THE SINKING OF THE LUSITANIA
World War One, despite the enormity and grand scale of the conflict, was ultimately a war of attrition. "Attrition in the end, was the main factor that decided who won the war. The Entente Powers simply had more men and resources than Germany and its allies (though there were some anxious moments between the time their Russian ally fell out of the war mid-1917 and the arrival of large numbers of American troops on the Western Front in mid-1918)."Both sides of the war were supplied with materials from their various colonies. Of necessity, this was by ship. But a new form of naval warfare emerged from the German shipyards. It was an improved submarine, the U-boat. There were strict traditional and international warfare rules regarding submarines. "The traditional rules of war stipulated that a warship must warn a merchantman and allow its passengers and crew to abandon ship before sinking it, unless the merchant ship resisted or attempted to escape, or was in convoy under the protection of warships. A limited armament on a merchant ship, such as a gun or two for protection against pirates or lightly armed raiders, did not necessarily nullify the ship's immunity to attack without warning. A cargo of munitions or war materi
New York: Harper & Row, 1985 (New American Nation series). "The orders of 10 February 1915 directed merchant ships to escape when possible, but "if a submarine comes up suddenly close ahead of you with obvious hostile intention, steer straight for her at your utmost speed. Exploring the Lusitania: Probing the Mysteries of the Sinking that Changed History. A History of the Du Pont Company's Relations with the United States Government 1802-1927. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982. 303 rifle cartridges, a thousand rounds to a box, with 1250 cases of shrapnel shells, and with eighteen cases of fuzes (which Bailey and Ryan describe as non explosive, but that does not sound right). It is equally implausible that Lusitania's own crew could have manned these guns; every account, indicates that she had a largely inexperienced crew of wartime recruits who were deficient even in basic seamanship, and the notion that they were covertly trained in gunnery is not believable . It would require at least a hundred men to man such a battery, and probably considerably more . New York: Harper & Row, 1954 (New American Nation series).
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Acceptance Essays
