James Metcalfe
The sinking of the Lusitania has come to represent the barbarism of the First World War and is seen by many as one of the tragedies of American history that dragged the country into a war against Germany. However, the reality is a little more complex than that. The Germans had been warning Americans of their unrestricted submarine warfare in publications such as the New York Times for weeks right up until the coastliner left for England, and the British Government even warned the captain of the ship that they were too close to the coast and should zig zag through as to avoid the German U-boats. Avoiding all of this information, the ship would eventually be sunk, leading to the deaths of over a thousand people.
