History Lab: Who should be held accountable for the death and destruction of the Lusitania?
Background Information:
In 1916, citizens elected President Wilson for a second term. His campaign slogan1 was, “he kept us
out of war.” Less than a year later, the country entered the war reluctantly, but determined. The
biggest change of American public opinion about the war came after the sinking of a British supply
ship, the RMS Lusitania. Here is the story of the famous ocean liner.
In February 1915, the German government announced a new policy of unrestricted2 submarine3
warfare. Their underwater U-boats would sink any vessels around Great Britain. Before, Germany
had captured enemy ships. Now they would simply destroy ships, passengers and all.
On May 1, 1915, the British ship Lusitania set course from New York to Liverpool, England. The
passengers and crew knew about Germany’s policy. Many ships had been sunk already. However,
the Lusitania was famous for its speed. The passengers were confident that the ship would be safe.
When the ship approached dangerous waters, fog blanketed the air. Worried by the weather, Captain
William Turner slowed down. At less than top speed, the Lusitania made an easier target.
Off the southern coast of Ireland, a German submarine spotted the ship. The submarine shot a single
torpedo. The shot crashed into the hull, or main body of the ship. The torpedo exploded on contact. A
few seconds later, another explosion rocked the ship. Experts think that coal storage areas caught on
fire during the first explosion and caused the second explosion. In 18 minutes, the ship was under
water. Over 1,100 people out of more than 1,900 on board died, including more than 120 Americans.
The United States was outraged. President Wilson and United States citizens could no longer ignore
the war. Germany did not want the United States to get involved. Temporarily, Germany stopped
sinking vessels with civilian passengers, but this policy change was only temporary. In February
1917, Germany again declared unrestricted submarine warfare. To make matters worse, Germany
decided to shoot neutral ships, including United States vessels—not just the ships of the countries
already at war. (Remember that the Lusitania was British.)
United States’ ships had been supplying Great Britain food and vital4 supplies. Germany wanted to
cut off trade routes between the two countries and starve Great Britain into surrender. Great Britain
could not survive without American supplies, and President Wilson and the American people could
not ignore Germany’s announcement. Great Britain was only six weeks away from running out of food
supplies. On April 2, 1917, President Wilson asked the Congress of the United States to declare war.
Source: 2012 ReadWorks
Source 1: Image of the Lusitania
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2172654/Was-Lusitania-war-crime-1-198-passengers-diedliner-sank-1915--German-torpedo-really-blame.html#ixzz3wZrwDN8W
Source 2:
A 1915 sketch of the Lusitania passenger ship tragedy
Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2172654/Was-Lusitania-war-crime-1-198-passengers-diedliner-sank-1915--German-torpedo-really-blame.html#ixzz3wZrwDN8W
Source 3: April 22, 1915 NY Times add paid by German Government Warning of Submarine
Attacks
Source 4: Woodrow Wilson – May 10, 1915 – Address to New American Citizens
The example of America must be a special example. The example of America must be the example
not merely of peace because it will not fight, but of peace because peace is the healing and elevating
influence of the world and strife is not. There is such a thing as a man being so right it does not need
to convince others by force that it is right.
Source 5: Woodrow Wilson – May 13 and July 21, 1815 – Official Response to German
Government
In view of recent acts of the German authorities in violation of American rights on the high seas which
culminated in the torpedoing and sinking of the British steamship Lusitania on May 7, 1915, by which
over 100 American citizens lost their lives, it is clearly wise and desirable that the government of the
United States and the Imperial German government should come to a clear and full understanding as
to the grave situation which has resulted…
The sinking of the British passenger steamer Falaba by a German submarine on March 28, through
which Leon C. Thrasher, an American citizen, was drowned; the attack on April 28 on the American
vessel Cushing by a German aeroplane; the torpedoing on May 1 of the American vessel Gulflight by
a German submarine, as a result of which two or more American citizens met their death; and, finally,
the torpedoing and sinking of the steamship Lusitania constitute a series of events which the
government of the United States has observed with growing concern, distress, and amazement.
Future attacks by German Naval commanders will be regarded as unfriendly and elevated to a most
serious status.
Source 6: Former President Theodore Roosevelt, June 23, 1915
“I am pretty well disgusted with our government and with the way our people acquiesce (submit) in
and support it. I suppose, however, in a democracy like ours the people will always do well or ill
largely in proportion to their leadership. If Lincoln had acted after the firing on Sumter in the way that
Wilson did about the sinking of the Lusitania, in one month the North would have been saying they
were so glad he kept them out of war and they were too proud to fight and that at all hazards
fratricidal war must be averted.”
Source: Theodore Roosevelt to Oscar King Davis, June 23, 1915. (Gilder Lehrman Collection, GLC08003)
Source 7: A Survivor of the Lusitania, Margaret Haig Thomas
“As a matter of fact, I believe that no British and scarcely any American passengers acted on the
warning, but we were most of us very fully conscious of the risk we were running. A number of people
wrote farewell letters to their home folk and posted them in New York to follow on another vessel.”
Source: Margaret Haig Thomas, This Was My World (1933)
Source 8: Controversial historian Howard Zinn’s take on the sinking of the Lusitania
“It was unrealistic to expect that the Germans should treat the United States as neutral in the war
when the U.S. had been shipping great amounts of war materials to Germany's enemies. In early
1915, the British liner Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine. She sank in
eighteen minutes, and 1,198 people died, including 124 Americans.
The United States claimed the Lusitania carried an innocent cargo, and therefore the torpedoing was
a monstrous German atrocity. Actually, the Lusitania was heavily armed: it carried 1,248 cases of 3inch shells, 4,927 boxes of cartridges (1,000 rounds in each box), and 2,000 more cases of smallarms ammunition. Her manifests were falsified to hide this fact, and the British and American
governments lied about the cargo.”
Source: Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, page 361
Source: Pro-American Political Cartoon
Source 9: American Political Cartoon Reacting to the sinking of the Lusitania
Source: William Allen Rogers, Here are the Facts (May, 1915)
Source 10: Official German Government Response to the sinking of the Lusitania, August 19, 1945
“The Imperial Government must specially point out that on her last trip the Lusitania, as on earlier
occasions, had Canadian troops and munitions on board, including no less than 5,400 cases of
ammunition destined for the destruction of brave German soldiers who are fulfilling with self-sacrifice
and devotion their duty in the service of the Fatherland. The German Government believes that it acts
in just self-defense when it seeks to protect the lives of its soldiers by destroying ammunition destined
for the enemy with the means of war at its command.”
Source: Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg speech in the Reichstag on the sinking of the Lusitania
(August 19, 1915)
Source 11: Life Magazine Political Cartoon - April 13, 1916
“Kaiser Wilhelm II to President Woodrow Wilson: "Here's money for your Americans. I may drown
some more." Life Magazine
Source: Life Magzine, April 13, 1916
Document Source Analysis Sheet
Source or Text
Source 1:
Image of the
Lusitania
Source 2:
Sketch of the sinking
of the Lusitania
Source 3:
German Warning Add
Source 4:
Response to New
American Citizens
Source 5:
Woodrow Wilson to
German Government
What do you see (what did you see
at first and what do you see after
reading or viewing this source
again)?
What message do you
think the creator was
trying to send?
Support or Challenge
the belief that the
Industrial Revolution
was good for society?
Source 6:
Former President
Theodore Roosevelt’s
take on the Lusitania
Source 7:
Survivor of the
Lusitania
Source 8:
Controversial
Historian Howard
Zinn’s take on the
Lusitania
Source 9:
American Political
Cartoon
Source 10:
Official German
Response to
Lusitania
Source 11:
Life Magazine Kaiser
Wilhelm Political
Cartoon