What was Lusitania-during World War 1?

Answer 1

The RMS Lusitania was a large passenger ship built and owned by the Cunard Shipping Line. She was a British ship, and was sunk by a single torpedo fired by the German submarine U-20 in May 1915. Over 1500 people were killed in the sinking, including 128 Americans - hundreds more than had died on the Titanic three years earlier.

"RMS" means "Royal Mail Ship" and the ship had been built with a subsidy of funds from the British government. The arrangement was that in wartime large passenger ships, such as the Lusitania, could or would become "auxiliary cruisers" of the Royal Navy. Capable of carrying large numbers of troops, they would be especially useful as troopships. Such liners were also very fast. Thus, the Lusitania was listed in shipping registries as an "auxiliary cruiser", making her a legitimate target.

For over fifty years the British government kept secret the fact that the Lusitania was also carrying munitions of war when she was sunk. This was contraband, and also made her a legitimate target. She had thousands of pounds of explosive guncotton and millions of rounds of rifle ammunition in her holds when she went to the bottom. Of course, the German submarine captain had no way of knowing what she was carrying.

The British had for centuries had the world's most powerful navy. The Germans had realized that their only hope of defeating Britain lay in a blockade of the British isles, which, given the strength of the Royal Navy, could only be implemented by submarines. Britain depended on imports just to feed its people, and also required imports, arriving by ship, to continue to make munitions of war.

The German Embassy in the US had placed a notice in New York newspapers, warning persons who were considering sailing by ship to Great Britain that the waters around Great Britain were a war zone, and that they would be entering this war zone at their own risk. This notice, the size of a small box advertisement, appeared in the newspapers right beside the notice of the sailing of the Lusitania on its last voyage. After the sinking this remarkable coincidence was seen as evidence of sinister intent on the part of the Germans - that they had placed this notice directly alongside the notice of the Lusitania's sailing deliberately. As though the Germans controlled the way the newspapers laid out their pages, or knew of the intended course of the ship and planned to intercept her.

The British had a very effective Propaganda apparatus in the US and made the most out of the tragedy of the sinking, managing to paper over the fact that they were allowing continued civilian passenger carrying on a vessel listed in naval registries as an auxiliary cruiser, which was in fact carrying war munitions. International outrage, especially in the US, over this sinking caused the Germans to pull back from their policy of "unrestricted submarine warfare". It was German resumption of "unrestricted submarine warfare" at the beginning of 1917 which caused the US to enter the war. By that time Germany's situation was growing desperate and they once again had to face the fact that the only way to defeat Britain away from the battlefield was submarine blockade. The Germans knew this would likely bring the US into the war, but gambled they could finally win the war before the US could make its weight felt in Europe.