American citizens, it would be difficult for the Government of the United States to view the act in any other light than as an indefensible violation of neutral rights which it would be very hard indeed to reconcile with the friendly relations now so happily subsisting between the two Governments. If such a deplorable situation should arise, the Imperial German Government can readily appreciate that the Government of the United States would be constrained to hold the Imperial German Government to a strict accountability for such acts of their naval authorities and to take any steps it might be necessary to take to safeguard American lives and property and to secure to American citizens the full enjoyment of their acknowledged rights on the high seas. (21) Bailey and Ryan analyze this Secretary Bryan’s statement, as follows: “Strict accountability” proved to be one of the most dangerous of the unfortunate phrases spawned by the war, but its author, probably ex-Professor Wilson, is not positively identified. The expression itself suggests a schoolmaster sternly lecturing misbehaving pupils. Proclaimed to the world some three months before the Lusitania disaster, it announced that the United States would do something vaguely ominous if German submarine warfare caused the loss of American ships and lives. But what would that something be?...For a formal note that seemingly threatened war in diplomatic language, the “strict accountability ” blast was officially and publicly defined in curiously ambiguous terms. (19) Indeed, “Wilson assumed a strange position…when he demanded immunity for Americans voyaging on belligerent merchantmen and passenger ships, some of which were reserve cruisers transporting munitions of war or were armed with defensive guns, or both. He ran counter not only to American tradition and international law but also to common sense. Carried to its logical extreme, his stance meant that if American citizens were present, the Germans could not bombard Paris with artillery, bomb London with Zeppelins from the air, fire by mistake upon an ambulance operated by Americans behind the front lines in France, or torpedo any ship, even a British battleship, transporting American passengers in the submarine zone.” (22) Even stranger was Wilson’s reaction to the death of one American, a mining engineer named Leon Thrasher, who was aboard the British vessel Falaba, which German submarines sunk on March 28, 1915, one day out from Liverpool on its way to West Africa. In spite of his rhetoric of February 10, 1915 (see above), “official Washington delayed action as the legal experts in the State Department discussed among themselves and consulted with Wilson as to what stance to take.” (23) The British RMS Lusitania , unquestionably a belligerent ship from the perspective of the Germans, made ready to sail from New York City back to Liverpool on May 1, 1915. President Wilson and his administration had decided not to issue a warning to Americans planning to take the trip aboard the Lusitania. The German Embassy published in various newspapers as early as April 22, 1915, and as late as the day of the Lusitania’s departure on May 1, 1915, a warning to prospective passengers, which read: Warning! Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between German and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britian [sic], or of any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travelers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britian [sic] or her allies do so at their own risk. Imperial German Embassy, Washington, D.C. April 22, 1915. (24) German Ambassador von Bernstorff believed that the advertisement was a friendly gesture, made necessary by public ignorance of the proclaimed danger zone and by “the apathetic behavior of the Washington authorities” regarding a possible warning of their own. (25) Ironically, the Wilson administration had warned Americans to withdraw from Mexico in 1913-1914 during trouble there, but did not do so for passengers intending to sail through the waters surrounding the British Isles in 1915. How did people react to the German Embassy’s warning in the newspapers? The Cunard Company bragged that the Lusitania could outrun any submarine. Company employees claimed the ocean liner was much too valuable to be exposed to real danger. “Indeed, they conveyed the impression or gave assurances to numerous purchasers of tickets that armed escorts would be provided by the Admiralty as the liner, with an extra burst of speed, steamed through dangerous waters.” One Lusitania survivor recalled that a high official in Cunard’s New York office said that the Lusitania was “Perfectly safe; safer than the trolley cars in New York City.” (26)
The captain of the Lusitania on this particular voyage was veteran Cunard skipper William T. Turner. He had gone to sea at the age of thirteen, joined the Cunard Line in 1883 and had become one of the elite group of Cunard captains in 1907. (27) “When Captain Turner was questioned about the danger, he reportedly laughed and remarked, ‘I wonder what the Germans will do next. Well, it doesn’t seem as if they had scared many people from going on the ship by the look of the pier and the passenger list.’” (26) “Charles P. Sumner, general agent in New York of the Cunard Line, was reported by the press to have hastened to the pier to reassure passengers that the trip on the Lusitania would not involve any ‘risk whatever.’” (28) He prepared a statement for the press, which read, “The truth is that the Lusitania is the safest boat on the sea. She is too fast for any submarine. No German war vessel can get her or near her. She will reach Liverpool on schedule time and come back on schedule time just as long as we are able to run her in the transatlantic grade.” (28) The number of people aboard the Lusitania when it departed New York City harbor at 12:30 p.m. on May 1, 1915, totaled nearly 2,000. Of these 2,000 people, 1,257 were passengers and 702 were crew. Of the 1,257 passengers, 197 were Americans. (29) Of the 1,257 passengers, 39 were infants. In addition to its human cargo, the Lusitania was carrying contraband, which included foodstuffs by recent British redefinition, and 4200 cases of Remington rifle cartridges (.303 caliber). They were packed 1000 to a box, for a total of 4,200,000 cartridges. In addition, the Lusitania carried as freight 1250 cases of empty and hence nonexplosive shrapnel shells, , and 18 cases of nonexplosive fuses. (30) The Lusitania’s crew was uncommonly “makeshift” for this crossing and “not of the highest quality. Many of the best men had already been siphoned off for wartime service in the Royal Navy…Able-bodied seamen were understandably reluctant to embark on a vessel that was headed into a danger zone.” (31) Many passengers complained about the farcical boat drills that were held daily aboard the Lusitania as she crossed the North Atlantic. “Only one boat was involved, either No. 13 on the starboard side of No. 14 on the port side, depending on the wind. The remaining twenty lifeboats were ignored” and many of them were in poor repair. “On Tuesday, May 4, three days before the catastrophe, several of the first-cabin passengers spoke to Captain Turner of their concern about possible torpedoing. They asked if he should not hold boat drills for the passengers, rather than a one-boat muster by the crew, so that they would know how to save themselves in an emergency. Turner assured them that he was not worried; he could bring his ship through safely. One surviving American, Francis Jenkins, later quoted him as saying, ‘A torpedo can’t get the Lusitania. She runs too fast.’ Turner promised these spokesmen that he would speak to the First Officer about a drill for the passengers. Perhaps he did, but it never took place. Although a list of boat stations for the crew had been posted throughout the liner, no such list assigning passengers existed,” write Bailey and Ryan. (32) Finally, on May 6, the day before the disaster, all 22 lifeboats were swung out. There were made ready for lowering, with boat falls [ropes] brought down, but they had not yet been lowered to the level of the rails.” First-class passengers formed a committee on May 6 to instruct everyone, including children, on how to adjust life preservers. No small life preservers were readily available for the children. As the Lusitania approached the Irish Sea on the eve of the disaster, all outboard lights were extinguished to render the ship less visible to U-boat periscopers. The Admiralty sent in code three warning messages to Turner about the presence of submarines in their vicinity, as described elsewhere. (33) Turner was also operating under general instructions issued by the government for the guidance of skippers in submarine-infested waters. Bailey and Ryan note four instructions that Turner followed: Bailey and Ryan then note four instructions that Turner did not follow:
The day of the sinking of the Lusitania began foggy, but the mist quickly burned off to welcome a clear sunny May day on the Irish Sea. Lusitania survivor Charles E. Lauriat, Jr., wrote that the sea was as “smooth as a pancake, an ideal chance for a dash up the coast” and safety in Liverpool. (34) He arose at noon and had “time for a stroll around the deck before lunch at 1 o’clock.” Lauriat continued, I noticed that we were not going anywhere near top speed and were following…the usual course up the Irish Coast, that being about 5 to 7 miles distant. I wondered at our loafing along at this gentle pace. When I bought my ticket at the Cunard Office in Boston I asked if we were to be convoyed [by armed British escort] through the war zone, and the reply made was, “Oh yes! Every precaution will be taken.” …After lunch I went to my stateroom and put on my sweater under the coat of the knickerbocker suit that I was wearing and went up on deck for a real walk. I came up the main companion-way and stepped out on the port side of the steamer and [was conversing with] Mr. and Mrs. Elbert Hubbard standing by the rail…when the torpedo struck the ship…Where I stood on deck the shock of the impact was not severe; it was a heavy, rather muffled sound, but the good ship trembled for a moment under the force of the blow; a second explosion quickly followed, but I do not think it was a second torpedo, for the sound was quite different; it was more likely a boiler in the engine room. As I turned to look in the direction of the explosion I say a shower of coal and steam and some debris hurled into the air between the second and third funnels, and then heard the fall of gratings and other wreckage that had been blown up by the explosion…I looked immediately at my watch and it was exactly 8 minutes past 9 (A.M.) Boston time, which means 8 minutes past 2 Greenwich time…I went straight down to my stateroom…The boat had taken a list to starboard, but it was not acute, and so I had no difficulty in making my way to and from my cabin. I tied on a life belt, took the others in the room and my small leather case containing my business papers, and went up on deck to the port side. I went back to the spot where I had left the Hubbards, but they had gone, and I never saw them again. I found those who needed the life belts, put them on, tied them properly, and then went aft along the port side of the ship, for I was confident that all hands would naturally rush to the starboard side and so there would be more opportunity to help along the port side, I turned and walked for’ard toward the bridge, where Captain Turner and Captain Anderson were both calling in stentorian tones not to lower away the boats, ordering all passengers and sailors to get out of them, saying that there was no danger and that the ship would float…. As I looked around to see to whom I could be of the greatest help it seemed to me that about everyone who passed me wearing a life belt had it on incorrectly. In their hurry they put them on every way except the right way: one man had his arm through one armhole and his head through the other; others had them on around the waist and upside down; but very few had them on correctly. I stopped these people and spoke to them in a calm voice and persuaded them to let me help them on with the belts, for they certainly stood no show in the water rigged as they were. At first they thought I was trying to take their jackets from them, but on reassuring them they let me straighten them out.
I had been watching carefully the list of the steamer, and by now I was confident that she wouldn’t float and that the end was coming fast…I passed through to the starboard side. Men were striving to lower the boats and were putting women and children into them, but it seemed to me that it only added horror to the whole situation to put people into a boat that you knew never would be cleared and which would go down with the steamer; better leave them on the deck to let them take their chance at a piece of wreckage. True, there was no panic, in the sense that anyone crowded or pushed his way to the lifeboats, but there was infinite confusion, and there seemed no one to take command of any one boat…I made a try for it by swimming. I spoke to several [in a doomed lifeboat] and urged them to come; but truly they were petrified, and only my training from boyhood up, in the water and under it, gave the courage to jump. I swam about 100 feet away from the ship and then turned around to see if anyone was following to whom I could lend a hand, and found several who needed encouragement. Also I wanted to see when the final plunge of the steamer came, that I might be the more ready to fight against the vortex and tell the others. The Lusitania did not go down anything like head first: she had, rather, settled along her whole water line…There was very little vortex… As I waited for the final plunge something caught me on the top of my head and slipped on to my shoulders pressing me under the water; I couldn’t imagine what it was, but on turning to see I found that it was one of the aerials of the wireless that stretched from topmast to topmast. [He disentangled himself.] When I came up, after shaking the Marconi wire, the waves bearing the wreckage and people were upon me. After swimming around and helping those I could by pushing them pieces of wreckage to which to cling, I saw a short distance away a collapsible lifeboat floating right side up, swam to it, and climbed aboard. A seaman quickly followed, and a fine husky chap he proved to be. I heard my name called, and for a moment I didn’t realize whether it was a call from Heaven or Hell, but when I turned in the direction of the voice I found the man to be G----, one of the three men with whom I had played cards each evening. I pulled him up on the boat, and we three got out our jackknives and went at a kind of can-opening operation, which was really the removing of the canvas cover of the boat. They call that invention a “boat,” but to start with, it is nothing but a “raft.” [Lauriat describes it in detail, found an oar and began to haul people in.]
I won’t enter into the detail of the condition of the poor souls we got, but two instances of nerve stand out so clearly in my mind that I must tell them. Both pertain to women, and never have I seen greater courage and patience shown by anyone…I…pulled in a woman who I thought at first glance was a negress [she was white, but covered with soot]…I learned afterwards that…she was aboard when the final plunge came, and the suction took her part way down one of the funnels, but the thankful explosion blew her forth, out into clear water, in among the wreckage, where she could hang on. The clothes were almost blown off the poor woman, and there wasn’t a white spot on her except her teeth and the whites of her eyes. …For coolness I think this second case is even more remarkable. We had about as many in our boat as we ought to take when I heard a woman’s voice say, in just as natural a tone of voice as would ask for another slice of bread and butter, “Won’t you take me next? You know I can’t swim.” When I looked over into the mass of wreckage from which this voice emanated all I could see was a woman’s head, with a piece of wreckage under her chine and with her hair streaming out over other pieces of wreckage. She was so jammed in she couldn’t even get her arms out, and with it all she had a half smile on her face and was placidly chewing gum. The last I saw of her when I helped her off the boat at Queenstown [Ireland] was that she was still chewing that piece of gum, and I shouldn’t be surprised if she had it yet. Of course we couldn’t leave her, and as there was no possible way that I dared try to get her without going into the water for her, I told her that if she’d keep cool I’d come after her. To my surprise she said it was not at all necessary, just hand her an oar and she’d hang on…She wriggled around and got her two hands on the oar, held fast, and we pulled her through. Then we rowed for the shore [32 people aboard]…I steered for a lighthouse on the coast, for I didn’t know whether the Marconi operator had had time to send out an S.O.S., or if he had, whether or not it had been picked up. It was a good long row ashore and I knew we could not get there until after dark, and it was much better to land on a shore, however barren, near a lighthouse than to land on that part where there might not be an inhabitant for miles; also I saw the sail of a fisherman between us and the lighthouse, so I had two goals for which to steer. [The lifeboat made it to the fishing boat and everyone climbed aboard, tried to dry off, and were picked up by the steamer Flying Fish which had come down from Queenstown.] The ocean was so calm that when we transferred our passengers to the Flying Fish, we were able to lay the fisherman alongside the steamer and those who could stepped across. The two boats lay so close and steadily together that we carried our cripples across in our arms. The smoothness of the ocean must have been a special dispensation from Heaven. (35) Lauriat describes the rest of his amazing journey with acuity, feeling, and humor. (3) The German U-20, skippered by Kapitanleutnant Schwieger, had launched its fatal missile from a bow torpedo tube at a distance of 700 meters (around 2100 feet). Leslie N. Morton, an inexperienced youth of eighteen years, first spotted the incoming torpedo as “a big burst of foam, actually a bubble of air caused by the ejected torpedo, some 500 yards distant on the starboard bow…With about one minute to doomsday, Morton yelled to the bridge through a megaphone, ‘Torpedoes coming on the starboard side.’ He should have continued to shout this terrifying news until he received an acknowledgement from the bridge, where he evidently was not heard,” note Bailey and Ryan. “Instead he rushed below to call his brother, who was then supposed to be sleeping. I Morton had continued to yell until recognized, the helmsman might still have had about a minute to put the rudder hard over to starboard, to head for the U-20, and thus to evade the deadly missile.” (36)
Bailey and Ryan continue, “After the torpedo exploded, confusion reigned. From elevator cages came the screams of those luckless souls who were trapped permanently between decks when the electric power failed.” Passengers spilled out of lifeboats as they failed to lower properly into the sea. The Lusitania sank about eighteen minutes after the initial explosion. There was massive loss of life, some 1,200 men, women, and children, including almost all the infants and 128 Americans. Bodies were found floating as far away as the coast of Wales. Of the approximately 1200 deaths, only 289 bodies were recovered (885 were never found), 65 of which were never identified. The bodies of many victims were buried at Queenstown, Ireland, or the Church of St. Multose in Kinsdale. Most Americans, upon hearing the news of the sinking of the Lusitania on May 7, 1915, were horrified. Only a few passengers, mostly from first class had survived, according to one report. (37) President Wilson read the incoming bulletins about the disaster but said nothing about the course the United States would take, fearing a crisis with Germany. (38) Recall that three months earlier, on February 10, 1915, he had told Germany that if any American lives were lost due to U-boat attacks, he would hold Germany “strictly accountable” (see above). On May 10, 1915, Wilson gave an address to several thousand foreign-born citizens, after naturalization ceremonies, at Philadelphia. He did not mention the Lusitania. (39) He did, however, take the opportunity to opine about America’s duty to be the world’s example of peace, because “peace is the healing and elevating influence of the world and strife is not.” Then he uttered phrases that have echoed through the ages: “There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. [Emphasis added] There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.” (40) In other words, some people, including ex-President Theodore Roosevelt, Wilson was saying that America is better off being right, if even dead right. While Wilson spoke about peace, one million New Yorkers lined New York City harbor to view America’s navy fleet. The word “Lusitania” was on every lip, says a New York Times article. (41) President Wilson held a Cabinet meeting to discuss the Lusitania situation on May 11, 1915, according to a remarkable New York Times article, which reads as follows: President Wilson and his Cabinet discussed for nearly three hours today the condition of affairs in the relations of Germany and the United States produced by the destruction of the lives of American men, women, and children in the Lusitania. While the conclusion was reached that this Government must make vigorous representations to Germany, it was the general agreement that these representations must be of such a character as not to involve the United States in war. If war comes, it must be because Germany and not the United States wants it. [Emphasis added] Judged by the understanding reached at the Cabinet meeting, the representations that will be made to the German Government will refer in terms of the severest condemnation to the destruction of the Lusitania. President Wilson himself will draft the important communication, which, according to predictions, will fully satisfy indignant public sentiment in the United States. There was divergence of opinion shown at the meeting as to the proper course to pursue, but in the end the view prevailed that only vigorous language addressed to Germany would meet the situation. [Emphasis added] While on the first of the points enumerated below the opinion of the Cabinet was unanimous, there were some differences as to the exactness of the others, but generally it may be said that the following conclusions were reached: In the same article, the Cabinet clarified “that part of President Wilson’s speech at Philadelphia last night, which he referred to ‘a man being too proud to fight,’ and made the declaration that the example of America must be the example of peace, ‘because it will not fight,’ was interpreted here as meaning that in no circumstances would this Government permit its indignation over the Lusitania incident to lead to war with Germany. There was considerable surprise, therefore, when President Wilson told callers today prior to the Cabinet meeting, that in his remarks at Philadelphia he was merely expressing a personal attitude, and did not really have in mind any specific thing. He did not regard the Philadelphia meeting, he said, as a proper occasion to give any intimation of policy on any special matter…” The article ends by noting, “Long telegrams concerning the Lusitania disaster continue to pour on the White House. The general tone of these, it is said, was favorable to a peaceful solution of the situation, although the President is urged by many of his unofficial advisers to act with firmness. These telegrams are arriving in such great number that three telegraph operators at the White House are kept busy night and day receiving them.” (42) The White House tried unsuccessfully for the next year to try to work things out with the German Government over the Lusitania incident, always insisting on not offending the Germans with poor choices of words or demands the Germans might find too demanding. While these negotiations were taking place, German U-boats continued to sink many other ships, killing more Americans. Thus, many observers were stunned when on April 2, 1917, President Wilson finally decided to take the United States to war with Germany. (43) One observer, Winston Churchill, was flabbergasted by this sudden change of heart for the American President. He said, bitterly, “What he did in April, 1917, could have been done in May, 1915.” (44-45) Millions of military and civilian lives would have been saved and the ravaging of the economies and infrastructures of Europe mitigated or even prevented. (45) Notes:
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