注定的航行

1915年2月4日, the German government declared the waters around Great Britain to be a war zone and that, 2月18日, 盟军的船只将毫无征兆地被击沉. 的 Imperial German Embassy published this declaration beside the Cunard schedule in fifty American newspapers on the morning of 1 May, warning that travelers on British-flagged ships sailed at their own risk. 虽然这导致一些人取消了他们的行程 卢西塔尼亚号 sailed from New York for Liverpool that afternoon with 1,960 passengers and crew aboard.

A luxury passenger liner equipped with four immense steam turbines, 卢西塔尼亚号 因最快横渡大西洋而获得蓝绶带. While she had been built with modifications to transform her into an armed cruiser at need, she was deemed too large and costly to effectively operate as such, so Cunard was permitted to continue her service as a passenger liner. 作为战时经济， 卢西塔尼亚号第四个锅炉房被关闭了, reducing her speed—although she was still faster than German U-Boats, which Captain William Thomas Turner believed would enable her to elude them.

随着 卢西塔尼亚号 neared the British Isles, Walther Schwieger, Lieutenant-Captain of U-20 cruising just off the coast of Ireland, had already sunk three ships and was returning to base. Heavy losses of ships to German attacks had prompted the British Admiralty to issue submarine warnings, 特纳船长于5月6日收到两封, leading him to take basic precautions and double his lookouts. But he failed to adopt the Admiralty’s recommended zig-zag pattern, believing that 卢西塔尼亚号他的速度可以超过任何追击. A third Admiralty warning the morning of 7 May caused Turner to alter his course northeast towards the coastline, under the impression that submarines would keep to the open sea. 这个动作将会 卢西塔尼亚号 直接在 U-20’s 几小时内就能看到风景.

上午11点，大雾散去了.M. 和 卢西塔尼亚号 sailed on a calm sea under clear skies towards Queenstown, Ireland. 施维格首先发现了 卢西塔尼亚号 大约下午1:00.M. and began to shadow her, waiting for an opportunity to strike. 在下午2:10.M. 当她越过他的弓, Schwieger gave the order to fire one of his remaining three torpedoes, 打 卢西塔尼亚号 在桥下右舷, an impact immediately followed by a second explosion (currently believed to be a steam explosion of one of her boilers). 的 ship failed to respond as Turner promptly tried to steer her towards the coast in an effort to beach her. 发动机继续推动船前进, flooding her hull so quickly that her bow slipped under water within six minutes of the torpedo hit. 一场严重的地震使许多救生艇沉入大海, 并导致满载的船只在下水时溢出乘客, 把他们压在救生艇和船之间. 鱼雷袭击十八分钟后 卢西塔尼亚号 完全消失了, 带着她,197 passengers and crew: only 763 survived the harrowing ordeal.

后

While Germany roundly blamed the British for not heeding the warnings of submarine warfare and loudly proclaimed its right to attack 卢西塔尼亚号 作为一艘运送军用货物的巡洋舰, the extreme loss of civilian lives—especially the horrifying numbers of children and infants killed, brought swift international condemnation of Germany and its allies. Goetz, reading of the event in a newspaper that erroneously dated the sinking on 5 May instead of the 7th, 在他最初的勋章上用了那个日期, thereby creating a golden propaganda opportunity for Great Britain. 对世界对这次袭击的反应感到惊讶, the War Office of the Kingdom of Bavaria banned further manufacture of the medal and ordered existing examples to be confiscated—but examples had already reached England, where it was promoted as proof that the attack had been planned in Berlin 和 medals published before the actual act had been committed.

的 British Foreign Office created die-cast iron replicas of the May 5th medal and sold them for a shilling each in boxes featuring an 图像 of the ship and accompanied by a propaganda leaflet designed to further inflame public opinion against Germany. 的头。 卢西塔尼亚号 Souvenir Medal Committee later estimated that a quarter million were sold with proceeds going to the Red Cross and St. 邓斯坦的失明士兵和水手旅馆. Americans Gustave Sandstrom and Clarence Mahood also created and sold 白色金属版的奖牌. 它们的稀有程度仅次于格茨的原作, and are easily identified by what is commonly called the "goofy pumpkin head" on the skeleton selling tickets, 如 奖牌复制品的第二视图.

无情的沉没 卢西塔尼亚号, with its attendant loss of 124 Americans and 94 children among the nearly 1,200名受害者, 无可挽回地改变了美国公众对德国的看法, although it would be several more years before President Wilson would finally ask Congress to declare war on Germany, 它在1917年4月6日做了什么.