Letter to the editor

Dear editor,

I believe that the situation that happened on May 7^th 1915 with the RMS Lusitania has to be taken care. As you may know the Lusitania was shot by a torpedo by a U20 submarine under the command of Captain Schwieger, they were shot on their way to Liverpool from Ney York. The Lusitania was a British ship but it was not a British military ship. It held over 1,300 passengers and over 700 crew none of which were active military personal of any nation. The court that also reviewed what happened to the Lusitania reviewed her cargo and found that the ship was unarmed. Her cargo was a general one; she only held 5,000 cartridges of ammunition aboard.  The Germans must pay for killing unarmed civilians with a non military purpose. Only 764 of the passengers survived the torpedo, which is unacceptable they should have taken their time to see if the ship was a military ship or a civilian ship. Knowing this information I believe that the US military should intervene into the war immediately. The Germans have escalated this war so shall everyone else along with them. Without intervention this will happen again and again more innocent civilians will be killed without intervention. Civilian ships cannot just be killed because they are in “war zone” water. If the ships are not innocent then the it is a whole different matter but until then the US should intervene and make the Germans see the errors of their ways.

Person on the street report

I was eating lunch with my fiancé in the first class lounge around 1:00 PM in the afternoon we were listening to music, eating food having a good time in total. We had been there for maybe an half an hour to an hour or so when we heard something like a “Really loud lightning strike”. Seconds after the first sound we heard a similar noise but EVEN louder than the last time almost deafening to the ear. Then the boat started to shake and tilt at an extreme angle like we were in a storm but it was in the middle of the day with clear skies.  The next thing I know everyone was screaming including my finance and I, we had no clue what to do. The only thing we could do is to follow everyone out to deck, people were tripping over each other more screaming and crying was going on we were just trying to make it outside onto the deck to find out what was going on. When we did get onto the deck we saw the captain and the crew trying to secure lifeboats for people at this point we knew something was going wrong. We weren’t sure what was wrong though. We scurried to try and secure a life boat on our way to one of the many lifeboats though we saw many people just jumping off over the side of the boat. My fiancé started to cry that much more it almost turned into sobs at that point we started to run to the closest available life boat. When we reached the life boat we tried to help the crew undo the rope and other things. But we soon realized that the life boat was fitted to the boat with 2 chains. Plus the boat was sinking at such a fast rate so we just gave up on that life boat and ran to the next closest one which was probably 20 feet down the starboard side. When we reached that one we realized the same exact thing that it was strapped down do the boat with 2 chains just like the other one and we were unable to undo the chains.  At that point I tried to rip off boards from the life boat so we could at least use them in the water I could only manage to peel off one though. So I grabbed my fiancé’s hand and told her that we had to jump into the water if we wanted to survive, noticing that the boat had started to sink. I said “either we jump off now or we drown on this boat and I don’t want to drown”. So we jumped in to the water, we both grabbed onto the board that I had taken from the life boat. We swam for I don’t even know how long it seemed like hours before we finally saw a life boat in the water, there was only one person in the life boat we yelled and screamed and swam as fast as we could towards it until he finally saw us. When we reached the boat we goat aboard and just collapsed from the exhaustion of the swimming.

Overview of Lusitania

Lusitania

During the late 1890’s Germany produced four new boats that threatened to put an end to British dominance of the Atlantic. Britain tried to retaliate by planning the commission of two ships in 1902. The ships would have to be the largest, fastest and most luxurious boat ever built. Before Lusitania could be built though finance had to be acquired, the British government agreed to finance a £2,600,000 loan. On the bias that the ship could be called into active military service whenever the need arose. The ship took a little over 5 years to fully design and construct. On September 7^th 1907 the Lusitania sailed her maiden voyage from Britain to New York. In August of 1914 WW1 broke out, the bias had been remembered and British Navy needed the ship for wartime services. Scheduled voyages were still being held when available even though the ship was under command of the British Navy. Passengers boarded the Lusitania in New York on May 1, 1915, for the voyage to Liverpool England. Even though German authorities warned Lusitania multiple times, that she would have to cross the war zone to reach Liverpool the boat still left on schedule. On Friday May 7^th 1915 the boat reached the warzone, around 1:30 PM a lookout saw a torpedo heading towards the Lusitania. Panic set in among the passengers and the crew once the torpedo hit the boat, most passengers jumped into the sea while others tried to secure lift rafts.  The submarine guilty of sinking the Lusitania was a German u boat commanded by Captain Schwieger. It took only 18 minutes from impact of the torpedo until the Lusitania was completely submerged into the ocean. Of the 1,195 passengers only 764 survived, 41% of male crew members survived, 36% of female crew members survived, 38.8% of male passengers survived, 38.6% female passengers survived and only 27.1 of the children survived.

14 Points Primary Source Post

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp

President Wilson's 14 points were extremely influential during the Treaty of Versilles. With the 14 points, Wilson hoped to prevent another world war in the future, unfortunately many of the European countries involved wanted retribution, so only about half of the points were passed. Many beleive WWII would have never happened if Wilson had gotten his way.

Video Post

This video shows the tactics used by the french and the Germans during WWI. After the french realized they could not advance on the Germans who had built trenches, they built trenches of their own, and the war came to a standstill. The Germans used mustard gas while the allies had british tanks to break through the lines.



This video shows how the axis used mustard gas and other toxic gasses to smoke out their enemies. They had to check the wind to make sure they wouldn't accidentally fire at their own troops and wear gas masks so they wouldn't die either.

League of Nations Political Cartoon

This political cartoon illustrates the tricky political situation that arose at the ent of WWI. The US proposed a League of Nations, which was an earlier version of the UN, but then decided not to join it. The other countries were relying on the US joining the League of Nations because they needed a nation with a strong military to enforce the treaties, but the US didn't want to join because they didn't want to have to send troops to solve problems that didn't concern them. Many say that this was the biggest thing that caused the League of Nations to fail.

WWI Timeline

Pre-WWI Europe:

June 28 1914 Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assasinated. July 31 1914 Russia allies with serbia. August 1 1914 Germany allies with the Austro-hungarians. August 4 1914 Great britain declares war on Germany. Sept. 15 1914 Trench warfare begins. January 1915 Germany bombs london with zeppelins. May 7 1915 German U-boats sink the Lusitania. May 18 1916 The US sends troops to the western front. Dec 3 1916 The Russians sign an armistice with Germany. Nov 11 1918 Germany and the allies sign an armistice.

Post-WWI Europe:

During WWI, boundaries were completely redrawn across Europe. The Austro-Hungarian empire was split into Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. The Ottoman empire was also broken up and Turkey took most of its land. The USSR lost land in its European front and Poland was created in its place. Most other boundaries were restored to how they were before WWI.