Entering into World
War I, the British had the world's dominant navy. And they use it immediately
to their advantage. You might remember
from previous videos, Britain declared war on Germany
because of their invasion into Belgium in
early August of 1914. And it was in November of
1914 that the British declared the entire North
Sea area a war zone. Which essentially is
telling any ship, come here at your own risk. You might be destroyed,
and especially you're not allowed to carry
any contraband. But they included
food as a contraband. So this essentially
began the blockade of Germany and Austria-Hungary. So this is the blockade
of the Central Powers. And this had major
implications for the war. It continued throughout
the entire war. It essentially caused the
Germans, or the Central Powers, especially the Germans
and the Austrians to have to ration food. We're talking about
1,000 calories a day. You could look at the number
of calories in your average Big Mac and think about how
little food that was. And there's many estimates
of what that caused. That obviously made it
hard for the Central Powers to get war munitions
and things like that. But it also made it very
difficult for them to get food. And there are estimates that
this rationing, this inability to get food, lead to
malnutrition, even led to starvation. And there's estimates
that this might have led to in excess of
400,000 civilian deaths either directly or indirectly
due to malnutrition or starvation amongst
the Central Powers. So this was a pretty serious
tactic that was undertaken. Now, the Germans did not
have as dominant of a Navy. Most of their Navy was
actually focused right off of the coast of Germany, right
around there, in the North Sea. But they also wanted to
disrupt trade with the British. They recognized the British
Isles, they're islands. They're dependent on trade
for food and for supplies. So in 1915 in February, the
Germans declared the seas around the British Isles,
they declared this whole area, a war zone. Similarly, they declared
that a war zone as well. And because their surface
fleet was concentrated right over here,
the way that they would enforce that,
they would essentially try to keep people from
trading with the British Isles is through submarine warfare. And World War I
is the first time that submarine warfare
becomes a significant factor. We're talking about very
primitive submarines. But we are talking
about these vessels that could go underwater
and essentially send torpedoes into boats. Now, thinking about
that as a backdrop, we now forward to May of 1915. So let's go to May of 1915. You have the passenger
liner, the RMS Lusitania. And RMS literally stands
for Royal Mail Ship because it carried some mail. It's a big ship. If you've ever seen
the movie Titanic, think of a ship like that. And it was setting sail from
New York to Liverpool, England. And it was apparently
a passenger ship, but it was also carrying cargo. But the Germans,
they said, look, this could be fair game
for us, especially if it's carrying munitions, especially
if it's a British ship. And in the
advertisement that was in New York for
the Lusitania that was going to leave
on May 1, 1915, the German embassy actually
placed an advertisement. And this is worth reading. They wrote, "Notice,
travelers intending to embark on the
Atlantic voyage are reminded that a
state of war exists between Germany and
her allies and Great Britain and her allies. That the zone of war
includes the water adjacent to the British Isles. That in accordance with
formal notice given by the Imperial German
government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain,
or any of her allies, are liable to destruction
in those waters. And that travelers
sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her
allies do so at their own risk. From the Imperial
German embassy." And this is dated April 1915. So that's the backdrop. The Lusitania sets
sail May 1, 1915. On May 7, 1915--
the number 15 keeps jumping into my
brain-- on May 7, 1915, it's almost reached its
destination of Liverpool. That's Liverpool
right over here. It's around 10 or 15 miles
off the coast of Ireland. And right there it
encounters a German U boat. So this right over here
is a German U boat. And that German U boat sends
a torpedo into the Lusitania. Now the torpedo, as you could
imagine, rams into the ship. And then shortly after
the torpedo hits, you have this huge explosion. And the huge
explosion is actually one of those question
marks of history. Now, the ship goes down,
taking down with it most of its passengers. So there were 1,959 total
passengers and crew. And 1,195 of them actually died. Now there were other ships
that went down due to German U boats, but what was
famous about this one, at least from an American
history point of view, is that there were 128 Americans
who also died on board. And so you could imagine,
this led to a lot of people were concerned on
the American side. Why did this happen? These were American civilians. And it essentially led
to a harsh reprimand from Woodrow Wilson. And just as a little bit of
context, once war broke out-- and war had broken
not even a year before the sinking
of the Lusitania-- the Americans' position
was to be neutral. It did not want to enter
into this European conflict. With that said, the Americans
were disproportionately trading with the Allies
not the Central Power. They were providing supplies, at
a minimum, at a trading level. And they were providing
monetary support. They were providing loans to
the Allies disproportional to the Central Powers. So even though there was
this formal neutrality, there was more implicit
connection to the Allies. So Woodrow Wilson, he still
wants to keep America out of the war at this point. So we're talking about May 1915. And so he essentially
just sends a stern warning to the German empire. Says, you must apologize. You must take action to
prevent this type of thing happening in the future. And the German empire
actually complies. On September 9-- let me
write this on the timeline. So right over here. So in May, you have
the Lusitania sunk. And then in
September, the Germans agree to not attack
passenger ships. And so even though the
sinking of the Lusitania, especially in a lot of
American history classes, is often given as a trigger
for America entrance into war, this whole thing happened
and America stayed neutral throughout this entire period. And America wouldn't actually
enter the war until April 1917. So the Lusitania was
just one of many things that happened in the years
running up to the war. And if we fast
forward a little bit, in 1916 the next presidential
election where Wilson won re-election, he
ran on a platform of, he kept us out of war. So the sinking of the Lusitania
was a significant event. One could argue because
the Germans did not want the US to enter on
the side of the Allies, it was why the Germans
agreed to loosen up, at least for a couple of years,
on their U boat campaigns. As we'll see, once we get
into 1917, the Germans, out of desperation,
start to become more aggressive on
their U boat attacks again, which is one
of the catalysts that the US claims drove
them into World War I. But with that said,
just as a little bit of context-- and oftentimes
when we look back at history, it seems very cut and dry. It seems obvious. Oh yes, we had to go to
war, et cetera, et cetera. I have a few quotes here
from William Jennings Bryan, who was Woodrow Wilson's
secretary of state. And a few of these
are pretty telling. So this first one
is September 1914. This was before any of the
stuff happened with Lusitania, but war had broken
out in Europe. And he had this
message that he wrote to Woodrow Wilson to
essentially advocate why we should stay
out of the war and why there should be
some type of mediation to try to get the
war to end as opposed to just letting
it run its course. And he wrote to Wilson,
"it is not likely that either side will win
so complete a victory as to be able to dictate terms. And if either"-- and this
is interesting and strangely foreshadowing-- "and if either
side does win such a victory, it'll probably mean
preparation for another war. It would seem better to look
for a more rational basis for peace." Now, the other quotes here--
and this is the question mark around that second explosion--
William Jennings Bryan wrote, "ships carrying contraband
should be prohibited from carrying passengers. It would be like putting
women and children in front of an army." And so this is one of those
big questions of history. It was known that the Lusitania
was carrying light ammunition. So it was carrying
a light munitions. Now, the Germans claimed
that it was actually carrying heavy munitions. And to some degree,
that second explosion tends to back that up. And there was all sorts of shady
things about a lot of the cargo that the Lusitania was carrying,
even though they claimed that it was these
perishable goods. It wasn't being stored in a
refrigerated part of the ship. And so there was
reason to believe that it was carrying
actually heavy munitions. And that second explosion seems
to point in that direction as well. And then even after World War
I, the British Navy actually spent multiple times
trying to destroy the wreck of the Lusitania. And some people say in order to
maybe get rid of some evidence that it was actually
carrying far more munitions and maybe was, from the
Germans' point of view, a fairer target than
was actually made out. So regardless, it's a
very interesting incident, not necessarily directly
tied to America's entrance into World War I. But it
is one of many events. And this whole idea of
blockades and German U boats against civilians,
this was something that was a cause of repeated
concern for the Americans.