Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Sinking of the Lusitania

Starting point is 00:00:00 On May 7, 1915, nearly a year into the First World War, the British steamship RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat off the southern coast of Ireland. Over 1,100 people were killed, many of whom were civilians from the United States who were not participants in the war. Although the loss of life in the attack was great, the sinking of the Lusitania stands out due to its indirect role in encouraging the United States to enter the conflict. Learn more about the sinking of the Lusitania and its impact on war. World War I on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

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Starting point is 00:01:11 down the right-wing cult spiral in a search. for salvation. The RMS Lucitania was one of two ships commissioned in 1906 by the British-owned Koonard line. Its sister ship was the RMS Moritania. In the early 1900s, the Koonard company faced competition from other passenger ship companies. This competition mainly came from German shipping lines who were developing faster and larger ships that were more modern and luxurious. The German companies posed a threat because they were more established amongst European immigrants seeking to cross the Atlantic and settle in North America. This led a large portion of potential Koonard customers to choose their competitors.

Starting point is 00:01:54 In order to compete, Koonard took out a 2.6 million pound loan to build two ships. The loan was issued with the condition that the ships be built to British Admiralty specifications, allowing them to be transitioned during wartime. These stipulations were that the ships needed to have pillars and supports, so the Navy could place naval guns on the ship in the event of war. Additionally, the ship would be listed in the official Navy list as Royal Naval Reserve merchant vessel, meaning that it could be converted for military use if needed. When the Lusitania was first completed, it was the largest ship in the world, measuring

Starting point is 00:02:32 787 feet or 240 meters in length, and weighing 31,550 tons. It held this distinction for only about a year until the launch of the Mauritania. Though the Mauritania was slightly larger, the Lusitania was better known for its speed, having won the Blue Ribbon. The Blue Ribbon was an unofficial award for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic by a passenger liner. While the Moritania later took this title, the two ships continued to jockey for the honor. The RMS Lucetania had several notable design flaws. One major flaw was its instability for a vessel of its size. If any one of the three coal bunkers ever flooded, the ship's center of gravity was.

Starting point is 00:03:13 would shift, increasing the risk of capsizing. The Lusitania also had significant issues with lifeboat capacity. Before the Titanic disaster, it didn't carry enough lifeboats for every passenger. After the Titanic sank in 1912, additional lifeboats were added, but this created new problems. The added lifeboats couldn't all be placed on the sides due to the ship's design. As a result, collapsible lifeboats had to be used. However, there wasn't enough time or space to properly assemble and launch these lifeboats in the event of an emergency. The Lusitania's initial career was primarily as an ocean liner. During these initial voyages, a massive rogue wave actually broke over the ship's deck.

Starting point is 00:03:54 Despite some damage, the ship was still able to make it to its destination. When World War I broke out, the Lusitania was declared by the government to become an armed merchant cruiser as stipulated in its loan agreement. The decision not to arm the Lusitania was due to its enormous size. The ship required a large amount of coal to operate, which would be a massive drain on the Royal Navy's fuel reserves. That and the fact that she was an easily identifiable target made it more effective to let it just remain a passenger ship. As World War I commenced, the Germans declared the waters around Britain as a war zone. By declaring the area a war zone, the Germans could sink any ships,

Starting point is 00:04:35 regardless of whether they were for civilian or military purposes, so long as they were in British waters. and in 1915, Ireland was still part of the British Empire. At the start of the conflict, the Germans followed the philosophy of prize rules. This essentially meant that U-boats needed to surface before attacking merchant ships. When the U-boat surfaced, they would complete a formal search of the cargo on board and then allow the passengers and crew to escape before torpedoing the ship. However, the British had begun to introduce Q-ships, which were warships cleverly disguised as passenger and merchant ships.

Starting point is 00:05:10 ships. This led to the Germans abandoning their prize rule philosophy in favor of unrestricted submarine warfare, which is where they would sink any type of ship without warning. Initially, many citizens were rightfully afraid to sail across the Atlantic due to potential hostility. To help ease spheres, the ship was painted gray to hide its identity as a British ship and to make the Lusitania blend into the background. Later, these fears were eased as the British Navy effectively kept the German Navy in check, making people more willing to cross the Atlantic once again. With concerns for civilian safety subsiding, the gray paint scheme was abandoned, and the ship reverted to its standard civilian colors and resumed its passenger service.

Starting point is 00:05:52 On May 7, 1915, the RMS Lucitania was six days into its transatlantic journey, sailing from New York to Liverpool. There had been previous submarine activity reported off the southern coast of Ireland, causing the British Admiralty to give a warning to the Lusitania to avoid the area and to begin to take evasive maneuvers. These evasive tactics involve sailing in zigzags and changing the direction of the boat at regular intervals. By doing this, the hope was to make it too confusing for any U-boat to torpedo. Instead of listening to the Admiralty, the captain of the Lusitania did not follow these recommendations. This would prove to be a fatal choice, as a German U-boat was submerged in proximity of the Lusitania's route.

Starting point is 00:06:37 At approximately 2.10 p.m., the German U-Boat U-20, commanded by Walther Schweiger, fired a single torpedo without warning from a distance of roughly 7 to 800 yards. This torpedo hit the center of the Lusitania, causing massive damage to the ship. Following the hit in the middle of the ship, a second much heavier explosion was reported by many of the survivors. The source of the second explosion has never been confirmed, and has been a source of controversy for decades. The crew went to work quickly trying to get as many passengers in lifeboats as possible, but due to the ship's condition and the chaos on deck,

Starting point is 00:07:13 it was extremely difficult to do so. This resulted in only six of the 48 lifeboats being successfully launched. The entire sinking of the Lusitania occurred in just 18 minutes. Approximately 61% of the passengers aboard were killed. The exact number of people who died in the sinking of the Lusitania varies based on the sword, but it was approximately 1,200 people. And of that number, about 128 were American citizens. As you can imagine, the United States, neutral at this point in the war, was far from pleased about the loss of civilian American lives. When World War I broke out, the United States

Starting point is 00:07:51 initially attempted to remain neutral in the conflict. This was widely due to American public opinion being strongly anti-war, with many people viewing the Great War as a European problem. There are benefits to being a neutral country during wartime, mainly that you can trade with either side of the conflict. However, in the American case, the U.S. primarily ended up trading with the Allies due to an intense naval blockade against Germany. Germany, desperate to cut the flow of neutral goods to Britain, tried to deter the Allies from receiving resources like food, ammunition, and weaponry, and as such sank neutral ships, a policy that created international outrage. Despite the official policy of neutrality,

Starting point is 00:08:32 American newspapers were strongly in support of the Allies. They would often publish propaganda to get the American public to support the war and to create anti-German sentiment. News from the front typically discuss the strength and courage of allied fighters and the worst qualities of the Germans. As the war dragged on, many Americans began to view Germany as the aggressor and began to view it more and more as an enemy. When the Lusitania sank, there was a great deal of international outrage,

Starting point is 00:09:00 especially in the United States. anti-German propaganda could already be found in the media, and this only furthered their cause, increasing American anti-German sentiment. Though the sinking of the Lusitania was not a direct cause in bringing the United States into the war, it was undoubtedly a contributing factor. The American public became fascinated by details of the sinking, which led to extensive news coverage and widespread public discussions, most of which portrayed Germany as the villain. This was further proven when Germany justified the attack, saying that the Lusitania contained

Starting point is 00:09:35 contraband and was classified as an auxiliary cruiser, meaning that they had every right to destroy it. While this claim helped bolster German public opinion, it did very little elsewhere. The Germans claim that the second explosion proved that the liner was carrying clandestine explosives. Britain argued for a non-munitions cause, such as ruptured boilers, steam lines, or coal dust, Nighting. Later inspection of the wreck found that the Lucentania did carry war materials, notably about 4.2 million rounds of 303 rifle ammunition, empty shell casings, and fuses. However, ammunition of this type is not considered a bulk explosive, and experts argue that it would not produce the kind of large ship-killing detonation suggested by the blast reports.

Starting point is 00:10:23 Work associated with a 2012 National Geographic Project and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory concluded that the torpedo damage and rapid flooding near the forward boiler rooms were sufficient to doom the ship, with any second explosion likely tied to steam or boiler effects rather than contraband detonating. Regardless of what the ship was carrying, the United States was enraged because the Germans did not allow the passengers to escape before destroying the ship due to the aforementioned prize rules being revoked. Another contributing factor to the strong reaction in the United States was due to who was killed in the shipwreck. For example, one of the victims was Alfred Vanderbilt,

Starting point is 00:11:04 a member of the famous Vanderbilt family. To ease tensions with the United States, Germany temporarily suspended its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare, fearing that the United States would now enter the war. However, this action did little to calm public opinion and instead just postponed American entry. into the conflict. The more immediate impact of the sinking of the Lusitania was that the attack was more of a point of no return on the policy of neutrality. It served as a push for the U.S. to align

Starting point is 00:11:33 with Britain should they enter the conflict in the future. On February 1st, 1917, Germany made matters worse by announcing the return of unrestricted submarine warfare and the breaking of diplomatic relations between the United States and Germany. If the singing of the Lusitania was the setup that prepared the United States for war, then it was the Zimmerman Telegram that spiked the ball. As I mentioned in my previous episode on the subject, the Zimmerman Telegram was a communication from Germany to Mexico, stating that the Mexican government would recover territory that it had lost during the Mexican-American War if it sided with Germany. The Germans were encouraging Mexico to launch a new front in the war to occupy the United States so that they couldn't fight in Europe.

Starting point is 00:12:20 British had intercepted the message on January 5th, but didn't pass it on to the Americans until February 19th, as the British didn't want to reveal that they had cracked the German codes. The United States ended their neutrality and declared war on April 6, 1917. Although the return of unrestricted submarine warfare and the Zimmerman Telegram were the immediate causes of the American entry into the war, it was the sinking of the Lusitania that set the stage for the eventual entry. of the United States into the conflict on the side of the Allies. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer.

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Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Sinking of the Lusitania

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