The Sinking of Lusitania
From Metapedia
RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner[1]. On May 1, 1915, the ship departed New York City bound for Liverpool.
Below information is from this source [2].
The menace of submarine attack reduced her passenger list to only half her capacity.
On May 7, the ship neared the coast of Ireland. At 2:10 in the afternoon a torpedo fired by the German submarine U 20 slammed into her side. A mysterious second explosion ripped the liner apart. Chaos reigned. The ship listed so badly and quickly that lifeboats crashed into passengers crowded on deck, or dumped their loads into the water. Most passengers never had a chance. Within 18 minutes the giant ship slipped beneath the sea. One thousand one hundred nineteen of the 1,924 aboard died. The dead included 114 Americans.
Walter Schwieger was captain of the U-Boat that sank the Lusitania. He watched through his periscope as the torpedo exploded and noted the result in his log, "The ship stops immediately and heals over to starboard quickly, immersing simultaneously at the bow. It appears as if the ship were going to capsize very shortly. Great confusion is rife on board; the boats are made ready and some of them lowered into the water. In connection therewith great panic must have reigned; some boats, full to capacity are rushed from above, touch the water with either stem or stern first and founder immediately.
The Truth Behind the Sinking of RMS Lusitania
Although the United States claimed to be officially neutral, Germany declared that Lusitania was being used to transport military cargoes to England, which made her a legitimate target of war. Germany even went so far as to take out ads in the American newspapers warning civilians not to take passage on the Lusitania.
Here is an ad placed by Germany warning passengers not to take passage on the Lusitania (dated April 22, 1915)[3].
Lusitania was sent across the Atlantic without escorts and directed to sail into an area where German U-Boats were known to be operating, where she was spotted and sunk by the U-20. The United States and Britain denied that Lusitania carried war materials, and the story of the Germans sinking a helpless passenger ship turned public opinion against Germany. In 2008, divers finally entered the hold of Lusitania, and proved once and for all that she had been smuggling military munitions to England. Germany had been legally in the right to sink her [4].
Here is a photo of War munitions recovered from the wreck of the Lusitania[5].
Below information is taken from Chapter 12 of “The Creature from Jekyll Island” [6].
The Morgan group had floated one-and-a-half billion dollars in loans to Britain and France. With the fortunes of war turning against them, investors were facing the threat of a total loss. As Ferdinand Lundberg observed: “The declaration of war by the United States, in addition to extricating the wealthiest American families from a dangerous situation, also opened new vistas of profits."
As the presidential election neared for Wilson’s second term, Colonel Mandell House (personal adviser to Woodrow Wilson) entered into a series of confidential talks with Sir William Wiseman, who was attached to the British embassy in Washington and who acted as a secret intermediary between House and the British Foreign Office. –What was the purpose of those dealings? It was nothing less than to work out the means whereby the United States could be brought into the war. Viereck explains:
"Ten months before the election which returned Wilson to the White House in 1916 because he “kept us out of war,” Colonel House negotiated a secret agreement with England and France on behalf of Wilson which pledged the United States to intervene on behalf of the Allies."
From England’s point of view, the handwriting on the wall was clear. Unless the United States could be brought into the war as her ally, she soon would have to sue for peace. The challenge was how to push the (American Public) off their position of stubborn neutrality. How that was accomplished is one of the more controversial aspects of the war. It is inconceivable to many that English leaders might have deliberately plotted the destruction of one of their own vessels with American citizens aboard as a means of drawing the United States into the war as an ally. –Let’s take a closer look at this conspiracy theory. Winston Churchill, who was First Lord of the Admiralty at that time, said:
"There are many kinds of maneuvers in war…maneuvers in time, in diplomacy, in mechanics, in psychology; all of which are removed from the battlefield, but react often decisively upon it…The maneuver which brings an ally into the field is as serviceable as that which wins a great battle.”
The maneuver chosen by Churchill was particularly ruthless. After many years of investigation, it is now possible to identify the cargo that was loaded aboard the Lusitania on her last voyage. It included 600 tons of pyroxyline (commonly called gun cotton,) six-million rounds of ammunition, 1,248 cases of shrapnel shells (which may not have included explosive charges), plus an unknown quantity of munitions that completely filled the holds on the lowest deck and the trunkways and passageways of F deck.
The German embassy in Washington was well aware of the nature of the cargo being loaded aboard the Lusitania and filed a formal complaint to the United States government, because almost all of it was in direct violation of international neutrality treaties. The response was a flat denial of any knowledge of such cargo. Seeing that the Wilson Administration was tacitly approving the shipment, the German embassy made one final effort to avert disaster. It placed an ad in fifty East Coast newspapers, including those in New York City, warning Americans not to take passage on the Lusitania. The ad was prepaid and requested to be placed on the paper’s travel page a full week before the sailing date. –Of the fifty newspapers, only the Des Moines Register carried the ad on the requested date.
When the Lusitania left New York Harbor on May 1, her orders were to rendezvous with a British destroyer, the Juno, just off the coast of Ireland so she would have naval protection as she entered hostile waters. When the Lusitania reached the rendezvous point, however, she was alone, and the captain assumed they had missed each other in the fog. In truth, the Juno had been called out of the area at the last minute and ordered to return to Queenstown. And this was done with the full knowledge that the Lusitania was on a direct course into an area where a German submarine was known to be operating. To make matters worse, the Lusitania had been ordered to cut back on the use of coal, not because of shortages, but because it would be less expensive. Slow targets, of course, are much easier to hit. …she was required to shut down one of her four boilers and, consequently, was now entering submarine-infested waters at only 75% of her potential speed.
In the map room of the British Admiralty, Churchill watched the play unfold and coldly called the shots. Small disks marked the places where two ships had been torpedoed the day before. A circle indicated the area within which the U-boat must still be operating. A larger disk represented the Lusitania traveling at nineteen knots directly into the circle.
One of the officers present in the high-command map room on that fateful day was Commander Joseph Kenworthy, who previously had been called upon by Churchill to submit a paper on what would be the political results of an ocean liner being sunk with American passengers aboard. He left the room in disgust at the cynicism of his superiors. In 1927, in his book, The Freedom of the Seas, he wrote without further comment: “The Lusitania was sent at considerably reduced speed into an area where a U-boat was known to be waiting and with her escorts withdrawn.”
(The man charged with writing an “acceptable” report about the incident, Lord Mersey)-- wrote to Prime Minister Asquith and turned down his fee for services. He added: “I must request that henceforth I be excused from administering His Majesty’s Justice.” In later years, his only comment on the event was: “The Lusitania case was a damn dirty business.”
References
- ↑ http://history1900s.about.com/cs/worldwari/p/lusitania.htm
- ↑ http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/snpwwi2.htm
- ↑ http://whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/oftheliars/Lusitania_warning_wiki.gif
- ↑ http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/oftheliars.php#axzz3MaUZZRMm
- ↑ http://whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/oftheliars/lusitaniaammo.jpg
- ↑ http://joeplummer.com/the_lusitania.html
