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Riddle of Lusitania sinking may finally be solved
The Times (London) ^

Posted on 07/23/2008 1:00:22 PM PDT by nickcarraway

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To: uglybiker
So, it's not really his then, is it?

I suppose you actually think "your" house is yours, too?

41 posted on 07/23/2008 1:24:17 PM PDT by null and void (Barack Obama - International Man of Mystery...)
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To: LS

It would seem to me that shipping munitions in a passenger vessel would have been an act of gross negligence and/or provocation on the part of the U.S., and that Germany wouldn’t bear much responsibility at all for the sinking of that ship if it were a legitimate target.


42 posted on 07/23/2008 1:25:05 PM PDT by Alberta's Child (I'm out on the outskirts of nowhere . . . with ghosts on my trail, chasing me there.)
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To: nickcarraway

“Waited? Wilson campaign in the 1916 election campaigned on not entering the War. Then betrayed the American people as soon as he got elected by entering.”

So, he was ‘against the war before he was for it.’ Somewhat of a different spin on the standard flip-flopping democrat.


43 posted on 07/23/2008 1:25:30 PM PDT by Miles the Slasher
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To: rahbert
RMS Lusitania was supposedly an “auxiliary cruiser” of the Royal Navy. Perhaps that was the justification.

I suspect that every civilian British passenger ship was given a similar designation, since they could be quickly transformed into troop ships. But at the time of the sinking the Lusitania was ostensibly just a passenger liner and munitions don't belong in the cargo of a passenger liner during a time of war.

44 posted on 07/23/2008 1:26:03 PM PDT by jalisco555 ("My 80% friend is not my 20% enemy" - Ronald Reagan)
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To: nickcarraway

The so-called Zimmerman telegram was the major factor in the United States entering the war. This telegram was a proposal by the German government for Mexico to invade the United States.

When the British made the telegram public it resulted in a popular call for war. I don’t know that Wilson was ever that keen on going to war.


45 posted on 07/23/2008 1:26:55 PM PDT by maddawg99
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To: Miles the Slasher

*shrug* He was a democrat, after all...


46 posted on 07/23/2008 1:27:45 PM PDT by null and void (Barack Obama - International Man of Mystery...)
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To: LS

I am not justifying the sinking, but I think what you write is misleading. Germany put an advertisement in the paper next to the ad for the Lusitania warning passengers that such ships might be sunk. The media had articles on the subject. Passengers were so worried the Captain of the ship had to reassure them by telling them the ship was too fast to be attacked by submarine. If that wasn’t enough, German spies were arrested on board early in the voyage.
(Note: One of my Great Grandparents traveled on the previous journey of the Lusitania too the U.S.)


47 posted on 07/23/2008 1:28:51 PM PDT by nickcarraway (Don't blame me, I voted for Hughes)
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To: Hazwaste
Why can't OUR army have spikes on our helmets?

You mean like we did in the late 19th century?


48 posted on 07/23/2008 1:29:15 PM PDT by SolidWood (Obamarxislamism, the threat to our Republic!)
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To: LAforme2008
Unfortunately because the British government subsidized a good deal of the construction of the Cunard and White Star fleets, there was an agreement in place that during wartime they could use those ships for the war effort, whether it be taking them out of passenger service and conscripting them as troop ships or to carry materials to aid the war effort in the course of their regular travels.

While this might have seemed like a good idea it created a gray area where these ships could possibly be considered legitimate military targets. Mixing both civilian and military functions in the same trip was terribly dangerous.

49 posted on 07/23/2008 1:29:54 PM PDT by jalisco555 ("My 80% friend is not my 20% enemy" - Ronald Reagan)
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To: SolidWood
And then we mustn't forget the Zimmerman telegram:

Between 1914 and the spring of 1917, the European nations engaged in a conflict that became known as World War I. While armies moved across the face of Europe, the United States remained neutral. In 1916 Woodrow Wilson was elected President for a second term, largely because of the slogan "He kept us out of war." Events in early 1917 would change that hope. In frustration over the effective British naval blockade, in February Germany broke its pledge to limit submarine warfare. In response to the breaking of the Sussex pledge, the United States severed diplomatic relations with Germany.

In January of 1917, British cryptographers deciphered a telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Minister to Mexico, von Eckhardt, offering United States territory to Mexico in return for joining the German cause. This message helped draw the United States into the war and thus changed the course of history. The telegram had such an impact on American opinion that, according to David Kahn, author of The Codebreakers, "No other single cryptanalysis has had such enormous consequences." It is his opinion that "never before or since has so much turned upon the solution of a secret message." In an effort to protect their intelligence from detection and to capitalize on growing anti-German sentiment in the United States, the British waited until February 24 to present the telegram to Woodrow Wilson. The American press published news of the telegram on March 1. On April 6, 1917, the United States Congress formally declared war on Germany and its allies.

Definitely a casus belli.

50 posted on 07/23/2008 1:29:58 PM PDT by ScaniaBoy (Part of the Right Wing Research & Attack Machine)
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To: jalisco555

I am not part of the circles you describe, and don’t see the possibility as so odd. Churchill in any event would have acted in british interests, not american, and it was certainly in their interests to get us into the war as soon as possible.

It is fact that he was first lord of the admiralty until May 1915.

In any event, if we are waiting for ‘documentation’ aside from the above you might have found a mechanism to defer the matter for decades if not centuries. In the meantime, intelligent people can at least speculate in some circles.


51 posted on 07/23/2008 1:30:31 PM PDT by WoofDog123
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To: Alberta's Child

“It would seem to me that shipping munitions in a passenger vessel would have been an act of gross negligence and/or provocation on the part of the U.S.”

The UK would have been responsible here.


52 posted on 07/23/2008 1:32:04 PM PDT by WoofDog123
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To: LS

“Even if it was ALL high explosive shells, the U-boats were NOT to be torpedoing passenger liners and they had promised not to do so in any event”. ....................HMMMM? Once they take ammo on board, are they still a passenger liner? Passenger liners probably have rules to follow too. Was there ammo on board? Yes, and previous dives have shown it. Where they warned before departure? Yes, in the NYT if I remember correctly. The owners of the liner put their passengers at risk knowing that they were transporting war supplies (ammo).


53 posted on 07/23/2008 1:32:13 PM PDT by Bringbackthedraft (If everyone stays home and no one votes will Congress disappear?)
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To: nickcarraway
I read sometime back that the Lusitania wreck is not in very good condition due to its shallow depth and the combined effects of corrosive seawater and storm surging (essentially turned into huge heap of collapsed-in plates slowly being rusted/crumbled into bits). There might not be very much “evidence” left in the forward hull area to be collected.

Does anyone have current information on the wreck’s actual condition?

54 posted on 07/23/2008 1:32:31 PM PDT by Captain Rhino ( If we have the WILL to do it, there is nothing built in China that we cannot do without.)
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To: maddawg99
The so-called Zimmerman telegram was the major factor in the United States entering the war. This telegram was a proposal by the German government for Mexico to invade the United States.

German planners assumed that their declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare in 1917 would drive the US into the war, as it was sure to do. They knew this act would be literally intolerable. They assumed they could beat Britain before the Americans could arrive in numbers. The Zimmermam telegram was just icing on the cake, I believe.

55 posted on 07/23/2008 1:32:59 PM PDT by jalisco555 ("My 80% friend is not my 20% enemy" - Ronald Reagan)
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To: ScaniaBoy
Yes indeed.

offering United States territory to Mexico in return for joining the German cause

This idea hasn't died yet.

56 posted on 07/23/2008 1:33:18 PM PDT by SolidWood (Obamarxislamism, the threat to our Republic!)
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To: nickcarraway

Fascinating article and discussion!


57 posted on 07/23/2008 1:34:13 PM PDT by trillabodilla (Jesus Saves)
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To: Hazwaste

After the Franco Prussian war we did have spikes on our helmets. Weird looking.


58 posted on 07/23/2008 1:35:02 PM PDT by TexanToTheCore (If it ain't Rugby or Bullriding, it's for girls.........................................)
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To: Alberta's Child

“It would seem to me that shipping munitions in a passenger vessel would have been an act of gross negligence and/or provocation on the part of the U.S., and that Germany wouldn’t bear much responsibility at all for the sinking of that ship if it were a legitimate target.”

The Lusitania was a British vessel owned by the Cunard Line, not a U.S. property.


59 posted on 07/23/2008 1:35:27 PM PDT by LAforme2008
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To: null and void
"Travellers 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 waters 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 of any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk."

My modern translation:

"Human shields won't work."

60 posted on 07/23/2008 1:35:48 PM PDT by nina0113 (If fences don't work, why does the White House have one?)
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