Dan Snow's History Hit - The Sinking of the Lusitania

Episode Date: May 7, 2021

On 7 May 1915, the ocean liner RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland with more than half the passengers and crew being killed. Some of those lost were Americans and the sinking hardened opinion in the United States against Germany and marked the beginning of the process which led to the USA entering the First World War on the side of the allies. To mark the anniversary of the sinking Stephen Payne joins the podcast. Stephen is a British naval architect and worked on designing passenger ships for over 40 years and is an expert both in their construction and their history. He and Dan discuss the circumstances of the sinking, whether there was any justification for it and the effect it had on public opinion and naval policy.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. This episode is first broadcast on the 7th of May 2021, and on the 7th of May 1915, the Cunard ocean liner, the Lusitania, sank, a victim of Germany's submarine campaign against the United Kingdom. The Lusitania was torpedoed by German U-boat U-20. It sank just south of Ireland with around 2,000 people on board, of which more than half were killed, including some Americans. It was one of the most important waypoints on the journey that led the USA into the First World War. To mark this anniversary, we've got Stephen Payne on the podcast. He's a

British naval architect. He's worked on designing passenger ships for 40 years, and he has become an expert not just in their construction, but in their history. It was great talking about one of the most famous sinkings of all time. This is also the VE Day weekend. Tomorrow, the 8th of May in 1945, was the day that victory in Europe was announced to the peoples of the world. To wild celebration all over the planet. We are going to recreate some of that wild celebration by doing one of our special codes. We haven't done one of these for ages. You can get half price on your first three months of History Hit TV if you use the code VEDAY.

V-E-D-A-Y. Just type it in when you check out and you will get 50% off historyhit.tv for the first three months. That means you can access the extraordinary documentaries on History Hit TV, like Netflix for History. You can listen to all the back episodes of this and other podcasts without the ads, all on History Hit TV. And you can watch the brilliant, if I don't say so myself, documentary on the 80th anniversary of the Bismarck, which we will be dropping on History Hit TV in the next few weeks to coincide with the 80th anniversary

of that terrible battle in the North Atlantic. So head over to historyhit.tv, use the code VEDAY and join the revolution. But in the meantime, here's Stephen Payne, everyone, talking about the Lusitania. Stephen, thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Tell me, where does the story of the Lusitania begin? How old was she by the time she achieved infamy during the First World War? Well, she entered service in 1907. And of course, she was sunk in 1915, so seven, eight years old when she sank. But the story really began in 1893 with the Lacania and the Campania, which were Cunard's

wonder ships at that time. Sadly, they were very quickly eclipsed by a number of German ships, Kaiser Wilhelm de Grosse and Kaiser Wilhelm and the like, and Cunard didn't have the money to build a reply, so it went cap in hand to the government, and the government said, okay, if you build two really fast ships that will eclipse all the opposition, and if you make them available to us in times of conflict we will give you a building subsidy and a loan and operating subsidy and that's how Cunard were able to build two really stupendous ships, Lusitania and Mauritania, which entered service in 1907. So let's go back, though, to the 1890s. When you say they were the kind of wonder ships,

was this the birth of the ocean liner? I mean, presumably it was a kind of gradual process of evolution. Yeah, I like to think that the Great Britain down in Bristol is really genesis of the modern passenger ship because it's built of iron, has a propeller. So a lot of what we have today on ships actually started with the Great Britain, Brunel's great ship. And gradually the ships got bigger and bigger. And in 1893, Cunard built these two ships, Lacania and Campania. And we measure passenger ships by a volumetric measurement, the gross ton. One gross ton is 100 cubic feet of earning capacity. And these two ships were 12,500 tons, so they were bigger than the earlier ships but very quickly Germany built bigger ships because the Kaiser having been to a

review of the fleet and having seen some of the White Star ships the Teutonic he was very keen for their merchant marine to build up and so he encouraged North German Lloyd and the Hamburg America line to build big ships and to challenge the British supremacy on the Atlantic. So the British government helps Cunard build these lines, isn't it? Now what's special about them? Is it speed? What about sort of luxury and safety and all that by all the other measurements? Well, they were half as big again as the earlier German ship. So they were about 30,000 gross tons. The German ships were around 20,000 tons. But the big thing was the speed. The German ships would be running at about 22 knots,

23 knots, but Lusitania and Mauritania were designed to have a service speed of about 26 knots, designed to have a service speed of about 26 knots. So a huge jump, and they needed twice as much power as the earlier German ships. And this they got from four steam turbines. First time on a really big ship, steam turbines had been used. And the first time that four propellers were employed on a big ocean liner as well. So they were very, very successful from a propulsion point of view. The big downside was that there was a tremendous amount of vibration at the aft end of the ship, and that made the second-class accommodation rather uncomfortable.

So what kind of times are we now talking across the Atlantic? It would take about six days to cross the Atlantic. So it was a weekly service. So the ships would leave one week, take near enough a week to cross six days, and then they would need a whole week just to refuel because they burnt around 950 tonnes of coal a day at 324 people in the boiler rooms just servicing the boilers. And with that amount of coal, it took a week to refuel the ship. So they sailed from Liverpool and New York with about 6,300 tons of coal in their bunkers. And the big problem with the coal, of course, is that not only have you got to haul it out of railway wagons, haul it up the side of the ship into the coal bunkers, but then after you've

coaled the ship, you've then got to clean the ship because the coal dust permeated everywhere and that whole process took a week so you needed three ships to operate a balanced weekly service so there was Lusitania, Mauritania and then a little bit later the Aquitania came along. Tell me just quickly more about the guys servicing the boilers. We forget there is not a conveyor belt that drip feeds coal into these furnaces. There's a pile of coal on the floor and yes there was the stokers that used to haul the coal up on shovels shovel it into the boiler and then there were trimmers that would rake the coal and make sure that it was level in the boiler so that it was generating the maximum amount of heat to raise the enormous amount of steam that was required. And then periodically, of course, you had to rake out all the cinders and everything so that the boilers didn't clog

up with the burnt fuel. I went to HMS Warrior in Portsmouth the other day, and they used to work long shifts, didn't they? And they were sweating gallons. They'd come out and drink gallons and gallons of water or something else. Must have been exactly the and we talk about the dreadnought which was the first raw navy ship battleship to have the turbine machinery and the battle cruisers that came after her like the invincible and the like and they were claimed to have speeds of 25 knots and the like but what you have to remember is that those navy ships would only steam at high speed for a relatively short period of time when they were going into action so a couple of hours but most was Lusitania and Mauritania once they cleared port it was six solid days of that immense activity down below to keep those ships steaming at 25 26 knots also we've obviously lived through extraordinary change in our lifetime

but there have been people on those weekly journeys across the atlantic taking six days who would have been alive in a very, very different world where it involves sailing across the Atlantic with all the vagaries and danger attached to that. That's right. When you think Brunel's Great Britain, 1843, 1845, that sort of period, there would be people that were alive then that would have been still about when Lusitania and Mauritania entered service. The leap in technology is absolutely phenomenal. And of course, electric lighting and all that was just tremendous. So, Britain declares war on Germany in August 1914.

How quickly does the British government call up Cunard and go, you know, we paid for these ships? Well, almost immediately, the Mauritania and the Aquitania were seized by the government. But strangely, Lusitania remained with Cunard. And I must admit, inexplicably, she was allowed to remain in service. But big difference was rather than operate her at full speed they decided to take one of the boiler rooms out of action so that she could steam a bit more economically and she did two trips across the Atlantic a month from November 1914, sailing at a speed of 21 knots rather than the 25, 26 that she could have done. So she did that up until May 1915 and she departed New York on May the 1st, 1915, on her fateful last voyage. You're listening to Dan Snow's History.

We're talking about the Lusitania, and you can get History Hit TV for 50% off for three months. Just use the code VEDAY. More after this. Okay, Tristan, you've got 50 seconds. Go. Right, so Dan's given me a few seconds to sell the Ancients podcast. What is the Ancients, I hear you say?

Well, it's like Dan's show, except just ancient history. We've got the groundbreaking new archaeological discoveries. This seems to be the oldest known dated depiction of the animal world, as far as we can tell, anywhere in the world. We've got the big names it's one of those great things pompey it's kind of forever rising from the dead and from destruction we've got the big topics the man destroys seven legions in a day no one in history has done that subscribe to the ancients from history hit wherever you get your podcast from oh and russell

crowe if you're listening we would love to have you on the ancients. Spread the word, people. Spread the word. Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt, and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer.

Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. What was she carrying on that voyage? Was it civilian? Was it military? I mean, what were the rules of war at that stage? What made a legitimate military target for the German Kriegsmarine? Well, prior to the ship sailing, the German embassy in Washington, prior to the ship sailing, the German embassy in Washington

published in the Washington Post an advertisement alongside the sailing notice for the Lusitania. So this is towards the end of April, saying that the waters around the United Kingdom were now deemed a war zone and any vessel entering that war zone was likely to be attacked. So Lusitania set sail as we say, she's approaching the

Western approaches off the tip of Ireland to head up the Irish Sea towards Liverpool and the German submarine the U-20 captained by Walther Schweiger sank three commercial ships off the coast of Ireland and obviously the Admiralty and Cunard were aware of that and they sent coded messages to Lusitania that this had happened. But again, the inexplicable thing is that there was no escort sent out to the Lusitania. So she was sailing into a war zone. And the British were really hoping that because she was a passenger ship, that she would be subject to what was known as the cruiser rules, whereby a submarine would surface, fire a warning shot, stop the ship, and allow passengers and crew to disembark before sinking the ship.

But the sinking of Lusitania was the first time of total war, no warning given, and the ship was sunk without warning. Now as regards what she was carrying, she had 1,959 on board and they were civilians and civilian crew. The cargo manifest included a number of cases of bullets, cartridges, empty cartridge shells were also on the manifest, but no actual explosive munitions. Did that make her a legitimate target? That's open to conjecture. The British, of course, said that as it was not explosives, and as she was a commercial ship on a commercial voyage that international law stated that she should have been stopped for the passengers and crew

to be allowed to get off before she was attacked. But the Germans of course claim that she was not only carrying those declared munitions but a lot more. On that jump point, do you think she was carrying more? No. Personally, I don't. But there's so much controversy, so many conflicting stories about this incident. But the actual sinking, she was attacked in the afternoon of May the 7th. And the single torpedo that was fired by the submarine hit below the bridge on the bulkhead between a forward coal bunker and the first boiler room. So single torpedo, large explosion, water spout went up and actually knocked the forward lifeboats off the ship. But then there was a second massive explosion,

and it's thought that the second explosion was the one that did the real damage to the ship. And it's interesting that the ship sank in 18 minutes. She was in relatively shallow water off the old head of Kinsale off Ireland. The bow of the ship actually touched the bottom of the seabed and then the stern gradually canted back and sank beneath her. So of the 1,959 people on board, over 1,100 perished in the incident because they just couldn't get off the ship quick enough, even though it was in sight of land at the Old Head of Kinsale. What was the second explosion, do you think? Well, it's always been thought that the second explosion was either a second torpedo,

and yet the submarine captain, Schweiger, testified that he only fired one torpedo. So, of course, the conspiracy theory says, oh, it was the munitions that was put on board and not on the manifest. the marine archaeologist has been down to the wreck and examined it and he said the area where the hold is in the bow of the ship is relatively undamaged so if there had been an explosion he said he would likely have seen evidence of that. The theory that he came up with and I think it probably is the right one is that that forward coal bunker would have been fairly depleted at being near the end of the voyage. The torpedo hit the ship, rupturing the bulkhead between the boiler room and that coal bunker.

And the shock of the explosion would have dislodged a lot of coal dust and created like a cloud of coal dust and any ignition in that area coal dust is extremely flammable explosive mixture and that could well have been what exploded and destroyed the fore part of the ship and that theory is echoed with what happened to Titanic's sister ship, the Britannic. So there were three Titanic ships. The Olympic was the first one, the Titanic was the second, and then there was a third one, Britannic. Well, Britannic was operating as a hospital ship during the First World War in the Aegean when she struck a mine. in the First World War in the Aegean when she struck a mine. And she too sank, even though she had extra bulkheads and compartmentation compared to the other ships.

She sank very quickly. And the examination of the wreck also concludes that it was a coal dust explosion that likely ripped out a lot of the subdivision. What do survivors say? I mean, if they were lucky enough to survive, who were the ones lucky enough to get away? Just ones that were on deck at the time?

Yes, unlike the Titanic, where predominantly the first class were the survivors, on the Lusitania, the survivors were across all three classes and crew. So it was obviously those that were up near the top decks that managed to get away because they weren't able to launch many of the boats. Ship went down with a lot of the lifeboats. And unlike Titanic that sank relatively slowly

and you could walk about quite easily very, very quickly, the Lusitania took a very, very steep angle and was heeling over to her starboard side, which made manhandling the boats and launching the boats extremely difficult. And they were obviously close to Ireland, so they would have been picked up reasonably fast. Yes, there were people on the old head of Kinsale that actually saw the ship sinking. And of course, you've got Queenstown, which is now Cove, not that far away, and rescue craft were dispatched from there. It still would have taken an hour or so for rescue craft to get out to the site of the sinking. What is the impact of one of the most famous sinkings in history?

Why is it famous and what's the impact? Well, it was the first time that the old-fashioned cruiser rules were abandoned and that a passenger ship was attacked without warning. and that a passenger ship was attacked without warning. 128 Americans lost their lives, and that had a huge impact on the perception of Germany in the United States, because at the time America was neutral and the Germans were in as much favour as the British. But as soon as the Lusitania was sunk, the Germans found it very difficult in America. And many historians, maybe you amongst them, would think that that was the first part of America joining the war effort in 1917.

It was the first instance where they really considered that they had to join up. So it changed the course of the war and it started to push the Americans firmly towards the British and French side. What about its immediate impact at sea? Did it change things in terms of the British, the way it chose to organise its merchant marine? That I'm not sure because I'm not aware of any of the other passenger ships operating a service at that time most of the other big liners were requisitioned to be troop ships or our merchant cruisers so i think passengers that had to cross the atlantic because there were no air services obviously in those days would have probably gone on the cargo ships on that.

So there certainly weren't any other major passenger ships operating at the time. But the sinking of Lusitania and the Britannic, the other big British liner, led to a number of the German ships that had been built just before the First World War being ceded to Britain. And so Cunard's post-First World War flagship, the Beringeria, was actually the German Imperator of Hamburg America Line. And the White Star Line's flagship, Majestic, was the Bismarck, which was the third of the trio of big German ships. The second one became United States lines flagship of the Leviathan. So the loss of

those British passenger ships meant that the Allies wanted retribution and wanted the German ships to take their place. Stephen, thank you very much indeed. You've got a book out? The next one is going to be Transatlantic Queens about the Cunard liners, but I've got several different books. Queen Mary 2, of course,

which I designed. Brilliant stuff. Thank you so much for coming on the pod and talking us through this anniversary. Thank you. Okay, pleasure. Thank you. Bye. I feel we have the history on our shoulders. stuff thank you so much going on the pod and talking us through this anniversary thank you okay pleasure thank you bye

hope you enjoyed the podcast just before you go bit of a favor to ask totally understand if you want to become a subscriber or pay me any cash money, makes sense. But if you could just do me a favour, it's for free. Go to iTunes or wherever you get your podcast. If you give it a five-star rating and give it an absolutely glowing review, purge yourself, give it a glowing review, I'd really appreciate that.

It's tough weather, the law of the jungle out there, and I need all the fire support I can get. So that will boost it up the charts. It's so tiresome, but if you could do it, I'd be very, very grateful. Thank you.