Sinking of the Lusitania
A German submarine sank the liner Lusitania off the Irish coast on 7 May 1915, and 1,198 people died, including 128 Americans. The ship was the fastest on the Atlantic and was carrying some 1,960 people from New York to Liverpool. Germany had declared the waters around Britain a war zone in February, and the German embassy had placed advertisements in New York newspapers warning travellers, next to the Cunard sailing notice. U-20 fired one torpedo. A second, larger explosion followed almost immediately, and the ship sank in eighteen minutes — far too fast to launch most of the boats, and with a list that made the ones on the high side unusable. What caused the second explosion has been argued about for a century: a boiler, coal dust in emptied bunkers, or the 4.2 million rounds of rifle ammunition and other munitions listed on the manifest, which is the German case and which the British denied while knowing the cargo. The outrage in the United States was enormous and Wilson did not go to war. He sent three notes demanding an end to unrestricted attacks, and his secretary of state resigned rather than sign the second, believing it would lead to war. Germany restricted its submarine campaign in September and abandoned the restriction in 1917. The sinking is a large part of why the American public accepted that decision as intolerable when it came. The wreck lies in about ninety metres of water and has been repeatedly and controversially salvaged.
- Year: 1915 CE
- Category: Military
