And probably the most egregious thing that really, really did make everybody sit up and pay attention was the use of poison gas at Ypres. I'm referring to the fact that the German navy shelled civilian cities on several occasions. I'm referring to, for example, the fact that there were the first air raids against Britain carried out by zeppelins. Warfare in World War I had sort of entered that turn already. On whether the sinking of the Lusitania represented a turning point in warfare Does that justify sinking a passenger vessel with 1,200 passengers aboard - men, women and children? I'm not in a position to say. There were definitely munitions aboard the ship. It had some rifle ammunition, it also had some shells - it had some shrapnel shells. You can debate this, you really can, because, on the one hand, the Lusitania clearly had military cargos. On whether the Lusitania was a legitimate military target So they set up this very, very secret operation to decode intercepted wireless messages.Įrik Larson's previous books include The Devil in the White City and Thunderstruck.īenjamin Benschneider/Courtesy of Crown Publishers And what had happened early in the war is, through three nearly miraculous events, the British came into possession of the three main codebooks used by the German navy. One of the really amazing things about the Lusitania saga was that, at the time, there existed in the admiralty a super-secret spy entity known as Room 40. On how much British intelligence knew before the attack And yet he managed to kill about 1,200 people with the press of a button. His best friend in the submarine service described him as being a guy who couldn't hurt a fly. You know, as a young guy, he was already one of the deadliest, most skilled submarine commanders of the war. I found to be such an interesting character, and frankly I wouldn't be surprised if readers have a little bit of sympathy, or at least empathy, for him. On Walther Schwieger, the captain of the German submarine - the U-20 - that sank the Lusitania Your purchase helps support NPR programming. Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title Dead Wake Subtitle The Last Crossing of the Lusitania Author Erik Larson

The last crossing of the lusitania