Lusitania Doesn't Sink

BlondieBC

Banned
What I am thinking was if the first torpedo misses, the Lusitania gets only a few miles from the shore, a second torpedo mildly damages the ship, and she makes it onto the shore with obvious signs of damage from a U-boat, but still very much operational, with no American deaths. What does this change?

Well this will change everything. There is apparently no loss of civilian life, much less major American life loss. The attack will be condemn in the American papers, and it will be defended. And then it depends on what the Germans do. Do the Germans adjust their rules of engagement enough to avoid sinking another passenger liner or is the event just delayed until some later date in the war.

Also, a lot of the USW was more about the PR campaign than changes in RoE. So a lot of how things work here is how bombastic the Germans are in their statements.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Maybe not even that, the American's will just find a different rallying cry, the American's just had too much invested in allied success

Kind of a distinction without a difference isn't it?

Not true. The USA has nothing invested in the Entente until early 1917. All those purchases were cash or secured loans.

And if you read the papers, it is night and day on the Lusitania. Before you see all sides of the war defended with perhaps a slight Entente slant. After the Lusitania, it tilts heavily anti-German (NY Times at least). Avoid the major loss of life on this ship, and to a large extent, the moving of the American mindset to war is suspended.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
You're also ignoring the fact that the international law (such as it was) of the time required the submarine to seize the ship, search it for contraband (ideally bringing it before a court to ensure that it was properly condemned as a blockade runner) and ensure that the passengers and crew were taken to a place of safety before it was sunk. That means no matter what it was carrying it isn't legal at the time to sink it without warning from a submarine and make no effort to rescue survivors.

Even with the interpretation of the rules most favorable to the UK, the sinking of the Lusitania was legal. No Warning is ever required to sink a warship of another country after a declaration of war. By listing the Lusitania as an AMC in a official register, it was a warship in case of war.

If we want to discuss the general naval war, we can get into your other points.

The sinking of the Lusitania was 100% legal, and it was foreseeably dumb.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
This assumes those assets retain their market value. I don't see a guarantee of economic stability were the Entente to lose.

These assets were physically located in the USA. The UK still had plenty of assets to sell, but these were in non-secureable locations such as the British Empire.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Also, wasn't the munitions she carried permissible under international law? Think small arms ammo is allowed, but if she had carried artillery shells, would have been illegal. Certainly an interesting legal case.

We can spend pages on this one. Depends on which interpretation one uses. And even on the time of each country. At a minimum, carry any time of ammo and heading to a country at war (destination port) makes the ship subject to interdiction and forfeiture of the ship and cargo. And once we get tired of arguing the details of the international treaties, we can then get into the massive breaches by both sides. Basically, both sides ignored the treaties when convenient.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
By listing the Lusitania as an AMC in a official register, it was a warship in case of war.
And by repainting her in civilian livery? This argument seems to suggest that the Lusitania, once tainted, is forever blackened as an AMC.

Of course, what rather undermines this argument is that the Germans had given official orders (and warnings) that any Allied ships were liable to be sunk - whether or not they were naval vessels - and that their subsequent claims included one that she was armed.

Here's the thing about this. The way that the rules were written, OTL, did allow for armed merchant cruisers - if there's confusion over whether or not they're warships, they become legitimate targets once they open fire. There's a good reason for this, which is that one shot from an AMC is unlikely to do much damage to a warship and that an AMC by firing forfeits the right to be treated as a conventional merchant.
Is this rule one which risks the intercepting ship? Yes, of course it is! It's felt that the crew of the declared warship (the cruiser coming up to inspect) are the ones who should be placed in danger because they are known to be military; the German military decided instead that it was worth risking attacks on unarmed vessels (including passenger liners), thus guaranteeing the destruction and death of the lost ship, rather than risk the lives of the crew of the U-boat.

The most favourable interpretation for the Germans is that, as a noted AMC, the Lusitania was forfeit. The most favourable interpretation for the British is that you don't torpedo an unarmed ship without warning.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Something that's worth noting about the Lusitania incident is that it wasn't even the first time the Germans had done something like this - it was just notable because lots of famous people were onboard. Two months prior the Glenartney was torpedoed and sunk en route to London with a cargo of rice and meal and was torpedoed sans warning, just as one example.

I've collected some quotes from a previous discussion, in case that helps clarify a few things.


When there were accusations that the German army captured positions by advancing under white flags, for instance, the British didn't order their troops to shoot down any Germans attempting to surrender in case it was a ruse. It was perfectly feasible for the German navy to do what the British did: they could have required their U-boats to surface and inspect the goods aboard supposedly neutral ships in order to see whether contraband was aboard, then put a prize crew aboard, escort it into a German port, hold a prize court, and condemn the ship and its contents. They chose not to do this because it would have interfered with their ability to wage war, though the British were prepared to accept the hassle in order to preserve lives. However, in 1915 there was nothing stopping the Germans from continuing to surface and warn ships that they were going to be sunk, in order to give them time to man the life rafts, other than the fear of possibly being rammed.

Maybe a metaphor would help. Organising a blockade is conceptually similar to being a highway patrol officer. When Britain comes across someone she suspects of breaking the law- speeding, bald tires, whatever- she arrests them and there's a subsequent trial. Some people complain that they were stopped unnecessarily, or that the speed limit should be higher than it is, but these are the same sort of complaints that were made when America was the highway patrol officer and Britain was the driver.

On the other hand, what Germany does in 1915 is announce that she's heard some people have guns in their car, and now they're instituting a shoot-on-sight policy for speeders to avoid police casualties. And they couldn't afford radar guns as well as real guns, so the police will be guessing whether you're doing more than the limit, but if you weren't speeding and you still get shot maybe it was your own fault for being out on the roads...

while the law recognised that conditions might arise in which it might be necessary to destroy an enemy prize, without bringing it and its cargo into port for condemnation, it was yet recognised that the decision of the prize court was the main reliance of the law to prevent illegal captures of ship or cargo, and to that decision the production of the ship's papers is essential, so that the practice of destroying even enemy ships was viewed with strong disfavour and sought to be confined to the narrowest possible limits. And especially to be condemned was the destruction of the documentary evidence along with the ship. On the other hand, the destruction of neutral prizes has never received the sanction of international law. The law also demanded inexorably that no prize should under any conditions be destroyed until crew and passengers had been placed in safety, unless the vessel were destroyed in fight or in flight. (Raleigh C. Minor, 'Should the Submarine Be Used in Warfare upon Commerce?' Virginia Law Review Vol. 3, No. 8 (May 1916))

a limited armament on a merchant ship, such as a gun or two for protection against pirates or lightly armed raiders, did not necessarily nullify the ship's immunity to attack without warning.

the first sinking of a British merchant vessel by a U-Boat was the SS Glitra on 20 October 1914, carrying coal, iron plate, and oil to neutral Norway. None of its goods were absolute contraband per the Declaration of London, none were for the use of enemy civilians (let alone the military) and yet the ship was sunk. The German government later turned down a claim by the neutral owners of those goods for compensation.

Submariners were given the choice when they enlisted between consenting to the risk of death or declaring their conscientious objection to warfare and going to prison. Merchant seamen, whether enemy or neutral, were given no such choice- unless you think, as the Germans apparently did, that they made such a choice by the mere fact of being employed aboard a ship that passed through Germany's declared war zone. As that's clearly fallacious, it's equally clear why a policy which seeks to protect the lives of the former at the expense of the latter is morally bankrupt.

Flying false colours is a legitimate ruse de guerre for both armed and unarmed ships, and has been for centuries. In fact, both sides adopted the tactic- when the German armed merchant cruiser Cap Trafalgar was sunk in September 1914, she at first flew the British ensign and replaced it with a German one as the action started. The only breach of custom came when you didn't remove the false colours before starting to fight, as the German armed merchant cruiser Greif did on 29 February 1916.
 
Not true. The USA has nothing invested in the Entente until early 1917. All those purchases were cash or secured loans.

And if you read the papers, it is night and day on the Lusitania. Before you see all sides of the war defended with perhaps a slight Entente slant. After the Lusitania, it tilts heavily anti-German (NY Times at least). Avoid the major loss of life on this ship, and to a large extent, the moving of the American mindset to war is suspended.


Though probably only till 1917, unless USW and the ZT can be somehow butterflied. Lusitania or no Lusitania, Americans (save a few like Bryan and maybe Clark) are unlikely to swallow the destruction of their own ships.
 
Wasn't she also listed as an auxiliary cruiser? That would mean that she could have guns, and would thus be very unhealthy for a uboat to approach on the surface
Even without guns, it's still unsafe, as the Brits issued orders for unarmed ships to ram any subs that surface.

You really think the skipper of a Uboat is going to surface and risk getting run over by a way bigger ship?

Of course a British ship can carry artillery shells. Why wouldn't she be allowed to?
Isn't carrying munitions on passenger ships illegal?
 
Even without guns, it's still unsafe, as the Brits issued orders for unarmed ships to ram any subs that surface.

You really think the skipper of a Uboat is going to surface and risk getting run over by a way bigger ship?

Also, I believe that as an auxiliary cruiser, she would appear in lists like Jane's, that most subs carried. That would make it less of torpedoing a random ship, and more torpedoing an identified warship from the u-boats perspective.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Even without guns, it's still unsafe, as the Brits issued orders for unarmed ships to ram any subs that surface.
But did that actually happen? When the British had positive examples of the Germans abusing white flags, they still respected them.

You really think the skipper of a Uboat is going to surface and risk getting run over by a way bigger ship?
No. I think he's going to surface next to the ship.
This is an argument which applies just as well to the German abuse of white flags, and yet the British stuck to the rules.

Isn't carrying munitions on passenger ships illegal?
No, because she wasn't a "passenger ship", she was a ship with passengers on it. Ships of the time routinely carried both passengers and cargo.

That would make it less of torpedoing a random ship, and more torpedoing an identified warship from the u-boats perspective.
That of course causes problems with all the other ships the Germans also torpedoed, including plenty which were definitely not warships in any sense. Lusitania created uproar because Americans were onboard, but it is just one example out of many of German submarines torpedoing unarmed merchant vessels and the examples go back to 1914.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
Well, I know of at least one time it happened.

Not only was that one in British naval service (and therefore an actual combatant) but it happened three years after the sinking of the Lusitania. The Germans had no way of knowing about it without time travel.

And I'd be pretty leery about acting like Britain was all innocent with regards to flags.
Legitimate ruse of war, they switched flags before firing. (That's literally what makes it a legitimate ruse of war.)
 

Saphroneth

Banned
No, just pointing out whitewashing British history is a bad idea.
I'm not. I'm using a direct analogue to show how the British attitude to the laws of war in cases of suspected enemy violation differed to the German; I'm also showing how it was that Lusitania was viewed so negatively, and implying that without it some other similar sinking would have happened.
 
I'm not. I'm using a direct analogue to show how the British attitude to the laws of war in cases of suspected enemy violation differed to the German; I'm also showing how it was that Lusitania was viewed so negatively, and implying that without it some other similar sinking would have happened.

Similar sinkings did happen - notably the Arabic and Sussex - but the casualties were far smaller. There was nothing else comparable to the Lusitania until after the US had entered the war.

However, as noted earlier it probably makes little difference. If the Germans still go ahead and declare American ships fair game for U-boats, then war becomes highly probable even without that particular sinking.
 
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