The cause of the second explosion is still argued over. The Lusitania may have been torpedoed a second time - but the second explosion may not have been caused by a German torpedo, but may have come from inside the ship. The Lusitania had originally said she would take, along with her passengers, platinum, bullion, diamonds and various other precious stones, but these things were never found and port records do not list them either. She is thought to have carried, disguised as bales of fur and cheese boxes, 3-inch shells and millions of rounds of rifle ammunition instead. These were a very explosive cargo, which was forbidden by American law and should never have been on the ship.
The German submarine attack devastated the Lusitania. The ship sank within twenty minutes of when she was hit and took with her 1,201 people. Only 764 were saved.
Many American lives were lost as a result of the sinking. Americans were outraged as they were neutral in the war. The Germans were scared that America would join the war so they apologized for the attack and temporarily stopped U-boat activity.
The Germans claimed that they had a right to sink the Lusitania as she was carrying ammunition and her passengers were deliberately put at risk. Most people believed that the Germans were just lying. But could Churchill been responsible for the sinking of the Lusitania and the deaths of hundreds? Herbert Richmond, who worked at the Admiralty, wrote in his diary on the 27 February, 1915 that Churchill gave orders to the British fleet about the U-boat crews. He said that ‘survivors should be taken prisoner or shot – whichever is the most convenient.’ This shows that he was ruthless and could have had the Lusitania sunk simply if it was convenient for him. Also, Churchill is supposed to have said in a conversation with the designer of the Lusitania that the ship was ‘just another 45,000 tons of live bait,’ further evidence that he was ruthless and could have been cold-hearted enough to use the ship as bait for the German submarines.
In 1914 Churchill had written in a letter to another minister, ‘we need to get neutral ships caught up with the German submarines and the ships we most need to affect are the Americans,’ which was exactly what was happening to the Lusitania. Although the Lusitania was actually British it was carrying a lot of Americans.
Churchill and his deputy, Fisher, met two days before the sinking of the Lusitania on 5 May and decided to withdraw the Juno, the ship the Lusitania was supposed to meet up with. The Juno would not of provided much protection anyway as it was vulnerable to torpedo fire. No new orders were sent to Captain Turner though. Churchill and Fisher were neglecting their duty although by May 1915 the Gallipoli campaign was going badly wrong and taking up nearly all of Churchill’s time so he could have been distracted.
On the 6 May, U-20 sank the Candidate at 7am and the Centurion at 1pm. The Admiralty was fully aware of these attacks but still no new orders were sent to the Lusitania, further evidence that Churchill and Fisher were neglecting their duty. At 11am on 7 May, though, the Admiralty sent a signal to all British ships, ‘submarines active in southern part of Irish Channel. Last heard of 20 miles south of Coningberg Light Vessel. Make certain ‘Lusitania’ gets this.’ They might of known that this warning would be too late to save the Lusitania.
Captain Turner could have taken avoiding action against the submarines himself by zigzagging through the danger zone and traveling at night. He was also going at a greatly reduced speed. So it could be said that Turner was to blame for the sinking of the Lusitania and if he had just taken those few precautions the ship would of arrived home safely.
If it had been Churchill’s plan to sink the Lusitania then it would have been a very daring plan and, I think, extremely hard to pull off successfully. He would have needed to know exactly where the U-20 was, and, although the Admiralty had quite a good idea of where it was they could never know exactly as there is a lot of ocean and the U-20 could be on the move. Churchill would also have to of guided the Lusitania quite near to the U-20 with out arousing any suspicion. Also he couldn’t be certain that the U-20 would fire on the ship as British ships had the order to make a ramming attempt at any U-boat and the U-boat captain may have been suspicious of such an easy target. Lastly, Churchill was in France when the Lusitania was sunk and a lot of his time was taken up by the Gallipoli campaign which is why I think that it would have been almost impossible for him to pull off such a plan.
