RMS Lusitania

“ At noon, May 7th, the Lusitania sighted the coast of Ireland, nearing the end of her journey.
Two hours later, while steaming at 18 knots, the Lusitania was struck almost directly under the Captain's bridge by the first of two torpedoes fired by the German Submarine U-39.
After the first torpedo which struck there were scenes of pitiful partings. 1150 persons perished—114 being Americans. ”

“ England, [2] the nation of sailors, the world power, is overtaken by us juniors, and things exist which enable us to outstrip her. And because this is so, because all her despicable calumny is nothing else than impotent blows to defend herself, typical English weapons, exactly on a par with the senseless confinement of civilians and the fierce reprisals upon, the captured submarine crews—because this is so, the whole matter is contemptible in our eyes and provokes the anger of our people.
The Lusitania carried passengers! In truth we should have been infinitely better ”

“ The Cunard liner Lusitania was yesterday torpedoed by a German submarine and sank.
The Lusitania was naturally armed with guns, as were recently most of the English mercantile steamers. Moreover, as is well known here, she had large quantities of war material in her cargo.
Her owners, therefore, knew to what danger the passengers were exposed. They alone bear all the responsibility for what has happened. ”

“ In May, 1915, the great steamship Lusitania was due to sail from New York for England. A few days before her departure notices signed by the German ambassador were put into New York papers, warning people that Germany would not be responsible for what happened to them if they took passage on this boat. Very few people paid any attention to these warnings. With over a thousand persons on board the Lusitania sailed, on schedule time. ”

“ Whatever be the other facts regarding the Lusitania, the principal fact is that a great steamer, primarily and chiefly a conveyance for passengers, and carrying more than a thousand souls who had no part or lot in the conduct of the war, was torpedoed and sunk without so much as a challenge or a warning, and that men, women, and children were sent to their death in circumstances unparalleled in modern warfare. ”

“ Thus Paul Zalenska and Opal Ledoux spent that most delightful of voyages on the Lusitania. They were not often alone. They did not need to be. Their intimacy had at one bound reached that point when every word and movement teemed with tender significance and suggestion. ”

“ To meet this demand Germany began months ago to train men who could man the newest submarines. So a school was established--a School of Submarine Murder--and for many months the man who torpedoed the Lusitania was made chief of the staff of educators. It was a new task for German kultur.
For the German people the lessons of the Lusitania have been exactly opposite those normal people would learn. The horror of non-combatants going down on a passenger liner, sunk without warning, was nothing to be compared to the heroism of aiming the torpedo and running away. ”

“ Ninety-two passengers of the Lusitania who formed part of that pitiful handful of maimed, dead and dying brought ashore with the survivors of the disaster that followed the attack on the vessel by a German submarine were buried with services that have no parallel in history. Under a sky in which not a single cloud floated and to the strains of hymns played by British soldiers they were laid to rest two miles behind Queenstown in a cemetery bursting with spring greenery and tucked between hills flaming with gorse. ”

“ THE NAVIGATION OF THE SHIP
At the request of the Attorney-General part of the evidence in the Enquiry was taken in camera. This course was adopted in the public interest. The evidence in question dealt, firstly, with certain advice given by the Admiralty to navigators generally with reference to precautions to be taken for the purpose of avoiding submarine attacks; and secondly, with information furnished{149} by the Admiralty to Captain Turner individually of submarine dangers likely to be encountered by him in the voyage of the “Lusitania.” ”

“ It may, however, be possible to find a formula that will skim over the points of contention, as was done in the Arabic case. In spite of all the outcry over here there is no doubt that the American Government and the greater part of public opinion would be only too delighted if we could find a graceful way of settling the Lusitania question without a conflict. What is required in the first place is:
"1. A. declaration on our side that the attack on the Lusitania should be regarded as an act of reprisal and, therefore, not within the scope of existing international law. ”

“ There can be no doubt according to definite report of the submarine’s commander, which is further confirmed by all other information, that the quick sinking [96] of the Lusitania is primarily attributed to the explosion of the ammunition shipment caused by a torpedo. The Lusitania’s passengers would otherwise, in all human probability, have been saved.
“The Imperial government considers the above-mentioned facts important enough to recommend them to the attentive examination of the American government. ”

“ We were finally taken off this boat by the Cunard tender Flying Fish and brought to Queenstown at 9.30.”
Some of the passengers, notably David A. Thomas, told of panicky conditions on board the vessel before she sank, and one of the rescued declared that the loss of life was due to some extent to the assurances spread by the stewards among the passengers that there was no danger of the Lusitania sinking. But all united in praising the courage and steadiness of the officers and crew of the ship. ”

“ A longitudinal bulkhead separated the side coal bunkers from the boiler-room and engine-rooms on each side of the ship.
The “Lusitania” was a passenger as well as an emigrant ship as defined by the Merchant Shipping Acts. She fulfilled all the requirements{124} of the law in this connection and had obtained all necessary certificates.
She had accommodation on board for 3,000 persons (including the crew) .
The Life-Boats and Life-Saving Appliances
The ship was provided with boat accommodation for 2,605 persons. The number of persons on board on the voyage in question was 1,959. ”

“ THE WORLD-WIDE INDICTMENT OF GERMANY FOR THE LUSITANIA ATROCITY VIEWS OF COLONEL ROOSEVELT, UNITED STATES SENATORS AND OTHER PROMINENT MEN—OPINIONS OF THE NEWSPAPERS OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA — VIEWS OF PROMINENT CANADIANS.
Not even the invasion of peaceful Belgium, nor any of the other atrocities charged to the belligerent nations in the great war, stirred such universal and emphatic condemnation as the destruction of the Lusitania and over half its human freight of human lives. From all quarters of the globe the cry of amazement, indignation and outrage arose. ”

“ On the anniversary of the sinking of the Lusitania it is natural and fitting that Americans should review all that has happened since a wanton murder first brought to this side of the Atlantic a nascent realization of the issue that was being decided on a world battlefield.
There will be no anger and no passion in American minds. We have never asked, never desired, that the slaughter should be avenged. ”

“ Many youngsters must have drowned, but I had the satisfaction of seeing one boat get away filled with women and children. When the water reached the deck I saw another life-boat with a vacant seat, which I took, as no one else was in sight, but we were too late. The Lusitania reeled so suddenly our boat was swamped, but we righted it again.
“We now witnessed the most horrible scene of human futility it is possible to imagine. When the Lusitania had turned almost over she suddenly plunged bow foremost into the water, leaving her stern high in the air. ”

“ When I bought my ticket at the Cunard Office in Boston I asked if we were to be convoyed through the war zone, and the reply made was, “Oh yes! every precaution will be taken.”
When we got into Queenstown I found the people furious through the act itself and disgusted that three torpedo-boat destroyers should have lain at anchor in Queenstown harbor all the time the Lusitania was coming up the Irish Coast. ”

“ I found myself opposite the stern of a boat, into which had climbed about thirty-five people, principally women and children. The for’ard davit was about a foot from the bow, and at the rate the Lusitania was going down it meant but a few moments before the bow of the boat would be caught by the davit, and this whole boatload would be taken down, or at least thrown violently into the water. ”

“ When the Lusitania was sunk it was explained that if the commander of the submarine had permitted the passengers to take to the boats before firing his torpedo, “this would have meant the certain destruction of his own vessel.” There was no evidence that such would have been the case, but the risk, which implied a danger merely incidental to naval service, was held to justify the sinking of the great liner with 1,200 souls on board. The wildest imagination could not have conceived that any human being could take such a distorted view of right and wrong, and of the plain duty of the seaman. ”

“ The negotiations as to the still pending Lusitania case were carried on in Washington by Count Bernstorff and Secretary Lansing, and finally Germany offered to pay an indemnity for the death of the Americans on the Lusitania whose deaths Germany "greatly regretted," but refused to disavow the act of the submarine commander in sinking the Lusitania or to admit that such act was illegal. ”

“ On the other side of a stone pier rose the huge Lusitania with her four funnels. Everyone on our tender moved expectantly forward. There was an official cry: “Britishers first!” The chosen of the Lord! But the horde of ignorant foreigners came surging ahead. Miscellaneously we crowded up the gangway. Another gangway sloped for us on to the Lusitania. Several British policemen and stewards faced us to keep us in line. At so many guardian angels we began to feel depressed.
Medical inspection. The instant we put foot on the deck of the Lusitania, this was our first business. ”

“ However deep and however genuine may be the horror with which the American people regard such incidents as the sinking of the Lusitania—a fact that must be continually emphasized—equally great is obviously their indifference towards the destruction of non-American neutral shipping, so long as the rules of cruiser warfare continue to be observed. People over here have gradually got accustomed to reading daily reports of the sinking of another half dozen British or other vessels. ”

“ The Lusitania was a British ship, and the American passengers on board her were really an incident, as it were. Whether it would be consistent with the United States’ self-respect to put up with Germany’s action is another matter. That is a question as to which a nation must judge for itself. ”

“ And they talk with every other American in this Kingdom. It is often made unpleasant for Americans in the clubs and in the pursuit of their regular business and occupations; and it is always our inaction about the Lusitania. Our controversy with the British Government causes little feeling and that is a sort of echo of the Lusitania. They feel that we have not lived up to our promises and professions. ”

“ Captain William T. Turner of the Lusitania is saved by clinging to a bit of wreckage for two hours after remaining on the bridge until his ship sank; the ship was valued at $10,000,000, and the 1,500 tons of cargo, among which were munitions of war, at $735,000; official Washington and the nation generally, as well as other neutral and allied nations, are profoundly stirred by the news; President Wilson receives bulletins at the White House; London is astounded, and there are criticisms of the Admiralty for not having convoyed the Lusitania ”

“ About 1 P.M. we noticed that the Lusitania was steering a zigzag course. Land had been in sight for three hours, distinctly visible twelve miles away. Looking through my glasses, I could see on the port side of the Lusitania, between us and land, what appeared to be a black, oblong object, with four dome-like projections. ”

“ In the ensuing half-decade several large ships were equipped with engines of the same type, the most famous of these being the Cunard liners, Carmania, Lusitania, and Mauretania. The two last-named ships are sister craft, and they are the largest boats of any kind hitherto constructed. The Lusitania was first launched and she entered immediately upon a record-breaking career, only to be surpassed within a few months by the Mauretania, which soon acquired all records for speed and endurance. ”

“ Wish they could lay out the Turkish guns—especially "Asiatic Annie"—that keep warming us up in our dug-outs; we are getting tired of the beggars. Heard that the Lusitania had been submarined near the Irish coast. Poor devils!—it's a one-eyed kind of death to be drowned like rats in a trap. ”

“ The sinking of the Lusitania, therefore, makes perfectly clear the nature of the problem with which the three Allies in Europe are now struggling. They are resisting with all the weapons of war a nation which declares that its promises are good only till it is, in its own judgment, under the military necessity of breaking them. ”

“ It is well known that in Lusitania, in the vicinity of the town of Olisipo1921 and the river Tagus, the mares, by turning their faces towards the west wind as it blows, become impregnated by its breezes,1922 and that the foals which are conceived in this way are remarkable for their extreme fleetness; but they never live beyond three years. ”

“ The Lusitania grows larger and larger in European memory and imagination. It looks as if it would become [pg II-49] the great type of war atrocities and barbarities. I have seen pictures of the drowned women and children used even on Christmas cards. And there is documentary proof in our hands that the warning, which was really an advance announcement, of that disaster was paid for by the German Ambassador and charged to his Government. It is the Lusitania that has caused European opinion to regard our foreign policy as weak. It is not the wish for us to go to war. No such general wish exists. ”