effigy

reporting, politics and colored glasses

Hmm. Something new every day....

On May 17, 1915, the British liner Lusitania was sunk off the coast of Ireland by a torpedo from a German submarine. The death of 1,200 noncombatants, including 128 Americans, was enough to cause such saber rattlers as Theodore Roosevelt to demand an immediate declaration of war. Wiser political figures, such as Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan, urged restraint.

As despicable as the attack may have been, the Lusitania was carrying British munitions. It had sailed without convoy or protection, and the captain had ignored instructions to proceed at full speed and with great caution upon entering the war zone. As a Washington Post editorial pointed out, Germany had a right to prevent contraband from reaching the Allies. Longstanding international custom would have required the German submarine commander to visit and search the ship, but the British had taken to disguising machine guns on deck and opening fire. For the British to rely on passengers to protect the Lusitania from attack was "like putting women and children in front of the army." While Bryan wanted to warn Americans to avoid booking passage on ships that might be vulnerable to attack, [President Woodrow] Wilson took a harder line, asserting the "indispensable" right of Americans to travel the high seas and demanding both an apology and reparations from Germany. After a subsequent exchange of hostile notes between Wilson and the Germans, Bryan resigned in protest.

~ Mark Royden Winchell in Chronicles magazine, October 2002