‘The blame for the sinking of the Lusitania should be shared
equally between the Germans, the British and the USA’. To
what extent is this justified?
This statement, with the blame being placed on all three nations is correct.
However, there are some historians that would disagree with this and put the blame
on just two countries or some that would blame it all on just one country.
All three nations had a hand in the sinking of the Lusitania. Firstly, the Germans, if
books, such as the one in source C are too be believed, then the Germans had no right
to destroy the Lusitania. They are prohibited from sinking boats not in government
service, as apparently the Lusitania was, and therefore, by sinking it they were not
committing an act of war but just killing innocent lives. Also historians can place the
blame on the Germans for the sinking purely because it was a German torpedo that hit
the ship, whether it was justifiable or not. Secondly the British are to blame for the
sinking of the Lusitania. This is because the Britain’s wanted the boat to be sunk and
consequently made no effort to defend the ship when it crossed U-boat inhabited
waters. The British had a very good motive for doing this, which was to try and
persuade the USA to join their side in the war. At this point, the USA were considering
joining either side, but the British saw this as an opportunity to force the Germans to
anger the US by sinking one of their ships. The British will have known about these Uboats but the fact they made no effort to stop or defend the Lusitania, means they are
responsible for the sinking of the Lusitania as well. Finally, why the USA should be
blamed. The Germans, were in need of help from the USA in the war, and would not try
to anger them in anyway. Therefore, it must have meant that they had a good reason to
destroy the Lusitania, i.e. it was carrying explosives and ammunition. The USA should
therefore be blamed for sending a fully equipped boat across dangerous waters, where
the Germans are obviously going to attack it in a form of defence.
However there are historians that would say that the USA, British or Germans were not
responsible for the sinking of the Lusitania. Firstly, the Germans may be excused the
blame if the Lusitania was indeed fully armed and they viewed its sinking as an act of
war. Also historians may say that the British were not to be blamed. Historians may
claim that their plan was too risky in that it may back fire in the USA becoming angry at
them for not protecting them against the U-boats, and therefore they would not have
undergone this plan, suggesting that they had no idea that the Lusitania was going to
be torpedoed. Finally, the USA may escape the blame, because if the British had set out
with their plan, then the Americans may have been expecting defence from the British
and could have done nothing when the ship was attached.
In conclusion, having looked at both sides of this argument, ‘the blame for the sinking
of the Lusitania should be shared equally between the Germans, the British and the
USA’, is justifiable. A fitting summary would be that an American boat sent foolishly
across the dangerous seas, was attacked by a German U-boat, even though the boat
may not have been in government service, but was not defended by the British who
were trying to create hate between the USA and the Germans.