Roads to the Great War: The Lusitania and the Preparedness Movement

O Lusitania, Empress of the Sea,

Art thou dead an buried in the deep,

With all thy freight of human souls,

Victims of the Huns' most hellish darts.

O Lusitania, my tears are falling for thee. . .

Phoebe Amory, Survivor

The sinking of RMS Lusitania was a powerful human tragedy, as H.G. Wells later wrote, "All the achievements of 19th century civilization seemed to many to be following in the downward wake of the Lusitania." We are not a attempting a comprehensive look at the event, though. Here we are focusing on one important result of the disaster—how the sinking helped shape the decision by the United States to fight in what had started out as a European war, from which the nation had determinedly tried to remain neutral.

The sinking of the great ship did not cause America to declare war—that would not come for two more years—but it decisively shifted American public attitudes against Germany and toward the Allies, and resulted in the departure of the last "true neutral" among President Wilson's advisors, Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan. However, it was former President Theodore Roosevelt's response that best captured the nation's immediate response: "That's murder . . . this represents not merely piracy, but piracy on a vaster scale of murder than any oldtime pirate ever practiced. This is the warfare which destroyed Louvain and Dinant, and hundreds of men, women and children in Belgium. It is warfare against innocents traveling on the ocean, and to our fellow countrywomen, who are among the sufferers. It seems inconceivable that we can refrain from taking action." ( 7 May 1915, Interview)