The brilliant film version of the sinking of the Titanic eclipsed the catastrophe itself. This and another mysterious catastrophe of the beginning of the century - the death of "Lusitania". A giant English liner with passengers on board, which died under strange and still unclear circumstances.
Note that we are not talking about the sinking of the "Titanic". It is difficult to compare the brilliant film version of the famous sea catastrophe with the scanty and artless description of events that we reprinted from a Russian magazine in 1915. But then, in the days of the sinking of the huge English passenger ship Lusitania, the world community was literally in a fever from conflicting rumors, assumptions and guesses. The name of the lost ship was inflected and conjugated on the pages of newspapers, in government memoranda and … diplomatic notes.
What happened? The sinking of the ship seems mysterious, moreover, it seems that government documents in the "case" of the "Lusitania" are still a strict state secret in England. And yet, let's try to open its veil.
Promotional video:
The British ocean liner "Lusitania" (RMS Lusitania), known primarily for its luxurious accommodations and high-speed capabilities, cruised across the Atlantic Ocean between the United States and Great Britain. Its displacement was about 31 thousand tons, its length was about 240 meters (the length of the Titanic was 268 meters), and the height was 18.5 meters. At that time, it was one of the largest ships along with the Titanic.
With the commissioning of another ship of the same type, "Mauritania" in November 1907, "Lusitania" and "Mauritania" staged a high-speed dispute and more than once the honorary prize "Blue Ribbon of the Atlantic" passed from hand to hand. The Lusitania made its fastest journey west at an average speed of 25.85 knots (47.87 km / h) in 1909.
On May 7, 1915, the huge four-pipe British passenger ship Lusitania, which was on its regular New York-Liverpool flight, was suddenly attacked by a German submarine U-20 off the southern coast of Ireland.
Eighteen minutes after the explosion, the Lusitania was completely submerged in the water. Of the 1959 people on board the Lusitania, 1,198 were killed. According to the official statement of the British government, there were no weapons, ammunition and sailors on board the passenger ship. The death of "Lusitania" was called one of the most tragic events of the First World War. The English journalist K. Simpson has long been interested in the "case" of the "Lusitania".
The circumstances of her death, the abundance of carefully fabricated data, wrote K. Simpson, convinced him that the traditional version of the disasters of "Lusitania" contains "profound omissions and obvious inaccuracies." According to Simpson, documents found in the archives of the British shipping company Cunard Lines, as well as in the US government archives, are forcing a review of the Lusitania case.
On May 1, 1915, exactly on schedule, the Lusitania set sail for the last time from the port of New York. In the early morning the mate of the Lusitania traditionally met the passengers at the gangway. On the pier, apart from rare passengers, he saw a crowd of reporters. They showed the English sailor the morning edition of the New York Tribune.
Among the paid advertisements in the newspaper, an ominous warning stood out: Americans were not advised to use the services of British passenger liners due to the possibility of an attack by German submarines. As follows from the text, the announcement was placed by the German embassy. Anxiety grew on the dock. But the representative of the company "Kunard" reassured everyone who stood with tickets on board the "Lusitania". “The liner of our company was and remains the fastest ship in the Atlantic. And no German warship or submarine will simply be able to catch up with the Lusitania.
Keel of the Lusitania was laid at John Brown & Co. Clydebank at number 367 on June 16, 1904.
In the afternoon the Lusitania set out to sea. The captain of the Lusitania Turner took his usual place on the captain's bridge. Turner was an accomplished sailor, but now, in wartime, merchant sailors had to obey the orders of the Admiralty naval officers. Naval sailors determined the course of merchant ships and provided classified information about enemy submarines. British naval intelligence could determine exactly where on the high seas a German submarine was sent to carry out a combat mission. The British received the secret radio codes of the German fleet. The radio stations on the coast of England waited patiently as the German submariners on the high seas sent radio signals with meticulous precision.
But Captain Turner was not given a warning about German submarines either in New York port, where a British navy officer was stationed, or off the coast of Ireland, where the Lusitania entered coastal radio coverage. It was only on the evening of May 6 that Turner received a radiogram: "A German submarine is located off the southern coast of Ireland."
But the radiogram was transmitted not by the naval command, but by Admiral Cooke, the commander of the anti-submarine flotilla: he approximately determined the area of the submarine after he received reports of the death of two small steamers. Coke understood that the Lusitania was approaching the submarine. But the admiral could not bring the anti-submarine flotilla into the sea without an order from the Admiralty, and such an order was not received.
Captain Turner received a radiogram as the liner was approaching St George's Channel. And in peacetime the strait was a serious test even for experienced sailors, and in the days of the war it became doubly dangerous: at the entrance to the strait, German submariners lay in wait for prey. But Captain Turner could not change the course of the ship without an order from an Admiralty officer or, in extreme cases, the command of the commander of a warship.
The only thing he could do was to alert all life-saving equipment, remove the lights, batten down the windows. The captain went down to the salon, where the lights were bright and music was playing, and, trying not to raise his voice, told the passengers that the possibility of the appearance of enemy submarines was possible. “But we are sure,” the captain added, “that we will not be left alone, because we are guarded by the Royal Navy …“These were not empty words: off the coast of Ireland, at Cape Fastnet Rock, Atlantic liners usually awaited escort British cruisers.
At dawn on May 7, there was a thick fog. Captain Turner slowed down and ordered a siren to sound to alert warships of the approaching liner. But there was not a single Royal Navy warship nearby.
In the Admiralty, in the office of the Minister of the Navy, W. Churchill, there was a huge map. The officers on duty continuously moved the conventional signs that marked the path of each German submarine detected using reconnaissance data and radio intercepts. The official English historical works give an exceptionally high assessment of the activities of British intelligence: "She read the thoughts of the German command and foresaw the movement of the ships of the enemy fleet."
It is interesting to note that the secret codes of the German fleet were transferred to the British by the Russian naval command: the codes were discovered on the German cruiser Magdeburg, which was sunk after a battle with ships of the Russian Baltic Fleet. The divers entered the command room and retrieved classified documents.
There is no doubt that Churchill imagined what the Lusitania meant to England, one of the largest and fastest ships in the world. The Admiralty had received reports from America which were to be termed very disturbing. German diplomats and Americans of German descent, whose close ties with German intelligence were not in doubt, have recently warned Americans that British transatlantic liners will be attacked by home boats. The editor of the newspaper of the German community in the United States, who often carried out the assignments of the German military attaché in the United States, said literally the following: "A large English liner with Americans on board may be sunk."
But the British Admiralty and the energetic Minister Churchill not only failed to increase security measures, but showed a strange carelessness. The captain of the Lusitania did not receive an alarming warning, the warships did not go to sea …
In the very first reports of the German telegraph agency and newspapers about the sinking of the Lusitania, it was emphasized that the British liner was not literally a passenger ship, because the British ship was carrying explosives from America. In those days one could read that the Lusitania was in fact an auxiliary cruiser of the Royal Navy and had heavy artillery on board.
Representatives of the Admiralty called the allegations of the cannons installed on the Lusitania slanderous. But they did not answer the direct question of whether there were hazardous war materials on board the passenger ship. And only a few weeks later, in the British statements, an unconditional version of the "exclusively peaceful nature of the cargo of" Lusitania "was confirmed. In 1926, the famous English historian of the navy, Wilson, made it clear: he called the Lusitania "unarmed", but noted that among its cargo were "boxes of rifle cartridges and unoccupied, empty blanks for shrapnel shells."
K. Simpson checked all types of cargo that were in the hold of Lusitania. Of particular interest was a strange cargo - 3800 boxes lined with canvas - cargo designated as packages of cheese. The documents name the sender of this strange cargo - a US citizen A. Fraser. the name is often found in the documents of the New York port, in 1915 he was on the list of the largest importers of goods from the US But further verification showed that before the war Fraser was an insolvent debtor. Simpson suggested that Fraser was exactly the figure with whom the British formalized the export of military materials from the United States, primarily explosives produced at the factories of the DuPont company.
Examining the sinking Lusitania, the submarine commander immediately drew attention to the thick smoke and severe damage to the deck and superstructures. The German sailors suggested that the explosion of the torpedo caused the detonation of coal dust or … the explosion of a significant amount of ammunition that was in the hold in the area of coal bunkers. This point of view has become generally accepted in Germany. Subsequently, the Minister of the Navy Tirpitz noted in his memoirs the following reason for the death of the Lusitania: "… The immediate death of the Lusitania was caused by the second explosion of ammunition loaded into the holds."
The official British version unconditionally claimed that the Lusitania was killed by two German torpedoes. The "Royal Commission of Inquiry", which is traditionally created in England to find out the causes of major disasters, admitted in its final document that there was no ammunition on board the passenger ship. Responsibility for the loss of the passenger ship was attributed to the command of the German naval forces, which allowed submarine captains to attack peaceful ships without warning.
But the commission's conscientiousness was far from flawless. All arguments that challenged the accepted version were rejected in advance. The commission did not take into account the testimony of the passenger of the "Lusitania", the Canadian professor J. Maréchal. According to him, after the explosion of the torpedo, he heard a second explosion, accompanied by the sound of exploding ammunition; Marechal made his last statement on the basis of his experience in military service.
But British government officials said that Marechal could not be believed that he was being prosecuted for forgery and fraud: the commission was given information about the namesake of a Canadian professor, who was indeed a shady person. And this was not the only case. Subsequently, Lord Mercy, chairman of the Royal Commission, admitted that the Lusitania case was a "dirty story."
However, only a few specialists, experts in naval weapons could appreciate the main mistake of the commission of inquiry during the First World War: even two torpedoes could not sink a huge ship in a matter of minutes!
The torpedoes used by German submarines were relatively imperfect. Could such a torpedo make a hole in the board of the Lusitania, into which, as eyewitnesses said, “a steam locomotive could pass”?
In 1918, the huge British steamship Giustishia was attacked by submarines. And although the very first torpedo caused serious damage, the Giustishia stayed afloat for about a day, and during this time the German submariners repeated the torpedo attack several times. The German sailors were convinced that the Giustishia had been sunk by six torpedoes of the same type used in 1915.
Contemporaries remembered the events of May 7, 1915 as a crime committed by the German militarists.
But everything happened differently …
which were built for regular communication with America.
The Lusitania project was created in the United States in 1902, when the American banker Morgan offered British shipowners to build, with the participation of American capital, huge ships that would embody the latest achievements of science and technology. Sea giants would allow monopolizing lucrative passenger traffic on Atlantic routes. But enterprising American bankers violated the secret plans of the British Admiralty.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the naval rivalry between England and Germany reached its highest point. England was building a huge navy. While creating new warships, the Admiralty at the same time secretly subsidized private British steamship companies: according to the plans of naval sailors, passenger ships in the first days of the war turned into transports and auxiliary cruisers. The admirals demanded to break off negotiations with American bankers and at the same time offered to conclude a lucrative agreement: the government provides subsidies for the construction of huge liners. The only condition: in the event of war, the ships are at the disposal of the Royal Navy.
This is how the famous Kunard liners - Lusitania and Mauritania - appeared. The "sister ships" were equipped with steam turbines, which made it possible to reach speeds unprecedented for those years. The displacement of the new liner over 31 thousand tons and the speed of at least 25 knots exceeded those of the newest warships of that time, battleships.
Since 1907, the Lusitania has operated regular flights between Liverpool and New York. R. Kipling spoke with enthusiasm about the new ships: “The captain only needs to take the helm - the city of nine decks will sail into the sea …” Passengers soon appreciated the speed and comfort of the new ships.
In the first week of the war, in 1914, platforms for guns and projectile lifts were installed on board the Lusitania. But soon Lusitania returned to Liverpool. The flag of the merchant fleet remained on its mast.
In preparing for war, the Admiralty, led by the self-confident Churchill, made serious mistakes: the Admiralty was confident that the main threat to British ships came from the German surface fleet, including hastily armed merchant ships.
But Germany used houseboats against the British merchant fleet. The losses grew at an alarming rate. It was soon discovered that the British army and navy were consuming an enormous amount of ammunition; the industry did not cope with the plans for war production. The government decided to purchase military supplies from the United States, but the cargo ships were attacked by submarines.
It was in this situation that the Admiralty remembered the "largest and fastest" liners. A prominent Admiralty official met with the president of the Kunard Company. He explained that "Lusitania" will carry out "a special task of the government." "Regular flights will carry cargo that is of particular importance to Britain." The cargo space in the hold will be expanded and transferred to the disposal of the Admiralty. Kunard continues to carry passengers and carefully conceals the presence of "special cargo".
There is every reason to assume that the Kunard leadership knew what was hiding under the neutral designation “special cargo”. With the participation of the Kunard company, explosives were purchased in the United States and transported to New York, to port warehouses. Payment was made through Kunard bank accounts.
In June 1915, the Austro-Hungarian Embassy in the United States sent a "confidential letter" to the US State Department. Austrian diplomats showed in detail how the explosives of the American chemical concern DuPont were loaded aboard the Lusitania in the forward hold rooms. They were forty-pound boxes lined with canvas, like cheese packages. This cargo belonged to the American Frezer …
All eyewitnesses to the loss of the Lusitania pointed to two explosions. The second explosion was disproportionate to the strength of the first: a few minutes after the second explosion, the bow of the Lusitania plunged into the water, and the stern rose to the height of a multi-storey building. The torpedo of a German submarine hit the bow of the liner, where there was a "special cargo" - boxes lined with canvas …
One of the letters from the Austro-Hungarian embassy provided details that suggest how and when Austrian intelligence (it is possible that on behalf of the German government) learned about the transportation of ammunition on the ships of the Kunard company.
Therefore, upon learning of the death of the Lusitania, the Austrian consul von Reteg experienced a serious shock and agreed with the arguments of the Austrian diplomats, who asked him to make a statement certified by an American lawyer, which explicitly stated that the cause of the death of American citizens was an explosion of ammunition in the passenger hold. ship.
The German submarine U20 thrown off the coast of Denmark is believed to be the one that sank the * Lusitania *.
Are the English mistakes accidental? And can their actions be called erroneous?
Since February 1915, when Germany began a submarine war, the British Admiralty has been trying to find an effective means of dealing with enemy submarines. England suffered heavy losses: on average, the British lost one large merchant ship every two days. At the same time, German submarines dealt a heavy blow to the reputation and pride of the Minister of the Navy Churchill.
It turned out that the technical means of countering submarines used by the fleet were clearly insufficient. Therefore, the question is legitimate: could the Admiralty, headed by Churchill, carry out its tasks of defending the country? And, perhaps, it was the "political solution to the problem" that saved not only Churchill, but also the Cabinet of Ministers from the shameful resignation …
In the spring of 1915, Colonel House, the personal representative of the President of the United States, appears in London. He was supposed to explain to the British government US policy. British Foreign Secretary Gray welcomes House to his home. Gray asked frank questions, the essence of which boiled down to the following: what would "Uncle Sam" do if a German submarine sank an ocean liner with the Americans on board? House replied that resentment would sweep across America. Gray agreed: yes, there are many moralists in America, but what political response will follow from the government and the president? And House admits that it will be enough to "get us into the war."
Indeed, the deaths of 115 US citizens in the U-20 attack on the Lusitania sparked strong American protests. The demonstrators carried anti-German slogans and demanded to punish Germany. The US government has sent an official note to Berlin. The German government was forced to limit submarine warfare: from June 6, 1915, German submarines were prohibited from attacking large passenger ships.
The break in the submarine war was not long, it was terminated in February 1916, but during this time the Entente countries, primarily England, saved 1,600,000 tons of merchant marine tonnage, that is, about five hundred steamers.
Lusitania was well known in America. And if we take into account that on the eve of the sinking of the Lusitania, House had to bring to the attention of the British government a list of repressive measures that would be America's response to the British arrest of American ships with "peaceful" cargo for Germany, one can understand what a gift of fate it was for British politicians torpedo the German submarine U-20.
However, the British "grand strategy" made full use of the coincidence of interests and long-term plans of Britain and the United States. President Wilson was preparing for war, but he was wary of making militaristic statements: elections were approaching, and among ordinary Americans there were many supporters of US peace and neutrality. In 1915, President Wilson needed an excuse to justify America's military preparations.
On May 11, 1915, when Wilson's cabinet was discussing the text of the German protest note in connection with the death of the Lusitania, Secretary of State Brian issued a strong condemnation of the president's policies. He stressed that back in early May, the president was provided with reliable information about the transportation of ammunition by British ships. According to Brian, there was a gross violation of US neutrality.
But Brian's puritanical directness, a pacifist and anti-alcoholic drinker, annoyed Wilson, and when discussing the note of protest, he delivers a "knockout blow." Brian's objections are rejected, and he was presented as "the defender of the German militarists who commit barbaric acts against civilians." Brian resigns. His post is occupied by Lansing, an active supporter of rapprochement with England.
These changes did not go unnoticed in America: evaluating the president's policy, the New York Times published a cartoon - Wilson is trying to play the Americans a new song "Here's your rifle, Johnny."
Further events in the United States resembled a film about the life of gangsters. Unknown persons raided the Austro-Hungarian consulate in Cleveland, where the testimony of engineer von Reteg and other documents about the sinking of the Lusitania were kept. Soon, von Reteg himself had to appear before a court: he was accused of forging a check and sentenced to prison.
And only at the end of the 20th century, documents were discovered in the archives of the US federal services that allow us to conclude that the secret service of the US Department of Justice was directly related to these "strange events" …
President Wilson's administration was well aware of the behind-the-scenes side of the Lusitania case. All documents were archived with the cautionary words "For the President of the United States only".
One gets the impression that in England the government documents in the “case” of the “Lusitania” are still a strict state secret.
In April 1982, the ship "Mervig" of the Scottish company "Oushering", which carries out complex underwater work using unique equipment, approached the place of the sinking of the "Lusitania". An underwater manipulator, a small remotely controlled submarine, was launched from the ship. The investigation of the place of death of "Lusitania" was conceived as an advertising event, which was supposed to show the capabilities of the new technology.
The preliminary result of the survey exceeded all expectations: underwater television cameras showed that the bow compartments of the sunken liner had been cleared of debris, and the cargo hatch cover had been torn off. When the underwater manipulator slowly descended into the hold, the experts could not contain their amazement: the screen, according to them, showed an image of the ship's inner skin with deep longitudinal grooves, which the bucket leaves for lifting sunken objects and cargo. “It's hard to imagine, but the hold of the Lusitania is swept like a living room,” said one of the journalists who took part in the search work.
An underwater photograph showed that in the area of the left side of the "Lusitania", a huge hole was visible in the bow skin. The explosives experts concluded that a "powerful explosion" had occurred inside the hold. The British press reported that after a detailed examination of the Lusitania, Oushering's specialists came to the conclusion that all the evidence that could establish what kind of cargo was in the bow hold of the Lusitania had been destroyed after the sinking of the ship.
According to information received from British journalists, the Irish Coast Guard reported that an auxiliary ship of the British Navy stopped for a long time at the crash site in 1946, and subsequently a ship appeared at the site of the sinking of the Lusitania, which carried out underwater work. However, representatives of "Oushering" admitted that they were not ignored by Her Majesty's government.
Officials correctly, but very firmly recalled that there is indisputable evidence according to which during the last tragic flight of the Lusitania, there were no explosives on board the famous passenger liner, except for not very dangerous rifle cartridges …
However, in 2008, divers investigated the wreckage of the Lusitania, located eight miles off the coast of Ireland. A number of ammunition was found aboard the vessel, including Remington cartridges. This discovery confirms the German version that the Lusitania was used to secretly transport weapons from the US to Great Britain and was not, in the full sense of the word, a neutral, peaceful ship. This is also supported by the second explosion, which could have been an explosion of ammunition on board.
The discovery of the wreckage is rekindling old controversies about the mission and circumstances of the Lusitania's crash and the largest war crime of the 20th century.
Note
In the Soviet historical literature, the circumstances of the death of "Lusitania" were not studied1. (Including in the only political biography of W. Churchill, published in Russian. - Trukhanovskiy V. G. "W. Churchill". M., 1977.) A brief analysis of the events associated with the last flight of the "Lusitania" is contained in the study E. Ivanyan: "The White House: Presidents and Politics" (M., 1979) and in the essays on the history of British secret operations carried out by the government and the Foreign Office: E. Chernyak "Secret Diplomacy of Great Britain" (Moscow, 1975). It is noteworthy that in these studies, the authors recognized the reliability of the conclusions of the English journalist K. Simpson, contained in a book published in London in 1972 by the reputable Longman publishing house (K. Simpson, Lusitania. L., 1972).
This article primarily uses documents discovered and published by Simpson: documents from the UK State Archives, the US Federal Service Archives, and a collection of documents from the Hill, Dickinson & Company law firm, which represented the Lusitania owners in 1915.
1. Essay by L. Skryagin and I. Shmelev - "The drama" Lusitania ". “On the sinking of an English liner in 1915" ("Knowledge is Power", 1966, No. 5) The essay is based on newspaper and magazine publications of the twenties and thirties and reflects various assumptions about the reasons for the death of the Lusitania.
Alexander Savinov, "Knowledge-Power"
The Lusitania is arriving in New York on its maiden voyage. 1907:
Lusitania, 1st class bedroom.
"Lusitania".
David Doe, captain of the Lusitania. 1915:
The Lusitania left Pier 54 in New York on Saturday afternoon, May 1, 1915:
The photo shows the reconstruction of the torpedo track from the words of an eyewitness:
Rescued from the Lusitania in Queenston:
Disaster survivors arrived in Queenstown:
On January 11, 2011, at the age of 95, Audrey Pearl, the last surviving passenger of the liner, who was only three months old at the time of his death, died.
Departure of the shipwrecked from Queenstown to London:
Rescued Passengers at Lime Street Station, Liverpool:
Lusitania's surviving officers, from left to right: First Officer R. Jones, A. A. Beastie, Junior Third Officer, Third Officer, and J. P. Lewis, 1915:
George V meets with the surviving crew of the Lusitania:
Two men retrieve boxes of victims' bodies from a rescue boat:
American casualties from the Lusitania on May 27, 1915:
Divine service for the victims of the "Lusitania" at Westminster Cathedral in London. The service is conducted by Cardinal Born:
Burial of victims from "Lusitania". London, England 1915:
Demonstration against the Germans at Tower Hill in London:
Anti-German pogroms after torpedoing "Lusitania": many shops whose owners bore German surnames were destroyed. In the photo, the thugs ravage Schoenfeld's cigar warehouse London, England 1915:
Propaganda poster:
The German submarine U20, thrown off the coast of Denmark, is believed to be the one that sank the Lusitania:
Exploration of the wreckage of the "Lusitania" in 1935. Jim Jarrett was the main diver and dives to 312 feet:
