The sinking of Lusitania in May 7, 1915 resulted to the death of 1198 people, among them 123 Americans (Larson, 2015). This has been regarded by historians as having changed the perception of Germany to the world and compelled the United States of America to join World War I in April 1917.
Room 40 in Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by: Erik Larson
Erick Larson is a prolific American historical non-fiction author who has written several national bestsellers such as The Devil in White (2006), In the Garden of Beasts (2011), and Thunderstruck (2002). His book Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania (2015) is an emotional tale of an ill-fated final voyage of a luxury liner of Britain. It is set in the backdrop of the sinking of Titanic, and by then, there were more hubris among the British that the ocean liner was more unsinkable than the Titanic. The events of the tale are juxtaposed between the industrialization progressive era in Britain and the World War I, where there was mounting need for social change in the society. The sinking of Lusitania in May 7, 1915 resulted to the death of 1198 people, among them 123 Americans (Larson, 2015). This has been regarded by historians as having changed the perception of Germany to the world and compelled the United States of America to join World War I in April 1917.
One of the conspicuous sagas surrounding the sinking of Lusitania is the awareness of the British intelligence in Room 40 of the perils of the waters that were traversed by the ship towards Liverpool. Room 40 was an ultra-secret spy room which was dedicated in intercepting and codebreaking German messages, as well as monitoring German fleets. In august 1914, the British intelligence came into possession of 3 copies of German Codebook and was used to decipher German communications (Larson, 2015). On the 1st of May 1915, Lusitania, captained by William turner set sail from New York City to Liverpool, having more than 2000 people on board, and on the same day, the waters between Ireland and Britain were declared as war zones by the Germans (Larson, 2015). During its voyage, there were several activities which happened in Room 40, that raised questions on the role of the admiralty on the sinking of the ship. British intelligence had intercepted messages detailing the presence of the heavy U-20 Submarine, prowling the Ireland’s west coast, but failed to divulge for fear of revealing the existence of their code breaking abilities (Larson, 2015). They were also in the know of several vessels which had been attacked by the U-20 in the waters about to be traversed by Lusitania en-route to Liverpool (Larson, 2015).
Room 40 led by admiralty Oliver did not issue advance warnings to the captain of Lusitania, of the risks posed by the U-20, or redirecting it to safer waters until the threat posed by the U-20 had receded. He had however warned other war vessels of the dangers posed by the Germans, redirected them, but failed to send any destroyers to escort Lusitania to dock (Larson, 2015). On April 15th, Room 40 was made aware that all ships sailing under the British flag in the Northern Channel would be attacked without discrimination, but Lusitania was not informed (Larson, 2015). In the afternoon of 7th May 1915, Lusitania was attacked by the German U-20, but the admiralty in charge of Room 40 not only purposely slowed down the rescue mission, but also recalled some warships sent to aid in rescuing people (Larson, 2015).
To conclude, the activities in Room 400, especially by Admiralty Oliver have been speculated by scholars as being selfish, where they prioritized their warships more than human lives on board Lusitania. Failure to provide information to Lusitania or sent escort bouts resulted to a catastrophe which later broke American Neutrality towards joining World War 1.
References
Larson, E. (2015) Dead wake: the last crossing of the Lusitania First., New York: Crown Publishers.
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