Yesterday was November 11. As you are most likely aware, that date is also known as the holiday Veterans Day. However, that date has a more significant meaning if you look at it in terms of history. This year, November 11, 2020, marked the 102nd anniversary of the signing of the armistice that effectively ended the First World War. The war was the most savage war that the world had ever experienced. Mainland Europe was devastated. Germany was faced with unjust, unpayable war reparations. Russia was in the midst of a bloody revolution. Many were wondering, what was the cause? How did a turf war between the Balkland countries of Bosinia and Serbia become the most deadly war up to that time?
Setting the Stage for the Sinking
The war also known as the Great War was the first modern war in history. The weapons deployed on both sides of the conflict changed the face of warfare forever. Weapons like aircraft, machine guns, and tanks were used for the first time on the battlefields of France and Belgium. A revolutionary battle was also being waged at sea. For the first time in history, submarines were mass produced and widely used. They had been used before, such as the Hunley during the Civil War, but never to the large, grand scale as in World War I. the most infamous type of submarine used during the Great War was the German Unterseeboot, or U-boat. These would go on to sink more than 11 million tons of Allied shipping. One U-boat would become more famous than any other, though not many know it by name, not for the number of tons of shipping sunk by that U-boat, but by the ship that she sank. The U-boat that I am talking about is U-20, and the infamous ship she sank was the RMS Lusitania.
The Lusitania was 787 feet from bow to stern, she was launched on June 7, 1906. Able to reach speeds of 25-28 knots, she was faster than any U-boat at the time. With that fact in mind, how was the U-boat able to sink her? How could the largest ship in the world, at the time of her launch, be sunk by a submarine she should be able to outrun?
After the war started, Great Britain pulled the classic siege move on Germany using the modern means. In other words, she formed a naval blockade in order to starve out the Germans. As a direct response to this, Germany reciprocated by developing the U-boat in order to sink as many ships as possible headed for Britain. According to international naval rules at the time, called the “Cruiser Rules” established at the Hague Conventions, an unarmed vessel could not be sunk with no warning. That is exactly what the Germans did. When a U-boat came upon an Allied ship, the captain of the U-boat would announce to the Allied ship that the ship would be sunk, he would give the passengers time to board the lifeboats, and only then would the captain of the U-boat sink the ship.
However, that changed during the war when the British Admiralty set new rules for their ships instituted by Winston Churchill. Colin Simpson wrote in his book The Lusitania, “From October 1914 onward a steady stream of inflammatory orders were issued to the masters of British merchant ships. It was made an offense to obey a U-boat’s orders to halt. Instead masters must immediately engage the enemy, either with their armament if they possessed it, or by ramming if they did not. Any master who surrendered his ship was to be prosecuted, and several were.” They also installed hideable deck cannons onto several of the transport ships. These were commissioned as Q-ships.
The Germans found out, through sinking of their own U-boats or otherwise, about this and responded naturally. They stopped informing the ships they were targeting.
This was the stage that was set for the Lusitania.
The Final Voyage of the Lusitania
On May 1, 1915, the RMS Lusitania left New York City, bound for Liverpool, England. Six days later, she crossed paths with the U-20, piloted by Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger, about 11 miles off of the south coast of Ireland. After being struck on the starboard bow by a single torpedo from the U-20, it took a mere 18 minutes for the Lusitania to hit the ocean floor. There were approximately 1200 casualties, 128 of them American. How could this have happened?
The Allied news (i.e. the British and American) said, effectively, that the Lusitania was an unarmed passenger liner, that she was just minding her own business, and that the “dirty” Germans sank her only because they loved to kill innocent women and children. The Germans, or “Huns” as they were often called, were portrayed as apelike brutes thirsty for blood – much like the Spaniards were during the Spanish-American War. Is this really true? As pointed out above, the Germans actions were a response to the British arming their ships and ramming the U-boats. However, this is not enough evidence to prove a conspiracy was behind the sinking. What could one possibly gain from sinking the Lusitania?
The American Incentive
It is a well known fact that during both World Wars that whichever side America was to join, that side would be the inevitable victors. The question then became, how could one manipulate American public opinion into joining your side. The British Admiralty, of which Winston Churchill was head, came up with the idea of having the Germans sink an American ship. Whether it was a case of mistaken identity or not, they knew that they could frame it in such a way to get the maximum benefit for themselves – get America on their side. Before the Lusitania’s sinking, Winston Churchill wrote to President of the Board of Trade Walter Runciman that it is “most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores, in the hope especially of embroiling the United States with Germany.”
However, the Germans did not comply. They were scrupulous in making sure that they identified ships properly. So, the Admiralty had to find another solution. This is where the Lusitania comes into play. The idea was to sink a British liner with Americans on board. Edward Mandell House was in England as President Wilson’s emissary at the time of the sinking. On the morning of May 7, 1915, the day that the Lusitania was sunk, House met with British foreign minister Edward Grey. in House’s official biography, The Intimate Papers of Colonel House, it is recorded, “We [House and Grey] spoke of the probability of an ocean liner being sunk, and I told him if this were done, a flame of indignation would sweep across America, which would in itself probably carry us into the war.”
The fact of the matter is, the Lusitania sinking did not cause America to go to war. The populous would have to endure two more years of propaganda before entering. Now that we’ve discussed the possibility of the RMS Lusitania being intentionally sent to her doom, is there any evidence of that? In fact, there is.
Was the Lusitania Intentionally Sunk?
At the beginning of the war, both sides of the conflict used encrypted code to communicate with their troops and ships abroad. At the time of the Lusitania’s final ocean passage, the British had cracked Germany’s naval code and knew the approximate location of her U-boats. The U-20 was no different. Aside from this, the U-20 was known to be active in the area that the Lusitania was to travel, as Kapitänleutnant Schwieger had sunk a couple other vessels in the days leading up to the May 7 tragedy.
The British Admiralty took additional measures to place the Lusitania in as much danger as they possibly could. According to Commander Joseph Kenworthy of Naval Intelligence wrote in his book The Freedom of the Seas, “The Lusitania was deliberately sent at considerably reduced speed into an area where a U-boat was known to be waiting and with her escorts withdrawn.” The only escort given to the Lusitania on May 7 was the Juno, an aging cruiser, which was herself ordered back to Queenstown because it was said that she was vulnerable to attack by U-boats. One more damning piece of evidence is that four destroyers were parked idly in the nearby port of Milfred Haven.
Earlier I mentioned that Edward Mandell House met with Edward Grey on May 7. Later that day, they met with King George V. In House’s biography, he recorded, “We fell to talking, strangely enough, of the probability of Germany sinking a trans-Atlantic liner… He [the king] said, ‘Suppose they should sink the Lusitania, with American passengers on board?’”
Patrick Beesley was a Naval Intelligence officer during the war. In his book, Room 40, wrote about the Lusitania incident, “Nothing, absolutely nothing was done to ensure the liner’s safe arrival… I am reluctantly driven to the conclusion that there was a conspiracy deliberately to put the Lusitania at risk in the hopes that even an abortive attack on her would bring the United States into the war. Such a conspiracy could not have been put into effect without Winston Churchill’s express permission and approval.”
Was the Lusitania an Unarmed Passenger Liner?
When the U-20 attacked the Lusitania, as stated earlier, Kapitänleutnant Schwieger fired a single torpedo. Not long after firing that single torpedo a second larger explosion tore through the ship. This explosion was also recorded in the log of the U-20 and has been the cause of much controversy over the years. What was that explosion? A second torpedo? Boiler explosion? Carried munitions?
A second torpedo is not possible. As stated above, the U-20 sank a couple ships in the area before the Lusitania arrived, and she only had two torpedoes left. Kapitänleutnant Schwieger fired only one and kept the other just in case they were to run into trouble on their way home to port. That rules out this option.
The next option is boiler explosion. I personally do not believe this option because the only evidence I have seen pointing to this is divers who have been to the wreckage and say that what they saw could be explained by a boiler explosion. To me, this is not enough evidence, especially for what the third option brings to the table.
Illegal cargo
When the Lusitania was sunk, the British claimed that the Lusitania was only carrying passengers and that she was unarmed. However, the Germans maintained that the Lusitania was carrying military supplies. Who was right? What was in the Lusitania’s cargo hold? And furthermore, was she even armed?
The Cunard Line built the Lusitania and her sister ship Mauretania with loans from the British government. In return, the Admiralty required that the ships be designed as auxiliary cruisers to be available should the country go to war. In February 1913, Winston Churchill informed Cunard chairman Alfred Booth that a war with Germany was expected and estimating the outbreak to be in September 1914. In accordance with instructions, the Lusitania, like other British liners, was refitted to carry guns. It is disputed whether or not she did actually have cannons when she sailed that final voyage. However, some testimony exists that she did carry them on her lowest deck, as the passengers were not allowed to go there. Interestingly, and perhaps most compelling, in Jane’s Fighting Ships, a copy of which U-boat commanders kept on board to identify targets, the Lusitania was listed as an auxiliary cruiser.
The fact is, not only was the Lusitania possibly armed, she was also carrying munitions. The American government disallowed most types of munitions and military supplies to be hauled on passenger liners. How is it possible that Americans were allowed aboard? Very simple. The British falsified their shipping manifests. Wilson appointed Dudley Field Malone as collector of customs for the port of New York City. Malone, knowing what was going on, rubber-stamped the manifests. What was the Lusitania carrying on her final voyage that could have caused the explosion?
To start off with, she was carrying 6 million rifle cartridges, 1,250 shell cases – all but 2 being filled with 3-inch shells – and 18 cases of fuses. Joseph Marichal, one of the Lusitania’s survivors and a former officer in the French army, supported this notion. He stated that he had distinctly heard cartridges exploding, a sound he would have been familiar with, being a former officer in the French army. However, this cargo is not the only cargo aboard that would have caused the explosion.
One more likely source was guncotton, which the British used in their mines. In the U.S. Justice Department’s archives, there is an affidavit signed by the chemist Dr. E. W. Ritter von Rettegh, who was employed by Captain Guy Gaunt, the British naval attaché in Washington D.C. Dr. von Rettegh stated that Gaunt called him to his office on April 26, 1915, and asked what effect sea water would have if it came into contact with guncotton. The chemist explained that there were two different types of gun cotton – trinitro cellulose, which sea water would not affect, and pyroxyline, which sea water could cause to suddenly explode. This was a result of specific chemical changes, which he explained in great detail. The following day, Gaunt visited the Du Pont munitions plant in Crisfield, New Jersey, and Du Pont thereupon shipped tons of pyroxyline stored in burlap bags – which are by no means waterproof – to the Cunard wharf in New York City, where it was loaded onto the Lusitania. This accounts for the item on the ship’s manifest of 3,813 40-pound containers of “cheese,” which were shipped along with 696 containers of “butter.” It is clear that these were neither butter nor cheese. They were not shipped in refrigerated compartments, Their destination was listed as the Royal Navy’s Weapons Testing Establishment, and no one filed an insurance claim for the lost “butter and cheese.”
It is my belief that it was the gun cotton that touched off the second explosion. The torpedo caused seawater to flood the forward storage compartments, where the munitions were held, causing the gun cotton to spontaneously combust, which was not sealed in watertight containers and in turn set off the other munitions.
Cover-up
This would not be a very effective conspiracy if there was no attempt to cover it up. The attempted cover-up was relatively successful, as this information is not well circulated, though it is available. This fraud was begun as soon as the bodies began washing up on shore.
Vice-Admiral Charles Henry Coke (above, left) was the man who gave the order to recall the Juno. as Hundreds of bodies began washing up on the Irish coastline, the Admiralty directed Vice-Admiral Coke “to ensure that bodies selected for the inquest had not been killed or mutilated by means which we do not wish to be made public.” The undesirable “means” they may be referring to could be mutilation from the munitions.
The investigation was headed by Lord Mersey (above, right), the same man who oversaw the RMS Titanic inquiry. Even from before the investigation began, the Admiralty told Lord Mersey to pin the blame on the ship’s captain, William Turner, much like he was to find Captain Edward Smith guilty for the Titanic sinking. In fact, director of the Admiralty’s Trade Division Richard Webb wrote Lord Mersey: “I am directed by the Board of Admiralty to inform you that it is considered politically expedient that Captain Turner the master of the Lusitania be most prominently blamed for the disaster.”
During the investigation and trials, Lord Mersey denied and disallowed all evidence that there were munitions aboard the Lusitania, and Captain Turner was not even asked what his cargo consisted of. Instead, Mersey relied on an unsworn letter from Dudley Field Malone that relied only on the first page summary of the 24-page manifest.
However, the attempt at the cover-up was less than successful.
A separate hearing on the Lusitania was held in America under Judge Julius Mayer. What the ship’s cargo actually consisted of had become more well-known. Senator Robert La Follette publicly stated, “Four days before the Lusitania sailed, President Wilson was warned in person by Secretary of State Bryan that the Lusitania had 6,000,000 rounds of ammunition on board, besides explosives; and that passengers who proposed to sail on that vessel were sailing in violation of a statute of this country, that no passengers shall travel upon a railroad train or sail upon a vessel that carries dangerous explosives.”
Consequently, American families who had lost family members on the May 7 voyage sued the Cunard Line for allowing passengers to illegally and dangerously sail with contraband munitions. Dudley Field Malone was named as the co-defendant. If he was proven guilty, he could have been indicted for involuntary manslaughter. Yet, similar to Lord Mersey’s inquiry, no evidence concerning the illicit cargo was heard at the hearing. Judge Mayer, partially relying on Mersey’s findings, ruled in favor of the Cunard Line and against the victim’s families. Judge Mayer’s hearing was missing one crucial piece of evidence: the original manifest of the Lusitania. Interestingly enough, President Wilson had personally sealed it in an envelope, marked, “Only to be opened by the President of the United States,” and had it hidden in the Treasury Department archives. President Franklin D. Roosevelt later had the manifest retrieved.
One more interesting tidbit of information that I came across took place a few decades later. During the Second World War, the British Royal Navy bombed and depth charged the wreck. Professor William Kingston from Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland said, “There’s no doubt at all about it that the Royal Navy and the British government have taken very considerable steps over the years to try to prevent whatever can be found out about the Lusitania.” It is possible that, due to the infancy of SONAR at the time, that it was confused with a U-boat. However, the Lusitania is one of the most well known wrecks of either World War, and the location is not a secret, so it is more likely that the wreck was intentionally targeted to attempt to conceal what was left of the forbidden cargo the Lusitania was carrying that fateful day of May 7.
Conclusion
While the Lusitania sinking was intended to entice the United States into the war, it did not fulfill its role immediately. There were a few different factors that played into this. First off, the war was not yet a year old in May 1915, and the American people were not subject to as much propaganda as they were by 1917. Second, the American people could sail much more safely on American ships or ships from other neutral countries. Third, it was not unknown that the British were the ones who first violated the “Cruiser Rules.”
However, mimicking the USS Maine before her and Pearl Harbor and the Twin Towers after her, once America entered the war, “Remember the Lusitania” was the rally cry of the American propagandists as they sent soldiers off to fight the “Huns.”
I mentioned the fact that the controversy behind the Lusitania sinking is more well known than that of Pearl Harbor, Tonkin Gulf, 9-11, etc. This was accomplished, to a large extent, because of the investigation of the Graham Committee. After the war, Congress commissioned the Committee to investigate the billions of war-related items that were unnecessary, undelivered, or not even put into production. One example of this is House Report no. 998 of the 66th Congress, which states, “The committee finds that there has been expended for construction upon the Government’s nitrates program to the present time the sum of $116,194,974.37, and that this expenditure produced no nitrates prior to the armistice, and contributed nothing toward the winning of the war. The nitrates program originated with the War Industries Board of the Council of National Defense, and is directly traceable to Mr. Bernard M. Baruch, chairman of the board…” The Graham Committee spent 3 years conducting investigations and published a 21-volume report, yet, incredibly, not one banker or industrialist was jailed. Interestingly enough, you will not find an entry on Wikipedia about the Graham Committee.
I did not get into the beginnings of the war, as it is its own complex jigsaw puzzle on its own, but suffice it to say, as American soldier fought in the muddy trenches of France getting paid a mere $30 per month, the elite bankers who fomented the war in the first place profited in the billions of dollars. Former Major General Smedley Butler said it best when he said, “War is a racket.” The ones who win any war are not the declared victors. It is the bankers funding the war. During the Middle Ages, the alchemists tried to change lead into gold, but they were never able to find out how to do it. The new industrialist bankers have found a way to do it. They start wars and fund both sides. When the lead stops flying, the gold rolls in as interest on national debt.
In the research I’ve done, virtually everything that we think we know about recent history is false and was manipulated by the rich elite, and if we don’t think for ourselves and actually study history from a different perspective than what we were taught, the same thing that happened to the USS Maine, Lusitania, Pearl Harbor, the Tonkin Gulf, 9/11, and as we have seen in the past months, will continue to happen.
Super Success 