673. The First World War: The Submarine Strikes (Part 3)

26:04Dominic Sandbrook:There's a Jimmy Carter side to him, I think, that people say. And the Germans actually say, they say in writing, all the Americans want, they will do anything to stay out of this war. They simply do not have the guts to fight. Might they have been slightly more careful if it had been Teddy Roosevelt, say? Surely, yeah. Someone of that ilk in the White House. Teddy Roosevelt has gutted that the Americans aren't fighting in the First World War. He loves a war, doesn't he? He loves a war. He loves two things, Teddy Roosevelt. He loves a war and he loves Oliver Cromwell. Well, it makes sense. Doesn't he like hunting as well?

26:33Dominic Sandbrook:Bears. Well, he's the father of the teddy bear, isn't he? This is a side issue. But I think it's important because that presents Wilson as the slightly ineffectual man of peace that he will prove himself to be in due course. A man of war and of useless treaty making. The 17th of April, the Lusitania leaves Liverpool and it crosses the Atlantic, east to west, without incident, and a week later in New York, so the 24th, It arrives in New York Harbor, and it's due to return on the 1st of May. Now, meanwhile, the German ambassador in Washington, who's a man called Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, he is very worried that the Americans are underestimating the dangers of all this.

27:16Dominic Sandbrook:And he decides he's going to put an official warning in the American press, so in American newspapers. The official warning, this advert, runs in the American press, and it says, if you get on an Atlantic ship, be warned, you are travelling into a war zone and that British ships are legitimate targets. Travellers sailing in the war zone on the ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk. Well, I've got two questions. One is, are there American liners? And if there are, why aren't people just going on the American liners? And the second question is, is the Lusitania, because it's the most famous British liner, a prize in and of itself?

28:00And so therefore, do the U-boats know it's coming and are they looking out for it?

28:03Dominic Sandbrook:Okay, two interesting questions. So first of all, interestingly, and for reasons that I don't know the answer to, American ships don't seem to have been big rivals for the ocean liner business. So at this point, it's all the Germans, some Dutch ships, but also, but obviously British ships, but you don't really hear much mention of American ocean liners. So I guess there must be smaller American boats, but not big, luxurious ocean liners of this kind. So that's the first answer. And the second answer, I forgot what the question was. What was the question? Would the Germans consciously be looking out for the Lusitania because it would constitute a massive prize?

28:41Dominic Sandbrook:No, I don't think so. I think, well, there are tons of conspiracy theories about whether the Lusitania was deliberately targeted or whether, in fact, the British were actually secretly controlling the whole thing. Most of those conspiracy theories, I think, are rubbish. I think the Germans are aware that the Lusitania exists. It's sailing at this time. It's a big ship and it's the fastest ship. But I don't think they set out deliberately to target this particular ship. Although later on it was sort of claimed that they did. But I don't think that's the case at all. There's no evidence for it. As we will see, they end up coming across it by chance rather than by design.

29:16Dominic Sandbrook:Though this is controversial. if you go onto the internet, I mean, Tom, you could spend, I know you've got better, I think you've actually got better internet discipline than I have, but you could easily lose days of your life falling down Lusitania rabbit holes. I imagine we're going to be coming to the conspiracy theories, so I might wait till then. This ambassador has prepared this advert, but just one small thing. For various humdrum technical reasons, the advert is delayed. So the advert doesn't actually appear in American newspapers. It doesn't first appear until Friday the 30th of April, which is the day before the Lusitania is due to leave New York.

29:54Dominic Sandbrook:And indeed some papers are actually printing it the next day, the Saturday, the day the passengers are boarding. You wouldn't want to see that, would you? No, like what's in the paper today? Oh, an advert telling me that if I get on this ship, I'll probably die. So we come to the day of the Lusitania's departure, that's Saturday the 1st of May. And it's due to leave at 10 o 'clock in the morning from Manhattan's Pier 54. The Lusitania is still only eight years old. So it's one of the world's great ocean liners. And as you would expect, it's a tremendous spectacle. She's been painted gray, the funnels, but still a spectacular sight, nine decks, 31 ,000 tons, 800 feet long, almost.

30:32Dominic Sandbrook:There's a huge hustle and bustle as everybody's boarding. That said, because of the war and the inevitable fears, so as you said, who would be crossing the Atlantic, the answer is a lot fewer people than normal. There are 1 ,264 passengers on the Lusitania and 702 crew, so a total of 1 ,966, let's say just under 2 ,000. But that is less than half the Lusitania's total capacity. And of those people who are on the ship, the vast majority are British, there are lots of Canadians, and there are 159 citizens of the United States of America. So that's the passengers, but more controversial is the cargo.

31:14It was very common on transatlantic voyages for ships to carry cargo that could be put

31:21Dominic Sandbrook:to military use. The Lusitania is carrying copper wire, machine parts, these kinds of things in the hold, huge quantities of sort of wire and stuff that clearly could be used by arms manufacturers. And are they carrying any weapons or ammunition? The short answer is yes, they are. They're carrying 4 million rounds of Remington.303 rifle ammunition. They're carrying 1 ,000 cases of shrapnel-filled artillery shells. They're carrying 16 cases of percussion fuses. They're carrying tons and tons, 46 tons in fact, of aluminium powder, which is used for making explosives. And who sent this? American manufacturers.

32:08Dominic Sandbrook:It's being bought. To the British Army? To British... Armaments manufacturers. Yeah, armaments manufacturers. Exactly, British factories. Now, this is incredibly controversial. So later on, after the Lusitania sank, the Germans said, look at this, I mean, you're carrying war contraband. This is obviously war stuff. But the American government's position was, You know, this is not an arms trade between two nations. This is completely standard on transatlantic shipping. This is, and I quote, a private legal shipment of small arms. The rifle ammunition is the kind that would have gone back and forth between Britain and America during peacetime, and it can be used by private citizens, and it's continued in wartime as well.

32:56Dominic Sandbrook:And in no way does this violate United States neutrality. And I think a fair-minded observer would surely say the Americans are stretching a point here. And the Germans, obviously, are not being unreasonable in saying you are shipping military material. The one thing I would say, though, is that this is in no way a secret. Everybody knows that Cunard are doing this. It has been well known for months that ocean liners carry cargo like this. and the british and american position is well it doesn't really matter because the big issue is the safety of the passengers and you the germans as you know supposedly decent civilized people you should put the safety of the passengers first and basically you know you should do everything in your power to save their lives and the fact that the ship is also carrying munitions is neither in or there i mean it's kind of basically using civilians as human shields to kind of protect military targets.

33:58I think that's a pretty fair assessment. I mean, I don't want to sound unpatriotic.

34:02Dominic Sandbrook:Yeah, if you had made that assessment in an article in the Morning Post in 1915, there would have been a mob outside your house. Yeah, white feathers all round. Yeah, white feathers, exactly. But I think it's completely reasonable. I think if there are German listeners to this podcast, they would definitely be raising an eyebrow at this and saying, come on. I mean, I don't think it's reasonable that you're transporting all this stuff and pretending it's just a civilian ship. Anyway, the passengers, a lot of them are very anxious. The German warning has now appeared in 50 American newspapers. Some of them ran it on the Friday, some on the Saturday morning.

34:34Dominic Sandbrook:And one paper, very famously, you can see clippings online, actually runs it next to a Cunard advert for the Lusitania. So next to each other, it's like, sail the Lusitania. And next to it is a thing saying, if you sail the Lusitania, we will kill you. You'll get blown up. basically there's a nice book on the sort of very colorful book on the Lusitania by Greg King and Penny Wilson which came out about 10 years ago and this has loads of nice stories about passengers discussing the warning as they're boarding the ship so there's a group that we'll come back to there's a family called the Pearls and they have a nanny called Alice Lyons we'll come back to them in the second half and Alice Lyons is British she's very young she brings it up with the Pearl.

35:17Dominic Sandbrook:She's very anxious about it. And Mrs. Pearl says to her, take no notice, dear. It is just propaganda. There's a suffragette called Margaret Mackworth, and she's boarding the ship with her father, Viscount Rhonda. And she remembers later, she's a survivor, she remembered later that the passengers were discussing the warnings, and a lot of them are very angry, feeling ran strong, and that we should be driven off our own boat by German threats after we'd already booked our passage was unthinkable. The authentic voice of the British consumer. Yeah. We've paid good money for these tickets. To send us the warning now is disgraceful.

35:54Because presumably there wouldn't be travel insurance. I mean, you couldn't cancel a ticket because of that.

35:58Dominic Sandbrook:Well, maybe there is, I don't know. But imagine trying to claim, make a claim into travel insurance in 1915. It's difficult enough now. Doing it then would be a nightmare. And one of the passengers, interestingly, has had a very specific warning. And this is, we love a millionaire a doomed millionaire traveling on a boat we so do and uh i'd say it's our signature yeah this is a 37 year old millionaire called alfred gwynne vanderbilt and he's of the vanderbilt shipping and railroad dynasty vanderbilt is an extremely rich man and he was generally described as a sportsman for his love of elite sport like you tom yeah but his choice of sports were probably a little different from yours because his sports were fox hunting and carriage racing kind of like Prince Philip.

36:42Dominic Sandbrook:Prince Philip, exactly. Now, before he gets on the boat that morning, he gets a telegram that says to him, do not get on the Lusitania. The Lusitania is going to be torpedoed. And it's signed with the single word, morte, death. I mean, this is very, very reminiscent, Dominic, of what you might call the Titanic mythos. I would call it Titanic mythos. Yeah, I would. I absolutely would. The trouble with this story is I've looked into it and I can't find where it comes from. And I'm curious about how anyone would know, because Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, we described him as a doomed millionaire. So, spoiler alert, he's not telling his story in the 1930s.

37:23Maybe he told his valet, and the valet survived. I don't know. Maybe. Hey, look, Dominic, it's a mythos. Don't dig down too hard.

37:31Dominic Sandbrook:No one knew the Lusitania was going to be torpedoed. So I think this was either a jape from one of his posh friends, or somebody made this story up, and now it's just told and retold in histories ever since. On the quayside is the Cunard general agent in New York, who's a man called Charles Sumner. And he gives a press conference. He says to the press, there is no risk whatsoever. When you hear that getting on a ship. They couldn't hit an elephant at this disc. Right. Don't get on that ship. Lusitania, he says, is too fast for any submarine. No German vessel of war can get near her. And the same message comes from the ship's captain.

38:07Dominic Sandbrook:him. So we love a sea dog on the show. But this captain, the captain of the Lusitania, is not a great charmer, William Turner. He's seen as very gruff. He's not like Captain Smith in the Titanic, one of his greatest mariners. The only really interesting thing about him, his nickname is Bowler Bill, because every time he gets a new ship, he buys a new bowler hat, which he wears. Do you know, I've been hard on Captain Smith, as you'll know, but I don't think that you should wear a bowler hat if you're captaining an ocean-going liner. I think you should wear your nautical hat like Captain Smith did.

38:39Dominic Sandbrook:If I was getting on a ship and I saw three things, one, an advert telling me that if I get on a ship, I will probably be sunk. If I saw that, if I heard a man from the company running the ship saying, this ship is unsinkable, I probably wouldn't get on. And then if I saw the captain wearing an inappropriate hat, that would massively, that's a massive red flag, no? It really is, isn't it? Yeah. Captain whatever his name is, Bowler Bill, Captain Turner, he tells the press as well, we should be going faster than any submarine can travel. They're not likely to sneak up on us. The Titanic is unsinkable.

39:14Dominic Sandbrook:Right. So anyway, the voyage departure is delayed. They have to wait because there's people coming from another boat, and at midday they finally get underway. There are people waving handkerchiefs, cameras, all the usual stuff. Now, meanwhile, the day before, a submarine called U-20, commanded by Capitaine Leutnant Walter Schwieger has set off from North Germany and it's gone across the North Sea around the top of Scotland then down the west coast of Ireland and then U-20 is going to come back into the Irish Sea from the south. And the Admiralty in Britain have been tracking her using intercepted German messages.

39:55Dominic Sandbrook:They're decoding German messages. But this is so secret that they've decoded. They have this Room 40, it's called, in the Admiralty, the decoding room. And it's so secret that the warnings are not being widely distributed. So it's like Bletchley Park in the Second World War. Like Enigma in the Second World War, exactly. On the 5th of May, so this is after the Lusitania has set off, U-20 intercepts a merchant ship called the Earl of Latham off the coast of County Cork. And that evening, the Royal Navy sends a warning to all ships. submarines active off the south coast of Ireland. On the 6th of May, U-20 intercepts a British steamer called the SS Candidate off the coast of County Wexford and then another ship, the SS Centurion.

40:42Dominic Sandbrook:And in each case, the crew of those ships is able to escape before the U-boat sinks them. If the U-boats are operating off the south coast of Ireland, there's no thought of going kind of around the north and to Liverpool that way. You could do that, but there's no reason to believe that there aren't submarines there. I mean, the submarines are all around the British and Irish waters. So all this time, the Lusitania has been steaming east. And that morning, the 6th, she is about 860 miles west, and she is well clear of the war zone. But by the evening of the 6th, she is less than 400 miles from the war zone.

41:14Dominic Sandbrook:And about 8 o 'clock that night, Captain Turner gets two messages. Submarines are still active off the south coast of Ireland, and, quote, avoid headlands, pass harbours at full speed, steer mid-channel course. and so we come to dawn on the fatal morning the 7th of may 1915 it is very foggy captain turner posts extra lookouts and he slows his speed to just 15 knots and he sounds the foghorn now some passengers don't like this they say why would you sound the foghorn you know you're drawing attention to our presence as we're approaching the war zone but he says well it's foggy this is what you do this is just this is just our ship sail because he's conscious that he's entering During the war zone, he orders the 22 lifeboats swung out ready just in case.

42:01Dominic Sandbrook:So, you know, he's thinking ahead. It wouldn't be reassuring, would it? Not terribly. At 10 o 'clock, the fog begins to lift. And as midday approaches, they've increased speed to 18 knots. It's a lovely, sunny, clear day. At 11.52, so just before midday, they get another warning from the Admiralty by Telegraph. U-boats active in southern part of Irish Channel. and then at one o 'clock another message submarine five miles south of cape clear proceeding west when sighted at 10 a.m now this is a false alarm this is a false report but it gives turner the impression because they are clear of that by this point that they are past the danger in fact they're not past the danger the u-boat is ahead of them at this point it's one o 'clock in the afternoon on 7th of May, the passengers can see the coast of Ireland in the distance.

42:53Dominic Sandbrook:And some of them have actually gathered on the port side of the ship, that's the left, to look out and to spot the coast of Ireland. So they're very close now. The voyage is almost over. Meanwhile, on U-20, Kapitän Leutnant Schwieger is running low on fuel, and he's got only three torpedoes left. He is at the end of his own voyage. And partly because of the fog, he has decided, let's call it a day and let us go back to base in Germany. And then at 20 minutes past one, he's called to the conning tower, as it's called, of the U-boat. The lookout says, I've spotted something on the horizon. It looks like an enormous ocean liner.

43:35Dominic Sandbrook:And Schwieger immediately orders the U-boat to dive. They dive to a depth of six fathoms, which is about 36 feet. and to head for the target. And so they head for the target, they go closer and closer and closer. It is now 1.40 and the Lusitania is approaching the old head of Kinsale, which is about 13 miles away. And Schwieger is very close to his target now. And then to his horror, the Lusitania turns and turns away. He's gutted, he's lost the chance for this fantastic prize. and then to his disbelief the Lusitania turns very slightly again back in range back into his sights and he breathes a massive sigh of relief it is now 10 minutes past two the Lusitania is finally in range and on U20 Volta Schwieger gives the order to fire my goodness will it hit will the Lusitania Sink?

44:35Only one way to find out. Join us after the break.

44:42This episode is brought to you by The Times and by The Sunday Times. Now, if there is one thing that history, and indeed Bob Dylan, teaches us, it is that the times, they are always a-changing. And Dominic, I guess we're living in changing times now, what with America attacking Iran and oil crises so do you think that the lessons of that for Keir Starmer are rosy so looking at the career of Edward Heath for instance who was prime minister in the previous

45:10Dominic Sandbrook:oil crisis it didn't work out brilliantly for Ted Heath to be honest actually he and Keir Starmer I think are quite similar they're from relatively humble backgrounds and there's a slight sense of floundering which they have in common but their bigger point is you never really know what's around the corner do you because when you look at history the future is always pretty uncertain But, you know, the facts, they shouldn't be uncertain. And that, of course, is where The Times and The Sunday Times come in. Yeah, and I would say that understanding the news is absolutely vital when you're navigating an increasingly uncertain and unpredictable world.

45:42Dominic Sandbrook:So to subscribe to The Times and The Sunday Times, visit thetimes.com. Are you looking for support in your weight management journey? Zet Bound to Zepatide may be able to help. Z-Bound is a prescription medicine used with a reduced calorie diet and increased physical activity to help adults with obesity, or some adults with overweight who also have weight-related medical problems to lose excess body weight and keep the weight off. Z-Bound is approved as a 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10, 12.5, or 15 milligram injection. Z-Bound contains terzepatide and should not be used with other terzepatide-containing products or any GLP-1 receptor agonist medicines.

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47:01Taking ZepBound with a sulfonylurea or insulin may cause low blood sugar. Side effects include nausea, diarrhea, and vomiting, which can cause dehydration and worsen kidney problems. Talk to your doctor. Call 1-800-545-5979 or visit zepbounds.lily.com. Ready to soundtrack your summer? With Red Bull Summer All Day Play, you choose a playlist that fits your summer vibe the best. Are you a festival fanatic, a deep end DJ, a road dog, or a trail mixer? Just add a song to your chosen playlist and put your summer on track. Red Bull Summer All Day Play. Red Bull gives you wings.

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47:53Hello, everyone, and welcome back to The Rest is History, where it is 10 minutes past two on Friday, the 7th of May, 1915, and the German U-boat captain has just given order to fire on the ocean liner Lusitania. And almost instantly on board the Lusitania, the 18-year-old lookout, who's a guy called Leslie Morton, spots a thin streak of foam speeding towards the ship, And that's nothing that you want to see when you're a lookout in a time of war, is it?

48:22Dominic Sandbrook:Not at all. So Morton shouts, torpedoes coming on the starboard side. Now, actually, he's wrong. There's just one torpedo, although this has given rise to yet more conspiracy theories. Morton said later, I saw the torpedo coming. A white streak about two feet below the surface. It struck just below the bridge. There was a muffled explosion and a cloud of coal dust and steam shot up. then almost instantly there came a second explosion far greater more shattering the ship trembled like a living thing now schwieger the guy who gave the order to fire is watching from the periscope of u-20 and he records a very similar description in his ship's log the torpedo hitting right behind the bridge was where he thought it hit although he was wrong an explosion and then a second explosion the ship stops immediately he writes and heels over to starboard very quickly immersing simultaneously at the bow.

49:15Dominic Sandbrook:And it's at this point, he said, the name Lusitania becomes visible in golden letters. And it is famous enough that this is really a big deal. He'll think, yeah, this is a great kill. But I think up to this point, he didn't know it was the Lusitania. He just thought it's a bloody big ship. Anyway, this talk of a second explosion, very controversial for this reason. We mentioned all the ammunition and stuff that's being carried, but that was non-explosive in other words to pass the u.s sort of uh you know port authority regulations you couldn't carry explosives on a ship that might blow up so it can't have been all this so there's a conspiracy theory ever since the lusitania must have been carrying secret explosives not recorded in the kind of ships manifest or whatever but i think this is bonkers most historians think this is bonkers and this what was actually happening was something to do with the boilers.

50:13Dominic Sandbrook:It's always something to do with the boilers, isn't it? It is, yeah. Same with the Titanic. So this huge geyser of kind of water and shrapnel and smoke and debris erupts above the deck of the Lusitania. As one passenger said, it sounded like a million ton hammer hitting a steam boiler 100 feet high. And immediately Captain Turner, Bowler Bill, shouts to the quartermaster, he says, turn towards the Irish coast. But the ship has already lost control and the ship is not responding to the ship's wheel. Turner says, put the engines into reverse. We need to stop the ship. But the ship is basically not responding to anything now.

50:51Dominic Sandbrook:Meanwhile, the wireless operator has already sent out an SOS. This is within moments of the ship being hit by the torpedo. And he's transmitting the ship's position south of Kinsale on the coast of County Cork. Remember, the torpedo hit at 10 past two. So at 2.14, the power fails. and the whole of the ship is plunged into darkness. So the electricity has failed, the electric lifts are shut down, and there are actually crew members who are heading up to the deck to launch the lifeboats who are trapped in the lifts. God, oh, how awful. Already the starboard compartments of the ship are flooding badly.

51:29Dominic Sandbrook:The ship is beginning to list, to sort of tip towards starboard. The foc'sle at the front of the ship is close to going under, so it's going down very, very quickly. And a minute later at 2.15, so this is five minutes after the torpedo hit, Captain Turner gives the order to abandon ship and to start launching the lifeboats. So some of this may sound reminiscent of the series we did about Titanic or the shows we did about Titanic in Ireland. The difference, though, is people who remember the Titanic series, the Titanic drama, what makes it so riveting is that it unfolds in some ways in slow motion.

52:06Dominic Sandbrook:It's a slow puncture, isn't it? Yeah, it takes two hours for Titanic to sink. But this is less than 20 minutes of just abject, kind of desperate, urgent panic. There's no kind of women and children first stuff this time? I think it's much too chaotic. Everyone just kind of ploughing off to get in the life base. Well, we'll come to the women and children first issue because there's some very, very gallant behaviour. I mean, there's no doubt about that. But there isn't the sort of ordered dance that you get on the Titanic. You know, the elaborate procedures. There's no band playing on the deck. No, no band playing on the deck.

52:42Dominic Sandbrook:Now, the other big difference, I guess, between Lusitania and Titanic, which affects your women and children first issue, is the Lusitania does have enough lifeboats. So the Lusitania has 48 lifeboats, and that is enough for all the 1 ,960 people on the ship. The problem is that the ship is now tilting so much, It's listening to starboard so badly that you basically can't use the boats on that side. Because they're starting to sink into the water. Well, they've swung out wildly. They're on ropes. They've swung out from the ship. And the other thing is, because you're tilted, life rates on the other side, to get them clear of the ship is going to be really, really difficult.

53:22Dominic Sandbrook:Because if you drop them, they'll kind of bump into the... Bump into the, yeah, the side of the ship. So it's a very, very chaotic scene and a scene of sort of desperate panic. they are lowering lifeboats but they're overturning while they're being lowered there are stories of lifeboats overturning and tipping the people into the sea or lifeboats being launched and then tipping over straight away and passengers jumping into the lifeboats from above and all of this kind of thing so actually of those 48 lifeboats only six of them were lowered successfully and many of them at that point were massively overcrowded with people and one of them actually overturned as soon as it landed in the water, and everybody fell out.

54:07Dominic Sandbrook:The lifeboat then was turned over again by a wave, and everybody started clambering back onto it again. This only lasts for a few minutes, all this kind of stuff, because just 18 minutes after it was hit by the torpedo, the Lusitania begins to plunge down towards the seabed. And it is the most terrifying spectacle, as with the Titanic. So as it sinks, the funnels, the grey-painted funnels, they create whirlpools as they go down. and these whirlpools suck in some of the people who are swimming for their lives. Captain Turner, Bowler Bill, is on the deck. He's near the bridge and he's holding the ship's logbook.

54:43Dominic Sandbrook:He's behaving as a captain should, frankly. But he is swept off the deck by a wave and he's swept into the sea. He manages to swim towards a chair that's floating in the water and he clings onto this chair, basically clings onto it for three hours. Does he keep the logbook? I think he loses the logbook. I don't know, actually. Surely it would be sodden. Captain Smith would have kept it. He would, absolutely. Well, surely Captain Smith would. Isn't that the case that Captain Smith was seen some years later after the Titanic in a New York bar? Yes. Playing the piano, no? Yes. Was he not playing the piano?

55:16Dominic Sandbrook:I think he was singing. Sea shanties. Of course he was. Like that bloke in COVID who gave up his job as a postman. Yeah, the thick jersey. Now, as with the Titanic, there are some terrible stories about the people in the lifeboats. And here is just one of them, because we can't go through all of them as we did with Titanic. It's a very good one episode. So there was a young Canadian woman called Charlotte Pye, and she was traveling with her 18-month-old daughter Marjorie. They were helped into a lifeboat by a man who gave them his life belt. As the Lusitania sank, it toppled almost on top of their lifeboat.

55:49Dominic Sandbrook:And meanwhile, loads more people were jumping into their lifeboat, and in the chaos, their lifeboat tipped over. And both Charlotte and her 18-month-old daughter Marjorie were thrown into the water. and Marjorie who's screaming for her mother is basically ripped away by a wave. Charlotte loses touch with her. She dies. And Charlotte is then dragged under by the tide. I shall never forget the agony of it, she said later. While I was under the water, I felt my end had come. And she passes out and she comes to moments later, floating amid the wreckage of the ship, surrounded by bodies. And she said, those that were living were screaming and shouting, wanting to be saved.

56:29Dominic Sandbrook:She clings onto some wreckage, somehow manages to stay afloat, and she's eventually rescued by three men who have got onto an upturned boat, and they sort of drag her up onto this boat. And then they were all eventually rescued by people who came out from the coast of Ireland on little boats to look for survivors. And is the body of her baby found? Never found. Never found. So that was the end of Marjorie. Very sad. Now, as with Titanic, there aren't exact figures for the casualties. There's lots of debate about how many people died. Probably, let's go with the most common, 767 passengers and crew were rescued and 1 ,194 people were killed.

57:09Dominic Sandbrook:So actually, you were better off on the Lusitania than you were on the Titanic. So a 4 out of 10 survival rate, so a little bit better than Titanic. Although better to be a woman on Titanic, I suppose, than just to take your chances of either gender on the Lusitania. But you mentioned about women and children first. The Titanic, by and large, children survive. In this case, 94 of the dead were children, and even more scandalously, 128 of the dead were American. And most of the bodies were never recovered. And among the dead, there are, you go through the list. I mean, there are people who were prominent at the time and are now forgotten, so sort of novelists and art collectors and engineers and whatnot.

57:55And what about the American millionaire, what's his name, Vanderbilt?

58:00Dominic Sandbrook:Vanderbilt. Well, he is by far the most famous casualty. We love a millionaire behaving well, a doomed millionaire behaving gallantly, and he absolutely did behave gallantly. Yeah, because we've just recently been doing a series of shows in Ireland, haven't we, about Titanic, and we pondered whether Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk would behave as well as american plutocrats did back in the 1910s an open question i think yeah i mean it's just know what the listeners think so vanderbilt behaved splendidly he was very impressive lots of passengers said they saw him talking to a young mother carrying a baby and he's saying to her i will find you an extra life jacket and he couldn't find her an extra life jacket so he took his own life jacket off and he gave it to this woman and this woman actually may have been the woman we've just described, Charlotte Pye.

58:51Dominic Sandbrook:There are different descriptions, so it's not entirely clear, but it may well have been her. And the ship's barber who escaped said later that he saw Vanderbilt, and I quote, trying to put life jackets on women and children, plural. The ship was going down fast. I never saw Vanderbilt after that. All I saw in the water was children everywhere. Good on him. Yeah, good on him. And then the other story that really sticks in my mind the the longest lived person to survive the Lusitania was an American girl called Audrey Pearl I already mentioned the Pearl family very briefly in the first half oh with the nanny the nervous English nanny so Audrey they were an American family and Audrey was three months old when she got on the Lusitania she was traveling with her parents and her older siblings and she was with her brother Stuart who was five and they were in their cabin and they were being fed by this English nanny, Alice Lyons.

59:44Dominic Sandbrook:And Alice Lyons was 17. Right. She came from Suffolk. And she was feeding Audrey. She'd taken them basically downstairs when the torpedo struck. And Alice, they don't know where the rest of the family are, but Alice, this nanny, was showing tremendous courage. She manages to get the children upstairs and into a lifeboat. and there unbelievably or perhaps very believably a frenchman used the opportunity of being in the lifeboat to try to crack onto her so this frenchman said to her that's very french behavior he whispers in her ear he says you have perhaps lost your husband do not worry i am wealthy i will look after you i don't think she took him up on that uh that offer anyway alice and the two children Stuart and Audrey survived and they were eventually I'm happy to say reunited with Mr.

1:00:37Dominic Sandbrook:And Mrs. Pearl who had also survived and been picked up by steamers from the shore and Alice Lyons the nanny died aged 100 in 1997 oh my god and if you think that's mind-blowing Audrey the baby lived to the age of 95 and died in 2011 god that's incredible I mean that really blows your That kind of messes with your sense of kind of historical periodisation. There's somebody who basically was on the Lusitania, lived to see the David Cameron premiere show. Well, how lucky for her. She wouldn't have wanted to miss that. She'd have been able to read. Which of your books was most recently published then?

1:01:19Dominic Sandbrook:I think Millennium. Millennium. She'd have been able to read Millennium and that killed her. Well, maybe it was whatever, Seasons in the Sun. State of Emergency, the Heath years. I mean, she was so depressed by that that she just, I can't live on. I'm finished. I need, give me more, Tony Benn. Give me more. Right. Now, we should just mention some of the conspiracy theories about the Biscitania. Yeah, I've been waiting for this. So the conspiracy theory is that it's actually loaded with explosives. Well, there's multiple conspiracy theories, Tom. And we actually don't have time for all of them.

1:01:46Dominic Sandbrook:So number one is, yes, it was carrying like secret explosives. It was hit by the German torpedo. What destroyed the ship was the second explosion, which was the secret explosives. And so it's not really the Germans' fault at all. It's the British' fault. But people don't rate that. Historians don't rate that. And generally, the theme that runs through a lot of these conspiracy theories is that it's obscurely Britain's fault. So they're very popular among sort of American isolationists who would now probably be of quite a MAGA tendency. I mean, in a way, it reflects well on the reputation of the British spy agencies for kind of cunning.

1:02:21Dominic Sandbrook:Yes. That's how I see it. Now, we come to the second conspiracy theory, and this is by far the one that has the most traction. in that particular community. This is that basically the British wanted the Lusitania to be sunk. And that actually it's really the fault of the first Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill. God, what is it about American isolationists and Churchill? They just think he's a bad person. I mean, we know what it is. He's the real villain in the war, right? He is the real villain in every war. And they think Churchill is the real villain of this story. I mean, there is a letter or something that Churchill writes at the beginning of 1915.

1:02:59Dominic Sandbrook:Well, listen, he loves the sunk ship, doesn't he? Yeah. Because he was all over the sinking of the Titanic and said how proud it makes him feel to be British. He wrote a letter at some point to somebody, and I cannot remember the exact details, which probably shows that I'm part of the conspiracy. He wrote a letter to somebody in the British government and he said it would be absolutely wonderful if the Germans sank a passenger liner because that would look great. And, you know, I think this would be brilliant. It would bring the Americans into the war. I mean, it's mad that both the Germans and the British are saying it would be great if it got sunk.

1:03:27Dominic Sandbrook:So the claim is that basically Churchill deliberately put the Lusitania in harm's way, that he could have diverted it, he could have provided an escort for it, because he wanted a sinking to get the Americans into the war. And this is actually, this is clearly complete rubbish. So basically, it would have been mad to give the Lusitania an escort, because the Lusitania was so fast. It would be so fast, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. It would be better for the Lusitania to just rush across. I mean, if you've won the Blue Ribbon, there's no way that anyone can keep up with you. No. And also, the thing about the warnings, as I've already described, they were getting loads of warnings the whole time.

1:04:03Dominic Sandbrook:I mean, Captain Turner, Bowler Bill, he basically said, I got so many warnings, you know, I was just overwhelmed with warnings. Yeah. I mean, what do you expect me to do? I was just sailing the right way, that I got tons of warnings, and unfortunately, it was sunk by a U-boat, end of story. So I don't really believe in the conspiracy theories, to cut a long story short. I mean, Occam's razor, the simplest explanation, is always the likeliest. But actually, the sinking of the ship is only the beginning of the story. Our producers will be delighted to hear that when they look at the clock. Another three pages worth of the story to go.

1:04:35Dominic Sandbrook:The real story is the publicity war, the propaganda war that follows the sinking. Because obviously, this is a big deal. A thousand people have been killed. And in terms of sort of naval disasters, it's really comparable only to the Titanic. I mean, up to the point that James Cameron did his film, James Cameron film obviously made the Titanic a colossal, colossal pop cultural phenomenon. But up to that point, the Lusitania and the Titanic, where I would say probably neck and neck in terms of publicity. Yeah, Lusitania was massive. Lusitania is massive. If you read, for example, Agatha Christie's thrillers.

1:05:09Dominic Sandbrook:So there's one called, it's a Tommy and Tuppence thriller. I think it's The Seeker Adversary. The Lusitania runs right through this book. But Titanic has the kind of metaphorical heft that I think the Lusitania doesn't. I think Lusitania is massive. And also Lusitania really matters in terms of the war. So in Germany, what's the response? Because I mean, I imagine among the iceberg community, there was no great rejoicing at the sinking of Titanic. No, but the Germans. What about the Germans? Are they cock-a-hoop? The Germans are cock-a-hoop, actually. The Germans, it may surprise some listeners, the Germans don't feel bad about this at all.

1:05:41Dominic Sandbrook:They think we've done our job and we've done it brilliantly. So the official line in Berlin is, look, the Lusitania, you know, the British government put money into building it because they wanted to use it as an auxiliary ship. It could have been fitted with guns. It's carrying war material in the cargo. Most German newspapers say, well done for sinking it. So the Frankfurter Zeitung calls it an extraordinary success. A Catholic Center Party newspaper says, you know, the British are behaving very badly at sea. This is our reprisal, our revenge. Because they're blockading us. Yeah. With joyful pride, we contemplate this latest deed of our Navy.

1:06:17Dominic Sandbrook:The English wish to abandon the German people's death by starvation, but we are more humane. We simply sank an English ship with passengers who entered the war zone at their own risk. I mean, that's not untrue, actually. Yeah, but it's not wise in the context of winning global opinion for your policies, is it? It's not wise. Well, what's definitely not wise is that they produce propaganda postcards showing the sinking. They produce medals, unofficial medals, making fun of Cunard. And some of these medals show this Lusitania sinking, and they show the Lusitania bristling with guns, because they want people to perceive the Lusitania as a military target.

1:06:59Dominic Sandbrook:I mean, one of these medals has a skeleton selling Cunard tickets. And the motto is business above all. In other words, Cunard sacrificed the lives of their own passengers just so they could make money. That's the claim. Now, in Britain, of course, the reaction is very different. The vast majority of the victims are British or Canadian. People see it as an unspeakable war crime. Even more, I think, than the atrocities in Belgium. This is the moment that establishes the idea in the British public mind of German barbarism, of the crimes of the Hun. I assume that there's no awareness of the possibility that, well, not possibility, the fact that the Lusitania is carrying ammunition.

1:07:43Dominic Sandbrook:No, because under the defence of the Realm Act, there is effectively censorship in force, and so there was no mention in the newspapers that actually the ship is carrying all of this ammunition. And so to the British, it just seems that the Germans have sunk a liner for the hell of it. Yeah, because they're cruel people. And all of these urban myths spread in Britain. So for example, it was widely believed, I think almost unquestioned in Britain in the 1910s, that German schoolchildren had been given the day off school to celebrate the sinking of the Lusitania. This was just not true, but it became absolutely embedded.

1:08:15Dominic Sandbrook:Or people get those medals that I was talking about, and they say they get hold of copies of them and they say um well these were actually struck by the german government this is an official thing this was given out to children and this is not true these were unofficial privately produced kind of um right war merch but naval intelligence in britain got they set up a lusitania souvenir medal committee which basically produced copies of this medal and then they sold a quarter of a million of them to raise money for the red cross in britain to i mean that's a kind of mad thing but you know it's hugely effective in spreading the idea of german barbarism and there were loads of posters and postcards showing kind of the most famous one it's a maiden she's holding up a sword and in the background the lusitania is sinking and there are people drowning and the caption says, take up the sword of justice.

1:09:15Dominic Sandbrook:In other words, avenge all the women and children who were killed on the Lusitania. But I suppose in Britain, this is going with the grain of what public opinion already thinks. Yes. But what about America? Because that's the crucial kind of market for the Germans and the British to compete over. So as I said, about 128 Americans died on the Lusitania and it is a colossal story. So we already mentioned Theodore Roosevelt. Theodore Roosevelt, the former president, says, come on, let's get stuck into this war now. We should get involved. The Germans are pirates, all of this kind of thing. The contraband issue does get reported there, the arms issue.

1:09:52Dominic Sandbrook:But the United States authorities say it's completely reasonable. We've always been sending small arms cartridges on ships. This is not an excuse for the Germans. You know, it's not really war material. It's for private citizens, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Is that true? I think it's massively stretching a point I think if you were German You would say come on Couldn't say it's for shooting grouse or something Yeah exactly It's for shooting squirrels What about the percussion fuses Are you going to be blowing up squirrels and grouse Sure What about President Wilson though President Wilson goes out of his way at first He does a bit of a Jimmy Carter So three days after the sinking He gives a speech in Philadelphia And he's talking to people who've just become American citizens and he says we're special you know america must be a special example the example of peace because peace is the healing and elevating influence of the world and strife is not and then this line there is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight there is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right i mean that's such an american thing to say not at the moment no it's hard to imagine wilson's present-day success Lessa's saying that, isn't he?

1:11:06Dominic Sandbrook:No. But he is massively mocked for this, Wilson. I mean, people say, what an absolute wimp. What a weed. So one British newspaper produced a cartoon entitled Fail Columbia, and it shows the Kaiser literally kind of thumbing his nose as a sort of haughty but ultimately wimpish Woodrow Wilson. And the caption, too proud to fight, too right to right a wrong, too wise to walk with wisdom, too mighty to be strong. Stinging. So there's then a huge argument within the US administration, and it basically ends with the Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, who already mentioned this kind of radical prairie populist.

1:11:43Dominic Sandbrook:He ends up actually resigning. There's a big argument, are we going to complain to the Germans? Wilson agrees that he will find, he finally is persuaded that he will complain. He sends the Germans a series of notes. And so Bryan resigns because he thinks this is too provocative. He thinks it's too provocative. He thinks, don't even, I mean, I think this is pretty bonkers from Brian. Put the ammunition issue on one side. If 128 of your citizens are sunk by a U-boat and you don't complain, when would you complain? But he's an isolationist, isn't he? So he would never complain. Yeah. Wilson does complain.

1:12:22Dominic Sandbrook:He sends the Germans, not quite an ultimatum, but he basically says, you know, the sinking was totally unjustified. It was totally your fault. Don't do this again. If you keep sinking our ships, that will be tantamount to war. But what Wilson doesn't do is get involved in the war at this point. And actually, the Germans make this easy for him, because all through this episode, remember, they have been arguing themselves about whether they're doing the right thing. And after the sinking of the Lusitania, the Chancellor, Theobald Bettmann-Holweg, and the Army Chief, Erich von Falkenhayn, and indeed the Kaiser, say to the Navy, do not do this again.

1:13:01Dominic Sandbrook:We do not, we cannot run the risk. Not worth it. Not worth it at all. The campaign continues for a few more weeks. They do actually sink one more liner, the Arabic. You see, that's never talked about, is it? No. 44 people died on that sinking. That was heading from Liverpool to New York. Again, it was off the coast of Ireland. So why is that not a big deal? Well, not that many people. So it's completely eclipsed by the Lusitania. The actual sinking was a little bit murky. It's not entirely clear whether the Germans did it deliberately or not, whether they didn't realise it was a liner. So I think in this case, they're a little bit less culpable.

1:13:38Dominic Sandbrook:But anyway, to cut a long story short, the Kaiser then said, enough of the unrestricted submarine warfare. And on the 18th of September, 1915, all U-boats were recalled from the Atlantic and from the English Channel. And although the campaign continued in the North Sea, the Germans then said, well, we'll follow the old cruiser rules. We'll stop sinking ships without warning. By the end of 1915, this was the position. The British have still got their naval blockade of Germany. And actually, in the long run, although it's not really talked about, people don't often think about the First World War at sea, this is one of the big reasons that Germany lost the First World War, the squeeze on Germany.

1:14:19Dominic Sandbrook:And on supplies and everything. Exactly. I mean, the fact they're drinking, you know, coffee made of, I don't know. Rat poison. Yeah, exactly. And eating nothing but turnips or whatever. I mean, they're having a terrible time, the Germans. The German submarine campaign has failed. They've not come remotely close to cutting Britain's trade links. But the Americans at this point are still not involved. Indeed, Woodrow Wilson is still determined to stay out. and in 1916 he runs for re-election on the slogan he kept us out of war but something definitely changed after the sinking of the Lusitania it made a massive impression on American public opinion including among people close to Woodrow Wilson so William Jennings is Bryan's replacement as Secretary of State is a guy called Robert Lansing and Lansing wrote in his memoirs afterwards the sinking of the Lusitania left me with a conviction that we would ultimately become the ally of Britain.

1:15:16Dominic Sandbrook:So there's a sense that it's only a matter of time. And when in absolute desperation in 1917, Germany restarts the submarine campaign, that drags the Americans into the war. And then a central element of its recruitment, of the American recruitment campaign, playing a part in all the posters and all the recruitment postcards and all this is the Lusitania. But I guess that's to get ahead of ourselves, Tom, because we're still in 1915. And next time, we'll be talking about another story that became a key weapon in the propaganda war, a story that in its time was just as notorious as the sinking of the Lusitania.

1:15:57Dominic Sandbrook:And this is the story of the British nurse, Edith Cavill, who was accused by the Germans of being part of an underground spy network in occupied Belgium. So the question, was she an innocent martyr or a British secret agent? Or possibly both. And if you want to find out the answer to those questions, club members can hear the episode and the following two episodes, which are about Gallipoli, right away. And to join them and to get the sensational full array of benefits, you have to go to therestishistory.com and sign up there. But for now, thank you, Dominic. Thank you, everyone, for listening and goodbye.

1:16:41Bye-bye.

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1:17:49Dominic Sandbrook:Hi, everybody. we are back with another absolutely colossal update about the rest is history festival well it's massive so on the 4th and 5th of july we will be at hampton court palace we have a weekend of brilliant talks live music exclusive access to historic royal palaces collections and yes dominic most exciting of all this is the thing i have been pushing for and i'm so looking forward to it we have medieval combat a terrifying brutal yet completely thrilling sport it is going to be an unforgettable two days it is indeed and um at the core of the festival of these talks we've got some more talks to add to the lineup so i will be talking to the brilliant tudor historian tracy borman about the secrets of the six wives of henry the eighth i'll be talking to friend of the show and Irish national treasure Paul Rouse about whether there is an alternative universe in which islands could have remained part of the United Kingdom.

1:18:47Dominic Sandbrook:We'll be talking to Katja Hoyer about Weimar Germany and in particular the town of Weimar through history and Professor Adam Smith will be telling the story of America through three presidents and on top of all that I'll be doing a special event with Ian Hislop about the history of satire. And I will be on stage with Mary Beard and we will be talking about just how strange, just how alien, just how different to us Rome was, or maybe it wasn't. I will be talking to Helen Castor about Elizabeth I and we'll be discussing whether she truly was England's greatest ruler or maybe whether that title should still be claimed by Athelstan.

1:19:31I will be talking to Ali Ansari about all things Persian, with Dan Jackson about the pit of death. And I will be talking to a friend of the show, Willy Dalrymple, about the links between ancient India and Greece and Rome.

1:19:47Dominic Sandbrook:Absolutely incredible scenes. And of course, on both days, Tom and I will be on stage doing a show together as well. So on the first day, we'll be answering all our club members' questions. And then to close the festival, we will do a definitive ranking of the all-time top friends of the show so lots to look forward to and beyond that there is so much else that will be happening across the weekend so think of it as the ultimate summer history hangout and your tickets will give you full access to explore the great Tudor Palace of Hampton Court and indeed the Royal Tennis Court so that'll be very exciting there'll be food and drink fit for a king which sounds very enticing i picture the very glamorous people that are our club members and their summer garb they're on the lawn at hampton court palace they're chatting about history and delightful surroundings sipping on a refreshing gin and tonic and it's probably the most civilized festival there's ever been i mean that's what i imagine anyway just a reminder the tickets are exclusive to club members and if you are not a member now is the perfect time to join so head over to the rest is history.com to sign up and grab your tickets and of course have access to a whole range of supplementary benefits once you have signed up to the rest is history.com all you do then is log into the members area and you select festival and it's all very obvious but you know what there is a twist if you do this you will be entered into a genuinely unbelievable prize draw and that prize draw if you win you and three other people it's like the golden tickets in child in the chocolate factory because you will be given the chance to be upgraded to the premium experience and the premium experience will give you among other things unlimited food and drink for free all day do not miss it can't wait to see the Yeah.