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It is undisputed that the British were using the Lusitania to transport war munitions and thus American passengers were effectively human shields. Whether the B
by pseudo0 5y ago
It is undisputed that the British were using the Lusitania to transport war munitions and thus American passengers were effectively human shields. Whether the British allowed the Lusitania to remain at risk or not, they were putting neutral civilian lives in peril through that conduct.
- unfocussed_mike 5y agoWell I think that bit about the mixed cargo might sort of be a retrospective projection onto a common mixed use of a liner, even in wartime. I don't think one can say with any certainty that other liners did not do this. Post-Lusitania, line operators might have refused it as a general rule, but those were early days of submarine warfare. I do think (as a Brit) that the argument they were deliberately left unprotected from U-boats has significant credibility; I would not be at all surprised. I am not a pacifist at this stage of my life, but I am regularly surprised at what my fellow Brits in particular do not know about our military history. Then again, in this country, schoolkids don't generally study the First World War until they are of an age where the boys among them would have been illicitly signing up for it, and by that age, studying history is optional.