Intro/Outro (00:06)
From the Bill of Rights Institute, Fabric of History weaves together US history, founding principles, and what all of this means to us today. Join us as we pull back the curtains of the past to see what’s inside.

Haley (00:20)
Why do certain moments in time stand out to us? Today, Mary, Gary Eryn, and special guest Joshua Schmid explore this question by tracing the sinking of the Lusitania and how it fit into the complicated state of foreign affairs in 1915. Was the German U-boat torpedo of the British ocean liner an act of evil or of defense? With two years separating the tragedy in America’s entrance into World War I, was this really a turning point in the war?

Mary (00:53)
Hello again, Fabric of History listeners! We’re excited that you are back with us. This is Mary speaking to you. And I’m excited for today’s conversation because in addition to Gary and Eryn, whom I really love talking with, we have another one of our BRI team members on our show, and that is Josh Schmid. And I’m going to back up for a second and talk about why we have Josh with us today. One of the great things about working at the Bill of Rights Institute is that the collective nerdom of everyone on staff is just a true delight. So recently, the conversation about the sinking of the Lusitania came up in the office, and it turned out that Eryn and our producer, Haley had both read this book, Dead Wake, about the sinking of the Lusitania. And Gary and I, of course, are former teachers. So we’re familiar with Lusitania as it appears in the curriculum. And Josh, it turns out, is really interested in World War I and U-boat policies. So if you put it all together, you have a podcast on the sinking of the Lusitania, what actually happened? And then how do we remember it? And do different people remember it in different ways? So these are these questions that really just started off as a water cooler chat. So I’m going to stop there for a second and introduce Josh, our colleague. So, Josh, welcome. We’re so glad you’re with us today. And, Josh, tell us a little bit about what’s your role at BRI.

Josh (02:30)
Sure. Thanks, Mary. So I work on the content team at the Bill of Rights Institute, so I develop content. I help market it so that it’s reaching teachers in the correct ways and at the correct times of the school year. Like Mary said, I love studying World War I. So I felt like this would be a great topic to weigh in on. I think that the Lusitania is at its heart, really just a great story. So I’m really hoping to get involved in this discussion with you.

Mary (03:14)
We are all about great stories here at BRI. So we’re excited that Josh is with us and that he can weigh in with the U-boat expertise. I know nothing really about U-boats I know it means like underwater boat or underwater vessel, but that’s about it.

Josh (03:30)
Well, I think one thing that strikes me is just how wonderful the German language is. And U-boat in German, it’s ‘unter water boote.’

Gary (03:42)
But I also understand why one would shorten it for textbooks, of course.

Mary (03:46)
Yes.

Gary (03:47)
But it is it’s very direct. That’s true. And it crosses over languages pretty well. So clearly, we’re already kind of jumping into this. And I, too, welcome this is Gary, by the way. I do welcome the insights Josh has, because as Mary said, as a former teacher, it definitely appears in curriculum as something to be remembered, as an event, and as one that across the country generally is often listed as a cause of the involvement of the United States in World War I. I do love starting off with that sort of question of what happened and what are the impacts and how it can be remembered. I think we’re jumping right into it. Right. So there’s this important moment involving U-boats and a boat that occurred. What do you say we kind of take a look at that moment in history and then maybe kind of pull back and see what led up to it and then what followed afterward?

Josh (04:38)
Definitely. So in May 1915, World War I is already going. It has been going since August of 1914, and the chief powers in that war are England, France, and Russia on one side, pitted against Germany and Austria-Hungary on the other. So it’s important to keep in mind throughout all this that the United States has not yet entered the war. And there is a passenger ship called the Lusitania. It is sailing from New York to England. And onboard that ship are a number of American civilians as well as British civilians as well. And it is a British ship. It’s important to keep that in mind as well. And so in May, a German submarine sinks the Lusitania off the coast of Ireland. And that event obviously had a large impact on the broader scope of World War I. And so I think it’s important, though, before we look into those impacts, we also take a step back, like you mentioned, Gary, and just set the scene.

Mary (06:05)
I think so. World War I or the Great War, which is how everyone other than the United States refers to it, was always my favorite thing to teach because I think that war is such a turning point in world history, let alone really in world history. It truly is a world war. Again, I consider myself a world history teacher first and foremost, even though I love US history, too. But it is truly a world war. The entire world, really nearly the entire world, is at war. So the chief powers are in Europe, but all of these European powers have empires, and the British Empire alone covers like a quarter of the world’s population at the time. So to go to war with Britain is really to go to war with the world because the Empire goes to war. Excuse me, India, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, all of these places are mobilized as well. And there’s fighting most of the fighting in Europe, but there’s fighting in other parts of the world as well. Japan joins the fight. They declare war against Germany. So it really is most countries, most major players, I guess is a better way to say it. And like Josh said, the US is sitting out on the sidelines in 1915 and this war I think one of the interesting things about the war is everyone was sort of really gung-ho about fighting. It was like this war intentions had been brewing for so long in the late 19th and early 20th century that everyone thought the war would be quick. But it’s not quick and it’s starting to. And there’s something kind of different about this war. It’s a total war, but it’s a modern war. So we have modern weapons and modern machinery like boats that can go underwater and torpedo other ships. So there’s so many things that are new. I mean, the idea of war is being terrible and awful isn’t anything new that’s sort of as old as time itself. But the level of destruction that’s possible now because of modern weapons, I think is a really different piece in this war. So everyone fighting and the US is trying to see out of it. And how effective is that going to be, especially if you have US passengers, civilians on this ship, the Lusitania, who are killed? So there are nearly 2000 passengers on board the ship, 1198 drowned, including over 120 US citizens. So this was a real tragedy, but one of many tragedies in war, I think is fair to say. But what’s it going to do to the US? Right? And I think, Gary, this event, this moment is in so many curriculums and scopes and sequences. But is it because we have this tragic loss of life or is it something more you can tell?

Gary (09:08)
I was chomping at the bit because my former students would know this was often a highlight of the year. And I think there’s absolutely so many interpretations and I think historians have so many opportunities to frame and take so many lenses on this. But I don’t think there’s any doubt that this is a major we use the phrase turning point a lot, but major not division, but transition from one era to another because you’re exactly right. World War I was always fascinating to me because it follows upon teaching about empires, Kingdoms. I mean, the Ottoman Empire is still involved in this, right? This is a world of monarchs and a world of families and a world of warfare in a, I don’t want to use the word traditional sense, but in a sense that has been going on a while and then suddenly being very different to zoom it in to the Lusitania, having a passenger ship. You’re right. I mean, we look at that and say, like, well, it’s not surprising if a global war is happening that there’s going to be people involved who aren’t a passenger ship. But I think that’s the first sort of question about this. Right. Is the significance of that particular ship on that particular day in the context of a war that prior to this warfare had a certain look. And during World War I and afterward, it is going to look very different. Right. It is a modern technological sort of conflict that isn’t nicely uniform, people lining up on fields anymore. Right. But rather this approach. And that leads me to that question, and I want to come back to the whole concept of World War I later on. But it leads me to that question of how much of this was a surprise that this happened, how much of this at the time was so significantly out of place, or how much of this was part of the bigger story, I think is an important question to ask.

Eryn (11:12)
Yeah. Kind of piggybacking off of that, Gary. It really did. People said that the sinking of the Lusitania signaled the end of gentlemanly war practices of the  19th century and that that sinking really precipitated a more ominous and vicious era of total warfare. But to your second point, was it really a surprise? And when we were having this water cooler conversation, we were talking about how the German Embassy actually put out a notice in US newspapers about making sure that they said, hey, we’re going to have U-boats out in the water, and please be alerted if you enter this area, we may shoot at you. And I have the quote in front of me. I don’t know if we want to read the whole part of the newspaper, but you can’t really say it was a total surprise if the German Embassy Princess and newspapers in April of 1915, right before the Lusitania left New York.

Gary (12:28)
In the classroom when we taught it, this was a really good example of the skill of being a historian, particularly as a student, and saying you have to put out of your mind what you know ends up happening. You can’t take a look at the 21st century and reflect that back because there was no way to know what was going to be happening in 1915, how that was going to pan out, what was going to happen afterward. So that question of a surprise and the warnings and things like this, again, I would wager to say it’s worth taking a look at the decisions that were being made by people, by these empires, and what people thought was going to happen. And then what does end up happening, even though things seem very obvious looking back on it, I always found it really interesting as students explored World War I, to say, like, if imagining you don’t know what’s going to happen next. Some of the decisions do make sense, and yet it really goes in directions that are so surprising to everybody based on what happens when you incorporate different weaponry that had not really been used before. What happens when you cross over or make decisions that had not been done before? I think the Lusitania sits right in the middle of this in terms of, yeah, a warning might have happened, but this passenger ship going down, there’s some reason this significance just resonated and was just in the news and was such a significant moment even at the time.

Mary (14:12)
I think we should take a quick break and then do our best to travel back to 1915 and pretend, as Gary said, that we don’t know what’s going to happen next.

Mary (14:25)
Hey, Fabric of History listener. Learned anything new yet? At BRI we have a lot more to share. Check out our YouTube channel in the description, where we explore US history and civics with scholars and teachers. We update weekly and would love for you to join the conversation. And now back to our show.

Mary (14:47)
Before the break, Gary was reminding us not only as students, but I think as human beings, how difficult it is to drop the presentism and remember that we know what happens because we’re sitting in the present day. But in 1915, they obviously didn’t know what was going to happen. In 1915, the United States is not involved in the war. They’re neutral. But Great Britain and Germany have been at war since the summer of 1914. So a war has been going on for some time, and that’s an important part of the Lusitania and where it fits into the larger policies of Germany making war at the seas. And this is where Josh is going to come in because he’s the expert on the U-boat policy. So, Josh, tell us a little bit about what’s going on, like, why are there even you boats and why are they sinking passenger ships in 1915?

Josh (15:46)
Sure, so I think it’s important to keep in mind what we’ve discussed previously, that this war is very different from any other war that had been fought. So the lines between civilian and military are really starting to blur together, especially as the war that was expected to end quickly has not ended quickly. So both sides in the war are starting to develop new strategies to account for the trench warfare, the staticness of the battle that is occurring. So England has decided on a policy that’s going to emphasize their strengths, which is the Navy. So they began blockading Germany. And one issue that immediately comes up is what is considered war material. So England, of course, because their power is in their Navy, is going to have an expansive interpretation of what counts as war material. And obviously, during war, you want to prevent your enemies from getting that war material. Now, Germany, on the other hand. Their strength is more in their land forces, and they recognize this and they understand that they can’t compete with the British in a head-on battle on the seas. So they start to develop a policy of using U-boats to attack both British military ships, but also to begin attacking merchant ships in order to kind of respond to the British blockade in like by saying, okay, if you’re going to start preventing materials from coming into our ports, we’re going to do the same. So this becomes especially difficult for neutral powers, first and foremost, the United States. How are you going to handle these countries that are basically starting to bring in civilian ships into the context of war? And that’s an issue that is, of course, ultimately going to play into the United States entering the war.

Mary (18:23)
So this goes back to what Eryn mentioned earlier, where the German Embassy put an ad in the newspaper saying, I don’t want to paraphrase it because I’ll probably do it wrong, basically warning.

Eryn (18:40)
I mean, the quote in the newspaper basically said, in accordance with formal notice, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain or any one of our allies are liable to destruction in those waters.

Mary (18:53)
So they were warned.

Eryn (18:55)
A lot of people did not take it seriously. Like kind of what Gary was saying earlier about we still didn’t know what was going to happen. And even though there was this notice in the newspaper, only two passengers canceled their passage on the Lusitania because of the newspaper warnings. And there wasn’t really much concern among the passengers that most of them joked about it. Alfred Vanderbilt, who was on the ship, said, I don’t take much stock in it myself. What would they gain by sinking the Lusitania? And they thought that the Lusitania’s sheer size and speed would protect them.

Josh (19:40)
One of the great tragedies of the entire situation, because if you’re a civilian on board a passenger ship, you would expect that you are not going to be attacked by a different country. Even if your country is at war with Germany, you would expect at that time to generally be left alone. But the circumstances, from the German point of view, dictated otherwise. So the lines really began to be blurred between military and civilian as a result of British naval policies. So they began to transport war materials on board civilian ships, and Germany was aware of this, and they also began arming civilian ships. So traditional warfare on the seas followed what’s called prize warfare or a prize naval policy, which is if you’re going to want to attack an enemy merchant ship, you warn the enemy ship, allow the crew to get off, give them safe passage, food, whatever, and then you just sink the ship. So that obviously is not really feasible for a U-boat. The Germans try following that. They surface the U-boat, they warn the British merchant crew to get off, we’re going to sink this ship. That works sometimes. But then what ends up happening is Britain begins arming these merchant ships. So the U-boat surfaces says, please get off, we’re going to sink your ship. And the British say, boom, no, we’re going to sink you. I’m sorry, the Germans are aware of this, and that in part played a role in why they began what’s called unrestricted submarine warfare, which is sinking ships, especially merchant ships, I should say, without any warning.

Mary (22:10)
I both love and hate when this happens. It’s when I’ve taught something many times, and then I learned something new, like this warning in the newspaper that the Germans put out. I didn’t know that existed. If I had known that existed, I definitely would have used that as a primary source in my classroom. But it complicates the narrative. Sorry, former students of Mrs. Patterson, I’m a fraud that this wasn’t this blatantly, evil act by the Germans like they warned people ahead of time. And it turns out, as Josh was saying, the Lusitania, which was a luxurious ocean liner, so it’s like a fancy ship, but it is carrying war materials on it and we’re at war. So Germany has warned people and they are being blockaded, so they don’t want this ammunition, which I’m assuming is coming from the United States because the Lusitania is sailing from New York to Liverpool and the US is supposed to be neutral and they sync them. So it’s complicating the story because I think a lot of times it’s presented, especially in survey classes, where you’re going so quickly as this horrible deed that was committed by the evil Germans. But it’s not that simple.

Eryn (23:24)
Mary, I’m with you listening to Josh. The British Admiralty required Lusitania’s builders to install mounts to hold guns and was designed as battleship specifications.

Josh (23:38)
The Lusitania was not armed. It had been outfitted when it was built in order to be converted into a battleship should war begin. But once war began, the British realized that it was because it’s this massive ocean liner. And the British Admiralty realized that it really wouldn’t work as a battleship. So it was not armed. But as you mentioned, it was discovered later that it was indeed carrying ammunition. So blatant war materials. And the Germans, of course, use that as a defense for why they sunk the Lusitania.

Gary (24:24)
Bringing it back to the main question of how it can be remembered. It’s almost adding to that how it can be perceived. So back to this idea of warnings. It is a war going on, but there’s also what that means for an individual getting on a boat and deciding, yes, I’m going to make this journey. To say that you don’t expect anything to happen, I think is misleading. Right? I mean, looking at a newspaper article from the time I thought significant, there was one published by The New York Times a few days after this was on the 8th. Only a couple of days after it happened. And it acknowledges in there that there was a newspaper, someone who worked for the newspaper on the ship and acknowledged they were on the lookout for submarines for you boats to happen. And yet they were still going because you don’t know if anything is going to happen or not. What occurs isn’t completely out of the blue. And I think part of what I was thinking of is this big question of how it should be remembered and how it should be perceived in terms of how the story is told, because the more details that are coming out, as you were saying, Mary, the more kind of depth happens to the story. But the perception of the time isn’t I think it can go two ways. The question is, is the Lusitania a passenger ship minding its own business, who out of the blue is blown up by this aggressor, or is it one of the many boats involved in a global war that goes down? And even at the time, there’s this shock of why did it explode so much from a couple of torpedoes? And time eventually tells, well, munitions will do that. And there’s more to the story. And so I think already there’s a bifurcation in the perception at the time of what ended up happening. So as I am one to do lobbying questions into these discussions, I think it’s time to take a break and consider how we perceive this event.

Mary (26:58)
Right before we went on our break, Gary mentioned or Gary brought up this question of perception. So in 1915, we’re trying to keep away from hindsight being 20/20. In 1915, what is the perception of this event?

Josh (27:17)
So the British view this event as expected in a way, given German brutality from their point of view. They point to the German invasion of Belgium, which was a neutral country at the start of the war. And that’s really where this idea of the German as the Hun began to emerge and the sinking of the Lusitania is just a continuation of that idea. As the Germans being this barbaric nation. They don’t follow the rules of warfare. They attack civilians. They attack neutrals. The Germans also began using gas warfare around this time, which was just this very new idea. The Germans, on the other hand, argue that the British are blockading our ports. The British are saying that food is contraband because food is going to feed soldiers. Therefore, we’re going to expand our definition of war materials to food so no food can come into German ports. So the German people are starving at this point. They’re going to face issues with food shortages for the rest of the war. So the Germans argue, look, the British are doing things that are just as horrible to civilians as the sinking of the Lusitania. So don’t point a finger at us. You need to look at your policies that actually contributed to us having to expand our naval policies to attack merchant ships and civilian ships. And so there was kind of just a lot of finger-pointing between the two about who is fighting the most humane war. And of course, one can argue, well, war really is not humane. And at what point do we draw the line between military and civilians? Because if war is so all-encompassing as it is at this point in 1915 that it requires society to mobilize in its entirety to furnish troops and furnish equipment, can we even really begin to draw a line between the military and the civilian?

Gary (30:03)
I think part of the memory of the Lusitania is that it crossed some sort of line. And yet that then raises the idea that there are boundaries in warfare, right?

Josh (30:15)
Definitely. Yeah. Again, I think it’s really important to keep in mind that the stereotype, of course, of war in the 18th and 17th centuries was soldiers fighting on the field. And afterward the opposing generals sit down and have tea together to talk about their strategies and to commend each other on what they did. And obviously, that’s an over-exaggeration, but it’s important to keep in mind that war was seen as just like a gentlemanly thing, and it happens, and then that’s it. We go back to normal life. But of course, World War I really starts to shift that boundary to this war is happening, and there’s really not an end in sight, and therefore, we need to throw our entire society weight behind the war effort to win it.

Mary (31:15)
I think a lot of what you’re talking about, Josh, is again, to remember that this was a Eurocentric war. The world is involved, but it really originates in Europe. It’s Europe that has been embroiled in this conflict for over a year now. And so the US, who is neutral, although we could argue how neutral were they really? But to sort of the ordinary citizen who’s getting on this ship, the Lusitania, or reading about the sinking of the Lusitania after it happens, it’s like, what the heck? We’re not involved in this fight and our people died. I think it’s especially shocking the United States, who sort of steeped in this idea of isolationism. We’re staying over here in the Western Hemisphere, and this isn’t our issue. And I think that fact, this idea that it was seen as like a sucker punch shock plays into why it’s so memorable and why it’s listed as one of the causes that brings the United States into the war, even though we don’t join the war until two years later.

Josh (32:20)
Definitely. The US has had a history of being abused by European powers when it comes to naval policies. You can talk about like the War of 1812 and how the British would impress US sailors into the British Navy, for example. So the US knows that it’s going to be very difficult to not get involved somehow whenever Europe goes into war, especially when it comes to navies. So they try as best they can. And like you said, how neutral were they really? But they at least outwardly claim to try to follow this policy of neutrality, which is as long as we’re not sending military equipment or guns, soldiers, whatever, to any of these countries, we should be able to trade freely with both the British and the French as well as the Germans. And of course, that policy immediately becomes problematic with the British blockading the German ports and the Germans sinking merchant ships. So, of course, the sinking of the Lusitania is different from that because there are American civilians on board and the vast majority of Americans is an outrage that these innocent Americans are killed. You can argue that the British civilians are innocent as well, of course, but they’re still part of a country that’s at war. And so while the US wouldn’t join the war for two more years, the Lusitania plays a large part in shaping the American mind to viewing the Germans as the aggressors because you had these innocent people who were killed. The British might be blockading German ports. They’re preventing US property and trade from flowing, but the British aren’t sinking American ships and killing Americans. So that’s why I think the Lusitania really stands out in the American minds at the time as an atrocity.

Gary (34:58)
A powerful image from what you’re talking about. And sometimes when we talk about history here around the office, as we say, there are times that it’s almost needed to put an image, to put a moment, to put an event to a complex thing. World War I, as it’s taught and as it’s studied, I think, is full of so many complexities. Right. There are families that go back and empires and geopolitics and alliances that happen and all of these decisions that happen. And among them is the concept of involving civilians. But even that’s a complicated thing. So I’m wondering if we think that part of how the Lusitania is significantly remembered and how it had its impact on the United States getting entered is because it is a moment because it is a slice of history that you could put a face on, that you can put in newspapers that say, when we talk about all the complexities of all this geopolitics and warfare, ultimately, here’s a moment where civilians on a boat were sunk. And what does that mean?

Josh (36:14)
Definitely. Yeah. It’s an easy, short, condensed way of explaining an event. And especially during wartime, it’s necessary to show your people something in a really simple and straightforward way. As to especially, I should say, the US. Why are we going to break our neutrality? Why are we going to go into the war? You need a very short and easy thing to point to. And so that’s exactly what President Woodrow Wilson does when he asks Congress to declare war in 1917. One of the main things that he talks about is German unrestricted submarine warfare, and he depicts it as a threat to humanity. So it’s not just a threat to the United States. It threatens just the way that the world worked at the time, which was people should be able to get on a ship and not feel like they need to worry about being killed.

Mary (37:30)
So I’m thinking at the time, as you’re saying, it’s a specific event where there’s a tragic loss of life. That’s easy to point to and say we have to avenge this. It’s much easier than explaining the isms: militarism and nationalism and imperialism. They’re very complicated, but this is a very shocking thing. This happened. We’re not going to stand for this. And I think even today if you’re teaching it’s a lot easier. Any ism is hard to explain to students. And the Great War, World War I is full of them. It’s a lot easier to say this specific sinking. This is like we can understand that a ship carrying all these people drowning, that’s a horrible thing. If you just stop and think about your ship, it’s torpedoed and then it sinks very quickly and then you drown. That’s horrifying. If you just stop and think about what that actually means, that’s easy to explain how awful things were without getting into all the complexities and the nuances, if that makes sense. So I think that’s probably we like I know I certainly like short-to-the-point things, and I think the Lusitania is emblematic of that. So the United States has seized on that. And we see that picture in all of our US textbooks, and we always listed as one of the causes of the war. And of course, the story is much more complex than that, like most of history is. Right. The further you dive in, the more you learn and the more complicated it gets, which is part of the fun of it.

Josh (39:13)
One just the most obvious example of how we kind of make the Lusitania this focal point. But why? Maybe we should question that is there were two years in between the Lusitania sinking in, the US getting involved. So obviously a lot of history there in between. Like you said, you can really go in-depth into with your students.

Gary (39:41)
That’s also the power of an elegant image. Terrible. When I say elegant, I don’t mean it’s not terrible. What I mean is that it is clear you have this very clear event, like you were all saying, that it gets people to think what led to this and what’s going to happen afterward. And maybe, just maybe, that is the significance of remembering the Lusitania and what is meant by remember the Lusitania. This happened. It’s terrible. What led to it is complicated but worth investigating and is so complex that it forces you to be a historian at the time and now to look back on it and then not knowing the ultimate future. There are many impacts that occur and as turning points go, that is such a clear moment, the sinking of Lusitania. What it means is a whole other thing. But that’s what history is about, right? That you have lots of people and lots of perspectives, students and teachers and historians and history enthusiasts combined, saying you can continue to think about what happened, that it’s not a closed case by any means.

Josh (41:10)
Definitely. I think that people are still going to be writing about the Lusitania 100 years from now. So it’s not because the event itself is new, but it’s about how we interpret that event and how there’s always going to be a new perspective on what happened. So it’s not like the facts are new, but the interpretations are.

Speaker 7 (41:39)
Let us know, listeners, how do you interpret the sinking of the Lusitania? You can write to us at comments@fabricofhistory.org. Josh, thank you so much for joining us today. We will be back with you for another episode very soon. Until then, stay curious.

Intro/Outro (42:02)
The Bill of Rights Institute engages, educates, and empowers individuals with a passion for the freedom and opportunity that exists in a free society. Check out our educational resources and programs on our website mybri.org. Any questions or suggestions for future episodes? We’d love to hear from you. Just email us at comments@fabricofhistory.org and don’t forget to visit us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram to stay connected and informed about future episodes. Thank you for listening.