George
Henderson was only six years old when he watched the Lusitania sink from ashore.
His words to a news crew in ’94 were, “I can still sit here now…and see that
great liner just sliding below the waves.” In June, 1906, the Lusitania was
launched by Cunard to seize transatlantic traffic back from the Germans. She had
completed more than a hundred Atlantic crossings. The Lusitania left New York
for the last time on May 1st, 1915, the same day that the German
Embassy had printed a warning that travelers sailing on British ships in the
war zone around the British Isles did so ‘at their own risk’.[1]
The
German submarine U-20 had already
torpedoed three British cargo vessels off the Irish coast. Germany’s professed exclusion
zone had been in effect since February, asserting emphatically that all Allied
ships that invaded this zone were liable to be searched and/or attacked.[2] On
May 7th, Captain Walther Schwieger, sighted a four-stack passenger
liner. A single torpedo was fired, and within 18 minutes the ship disappeared beneath
the waves of the Atlantic.
Not
long afterwards, on the British Isles, speculation aroused that Winston Churchill,
then First Lord of the Admiralty, deliberately sacrificed the Lusitania to draw
the United States into the war. This was ludicrous for the purpose that Churchill
and the First Sea Lord Jackie Fisher were preoccupied with the escalating
political crisis over Gallipoli. The absence of British naval escorts for the
Lusitania in the war zone reflected the commonly accepted understanding that a
liner’s best defenses lay in its own speed and maneuverability.
The
British Government was quite keen in concealing the presence of armaments in
the Lusitania’s hold. More than four thousand cases of rifle cartridges, along
with over twelve hundred cases of unfused shells, had been confirmed to be
aboard on the cargo manifest. The blame was rapidly shifted onto the
Lusitania’s captain, William Turner, for deliberately aiding Allies within the
British barriers. The sinking of the Lusitania, carrying American tourists onboard,
escalated America’s presence effusively into World War I.
The
reader is adept to recognize that there are numerous, diverse acts of war
throughout history. Hitherto, a solitary act of war, as unique as it is
effective, is a naval blockade around a colonial country or countries. Circa 4th
Century B.C.E., the Greeks and the Persians would utilize blockades as they
battled along the Aegean Sea. Just as European explorers would endeavor the
merciless Atlantic seeking new lands, trade, and freedom from tyranny or
persecution, blockades became a militant normality as more of the Western
Hemisphere was discovered and claimed, especially isles in the vast Pacific
discovered via voyages of Lieutenant Wilkes[3] (1838-1842).
The defiant British blockade that sunk the Lusitania is continually debated by
historians as either inevitable or avoidable.
A
probable conception of this particular event could indicate the Lusitania tragedy
as a product of miscommunication. If the reader could refer concisely to the
blockade utilized by the United States around Cuba in 1962, President Kennedy
did not refer to this strategic line of defense as a “blockade”, as one act of
war would send two militant superpowers into nuclear holocaust. Instead, he
referred to this as a “quarantine of Cuba”, an altercation of language that ‘bent’
the guidelines of the Cold War during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Communication was
imperative for survival of both encampments.
Perhaps
unjustifiably, the Lusitania was provided a single warning to halt before her
demise. Yet, this event reveals no historical indication of a ‘hot-blooded’,
irrational miscommunication targeting neutral bystanders. This act was a clear statement
of British supremacy, proclaiming who controls the sea. The need for control of
the seas did not cease following the Lusitania tragedy, nor has the argument
for extreme isolationism with no consideration of America’s global
interdependence.
Though
it would seem that a continent should not be so concerned with the rest of the
world, our history is a tapestry of interdependence, either for trade or war.
Abandonment of our Allies in times of trial is cowardice and appeasement that can
only yield grave consequences. John Fitzgerald Kennedy’s printed Harvard thesis,
Why England Slept (a perpetuation of
Churchill’s famous While England Slept)
can further distribute details of necessary armaments, as well as disarmaments,
at sea with a bold testimony: “…if a country’s control of the sea is weakened,
so the county itself is weakened.”
[1]
Reynolds, David. “Too Proud to Fight.” London
Review of Books, Vol. 24 No. 23: 28 November 2002: 29-31.
[2] http://lusitania.net/ “Lusitania, British Cunard
liner.” Encyclopedia Americana, 1920.
[3]
Philbrick, Nathaniel. Sea of Glory:
America’s Voyage of Discovery – The U.S. Exploring Expedition: 1838-1842.
(New York, NY): Penguin Group, 2003.
[1]
Reynolds, David. “Too Proud to Fight.” London
Review of Books, Vol. 24 No. 23: 28 November 2002: 29-31.
[2] http://lusitania.net/ “Lusitania, British Cunard
liner.” Encyclopedia Americana, 1920.
[3]
Philbrick, Nathaniel. Sea of Glory:
America’s Voyage of Discovery – The U.S. Exploring Expedition: 1838-1842.
(New York, NY): Penguin Group, 2003.
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