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Trepidation hid in the hearts of passengers and crew as tug boats manoeuvred the RMS Lusitania, the pride of the Cunard Line, from Manhattan’s Pier 54 into New York harbour for the start of its voyage to Liverpool on 1 May 1915. Germany had declared the waters around the British Isles an “exclusion zone”, where any vessel of Britain and its allies would run the gauntlet of German submarines.
Only days before, the Imperial German embassy in Washington had placed advertisements in US newspapers warning that vessels flying the flags of its enemies were “liable to destruction” if they dared navigate the zone. Yet this particular British liner was teeming on departure. Even in wartime, people persuaded themselves, Germany surely wouldn’t dare sink a ship as grand as the Lusitania, with its famous foursome of tall funnels and its lavish first class. Besides, its vaunted speed meant it could outrun any of the Kaiser’s U-boats.
One week later, the Lusitania slipped to a watery grave off the southern coast of Ireland, sunk by a single torpedo from submarine U-20 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger. Lost with it were the lives of 1,198 of the 1,959 on board, among them 139 Americans. The clock on the declaration of war on Germany by the United States had been set ticking, though the hour did not come until April 1917.
Show all 149 1 /149In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Supporting troops of the 1st Australian Division walking on a duckboard track near Hooge, in the Ypres Sector
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Final moments: The Archduke of Austria Franz Ferdinand with his wife Sophie in Sarajevo minutes before his shooting
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Arresting Princip’s fellow conspirator Nedeljko Cabrinovic after a failed attempt to kill the Archduke on the same day
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds in central London cheer Britain’s declaration of war on Germany
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The innocents: New recruits, with bicycles, training with the British Army in 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War 1914: A lone soldier with a bicycle stands amid the remains of a German motor convoy which lines a country lane after an attack by French field guns in the battle of the Aisne in France
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Troubled waters: The Cambridge eight included John Andrew Ritson (fourth from cox)
Museum of London, Christina Broom
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War John Andrew Ritson (left)
Museum of London, Christina Broom
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Dennis Ivor Day
Musuem of London; Christina Broom
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German infantry advance through Belgium in August 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Civilians near the Austrian lines in Serbia are strung up – probably as a reprisal for guerrilla resistance to the invaders
Miroslav Honzík/Hana Honzíková
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Captured soldiers of the Russian 2nd Army after their defeat at the Battle of Tannenberg
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Wounded and exhausted British and Belgian soldiers retreating after the Battle of Mons
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds gather outside a recruitment office
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War French General Joseph Joffre (second right), Commander- in-Chief of the French Armies, and General Michel Joseph Maunoury (right) on the front during the First Battle of the Marne. Six hundred scarlet taxis were requisitioned, at a cost of Fr70,102, to ferry reservist troops to the Battle of the Marne in 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A French firing squad escorts a deserter to his execution in November 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War One of the trenches from which deserters tried to escape
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German soldiers in Wirballen, a border town between the German Reich and Russia
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Carl Hans Lody, who spied in Britain
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Up to 12 million letters a week were sent to the front line via the wooden sorting office hastily set up in Regent’s Park in 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Survivors from SMS ‘Gneisenau’ in the sea off the Falkland Islands, with HMS ‘Inflexible’ in the background, 8 December 1914
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The ruins of the cloth hall and cathedral in Ypres during WWI
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Margot Asquith, the Countess of Oxford and Asquith and the wife of Britain’s wartime leader
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A wounded American in a London hospital reads a magazine with a red cross nurse by his bedside.
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A mass execution by firing squad following the unsuccessful Singapore mutiny of 1915
rebelsindia.com
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Indian soldiers serving in France were known for their fighting spirit
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Russian artillery positions outside Przemysl, during the six-month siege of the heavily fortified Austro-Hungarian city, part of present-day Poland
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Residents assess the damage after Suffolk was rocked by bomb attacks mounted by German Zeppelin
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German infantrymen attack through a cloud of poison gas. By the end of the war, both sides had employed various kinds of gas
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Children of Armenian refugees in a camp
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Armenian civilians being led away by Ottoman soldiers
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A public hanging in Istanbul
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A pile of skulls from the Armenian village of Sheyxalan
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allied troops at Anzac Cove (Gaba Tepe) during the Gallipoli campaign
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allied troops unloading heavy guns in the Dardanelles
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Volunteer nurse Florence Farmborough was part of the Russian retreat from Gorlice
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Cunard liner RMS Lusitania, after secret Whitehall misgivings about the official account of one of the most controversial and tragic episodes of the First World War were revealed in newly-released government documents. Almost 70 years after the Cunard liner RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland, some officials expressed concern that the truth was still being covered up
PA Wire
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The RMS Lusitania sailed from New York on 1 May 1915 on her last voyage; the liner was sunk off southern Ireland on 7 May
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Welsh Liberal politician and future Prime Minister David Lloyd George (1863 - 1945) enjoys a quiet read of a newspaper in his garden with his faithful dog for company
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War French troops line up for inspection on a trench on the Western Front
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German military prisoners, at Southend-on-Sea, on their way to Knockaloe
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The railway line running the length of the access road into Knockaloe, the biggest camp in the British Isles
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Survivors of the sinking in Cobh, Co Cork
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Robert Graves (1895-1985), who served on the Western Front from 1915 to 1917
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War 2nd Lieutenant John Kipling is thought to have been killed in The Chalk Pit, in Loos, France, on 27 September 1915
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Laid to rest: Edith Cavell circa 1905
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Her funeral cortege in London in May 1919
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War George Samson is celebrated on a cigarette card of the time
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Flora Sandes, who rose from private to sergeant-major in the Serbian army, playing chess with her Serbian comrades. After the war ended, she was promoted to lieutenant
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Italian light infantry of the 1st Alpini Regiment on Monte Nero, during the Isonzo campaigns
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War As Italian as mozzarella cheese: Giuseppe Ungaretti
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War French troops under shellfire during the Battle of Verdun
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A French soldier is shot during a counter attack
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Devastation near Fort Souville, Verdun
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Conscripts, among the first men ever to be compelled to join the British Army, undergo a medical
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Chandeliers and bed rest
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Pavilion was meant as a seaside home for the Prince Regent
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Fun and games were vital
Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Patients get some sea air
Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The medical staff
Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton & Hove
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Britain saw the Easter Rising as a stab in the back and the rebels, pictured here being led to captivity, as traitors. Subsequent executions made them into national heroes
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A steamer hit by a torpedo during the First World War
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Ottoman army besieged the British forces for 147 days until they surrendered on 29 April 1916
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War General Sir Charles Townshend
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The tear-stained letter
Imperial War Museum
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Siegfried Sassoon as a second lieutenant in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. His bravery won him the Military Cross in July 1916, but he later turned against the war
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The sinking of the ‘Queen Mary’
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Admiral John Jellicoe, commander of the British fleet
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German destroyers off the English coast
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War One of the architects of the revolt: Sharif Hussain, religious leader of Mecca
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War One of the architects of the revolt: Sir Henry McMahon, British minister in Cairo
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Emilio Lussu, who fought in the battle with the Italian Army, on the side of the allies, against the Austrians, who sided with Germany
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Field Marshal Horatio Herbert Kitchener, whose face appeared on the recruitment poster ‘Your Country Needs You’
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Conscientious objectors at a protest on Dartmoor in 1917
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Objectors were forced to cultivate the soil although many were said to have spent much of their time "strolling on the moors, reading, smoking and talking"
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War British conscientious objectors leaving Dartmoor Prison under a gateway inscribed with the words "Parcere subjectis" ("Spare the conquered")
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Going over the top during the Battle of the Somme in 1916
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The British Machine Gun Corps during the battle
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Canadian troops prepare for the charge
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Remains of the German airship shot down over Cuffley
Popperfoto
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Captain William Leefe Robinson received the VC for his courage
Hulton/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A British Mark 1 tank on the Western Front
Topical Press/Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A British soldier covers a dead German on the firestep of a trench near the Somme
Hulton/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Carnage on the road to Romania’s Turnu Rosu Pass. A German NCO stands beside an Italian-made cannon and the body of what may have been a gun crew member
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Edward Thomas, a Second-Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery, at home on leave in early 1917
Edward Thomas Fellowship
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Edward’s wife Helen with two of their three children, Merfyn and Bronwen
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War May Bradford writing a letter for an injured soldier in a French hospital
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Composer and poet Ivor Gurney (left) and the artist Paul Nash
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Filling shells at the Vickers munitions factory, Barrow-in-Furness. Strikers’ grievances included the use of female labour
BAE Systems Submarines
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The moment that ushered in the American century: President Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to ratify a declaration of war against Imperial Germany
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Supporters greet Lenin on his arrival at Finland Station, Petrograd, on 16 April 1917, after a week-long journey by sealed train from Switzerland
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War War effort: Women war workers at Cross Farm, Shackleton, Surrey, in 1917
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War French ‘poilus’ at Chemin des Dames, where the bloody Nivelle Offensive of 1917 pushed many into mutiny
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War An early colour photograph of the crater left by the biggest of the blasts beneath German positions near Messines on 14 June 1917
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War British sappers laying the mines
Heritage Images/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The remains of a German trench
Alamy
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Ernst Jünger’s German platoon overcame the enemy forces with his ‘mastery of the situation and iron command’
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Siegfried Sassoon was sent to Craiglockhart Hospital to be treated for ‘shell shock’ following his protest
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Erich Maria Remarque (1898-1970), whose 1929 novel, ‘All Quiet On The Western Front’, was based on his wartime experiences. Here he is seen with Carl Laemmle of Universal Pictures (left)
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The conscription of reserve soldiers in Greece to fight on the Salonika front in 1916. The Greek city was ravaged by a fire the following year, which devastated the area and left thousands homeless
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allied troops marching down the Boulevard de la Victoire in Salonika in 1916, the year before the great fire which devastated the Greek city
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Women leaving a munitions factory on Eiswerder Island in Spandau, near Berlin, at the end of their shift, in around 1917. They are crossing the bridge over the river Havel
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Female workers of the Spandau factory getting their dinner during the midday break
TopFoto
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Wet weather plagued the Third Battle of Ypres, which included the battles of Langemarck and Passchendaele. Perhaps 70,000 Allied soldiers died between 31 July and 10 November
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A British stretcher party
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German prisoners on a duckboard track at Yser Canal, Belgium, on the opening day of the battle
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War 3rd September 1917: Veterans of the American Civil War at the opening of the Eagle Hut
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War US Ambassador Page greeting veterans of the American Civil War at the opening of the Eagle Hut
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War 22nd December 1917: Christmas preparations at the Eagle Hut
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Albin Köbis, who was shot as one of the ringleaders of the German naval mutiny in 1917
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Stokers of the SMS Prinzregent Luitpold in 1913
Alamy
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allied troops in what is now Zambia, in vain pursuit of the forces of the elusive German general Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Genius in the art of bush warfare: German general Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War German women and children queue for food rations
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds at Petrograd’s Winter Palace during the October Revolution. (Russia still used the Julian calendar, in which the West’s 7 November equated to 25 October)
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Mayor of Jerusalem (with walking-stick) had tried to surrender the city to them
Imperial War Museum
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Allenby walks into Jerusalem: Sergeants James Sedgwick and Frederick Hurcomb of 2/19th Battalion, London Regiment, outside the city two days earlier
AP
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Artist John Nash not only painted the ordeals of Britain’s front line troops: he experienced them first-hand
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A British housewife with her grocery items after the introduction of rationing. The government feared hunger might lead to revolution
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Edmund Morel as an MP after his release
Topham Picturepoint
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A suffragist rally in Hyde Park
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A newly enfranchised woman votes for the first time in 1918
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Masked doctors and nurses treat flu patients lying on cots and in outdoor tents at a hospital camp during the influenza epidemic of 1918
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The immense long-range naval gun which was used to bombard Paris from behind the German lines in Picardy
TopFoto
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The immense naval gun was manned by 80 German sailors. It launched its shells from behind the German lines
TopFoto
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Walter Tull, left, Britain’s first black Army officer, in a photograph handed down to his great-nephew Edward Finlayson
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Tull was singled out for his "gallantry and coolness" following a daring raid across the frozen river Piave in January 1918
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The German air ace Baron Manfred von Richthofen
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Baron Manfred von Richthofen's 'flying circus'
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Dogs at the British War Dog School in Essex
Mary Evans Picture Library
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Tweed, far left, with his handler Private Reid
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A dog courier runs through barbed wire and mines to deliver a message
Corbis
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Piete Kuhr, pictured in 1915
Memoria Hürth
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Vera Brittain became a nurse during the war
Hulton/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The aftermath of the explosion at the munitions plant in Chilwell
Nottingham City Council
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Remains of a soldier on the Western Front, where millions were killed or wounded, or went missing
Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War From left, Marshal Joffre, President Henri Poincaré, King George V, General Foch, and Field-Marshal Haig
Time life pictures/Getty
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Captured German officers receiving orders from a French officer
Universal Images Group/Getty Images
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War American troops advance on a German position on the Saint Mihiel salient, north-eastern France, in 1918
In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War American soldiers of the 18th Infantry Machine Gun Battalion advance through the ruins of St Baussant on their way to the St. Mihiel Front
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War A group of captured Germans being marched through St Mihiel Salient
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Wilfred Owen in uniform as a 2nd Lieutenant. The poet was teaching in France when the war began
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The poet Rainer Maria Rilke, circa 1920. The poet describes to his wife the rising tide of popular unrest in Munich
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The interior of the railway carriage in which the Armistice ending the First World War was signed
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Allied delegation was led by France’s Marshal Ferdinand Foch (front row, second right)
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War The Royal Family appear on the balcony
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War People celebrate in the streets in 1918
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds in London celebrate the end of hostilities on 11 November 1918
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In pictures: A history of the First World War in 100 moments First World War Crowds in London celebrate the end of hostilities in 1918
Getty
Daybreak on 7 May revealed heavy fog and Captain William Turner signalled the Lusitania’s engineers to slow to 15 knots, a decision that alarmed the more aware passengers on board. Then the sun broke through, speed was increased, and easy sailing on flat seas was promised. But the improved conditions meant something else: when, early that afternoon, the U-20 surfaced, the Lusitania was clearly visible steaming eastwards. The ship adjusted course, which promised to take it beyond Schwieger’s reach; but then it turned again. The Lusitania started to sail directly towards the U-boat – and its own destruction.
A lookout spotted the trail of bubbles zipping towards the Lusitania’s starboard side but it was too late. A first explosion, which came with impact, was followed swiftly by a second, larger one. The double detonation was later to cause controversy. The liner, though the British public was slow to learn it, had been carrying cartridges in its hold, for the war effort – a fact that Germany would attempt to use to justify the attack. But had they been the source of the second explosion? Or was it in fact coal dust in the ship’s near-empty bunkers?
Not that it mattered to those on board. Evacuation, once ordered by Captain Turner, was chaotic. Electricity failed, plunging interior decks and cabins into darkness. Some anti-flood safety doors swung shut, trapping those behind them. The sudden and severe listing of the ship made the loading and lowering of its lifeboats perilous or impossible. Of those who survived, many were floating in the sea in lifejackets or grabbing pieces of wreckage.
It had taken just 18 minutes for the majestic liner to succumb to the waves. There were reports of one man clinging to a corpse, another falling down a funnel only to be ejected by another explosion. One lifeboat was loaded with only three passengers. A woman gave birth in the water.
“There was no acute feeling of fear whilst one was floating in the water,” the future Viscountess Rhondda wrote in a memoir, This Was My World (Macmillan, 1933). “I can remember feeling thankful that I had not been drowned underneath, but had reached the surface safely, and thinking that even if the worst happened there could be nothing unbearable to go through now that my head was above the water. The life-belt held one up in a comfortable sitting position, with one’s head lying rather back, as if one were in a hammock.
“At moments I wondered whether the whole thing was perhaps a nightmare from which I would wake, and once, half laughing, I think – I wondered, looking round on the sun and pale blue sky and calm sea, whether I had reached Heaven without knowing it – and devoutly hoped I hadn’t.”
Anger, diplomatic and popular, came quickly on both sides of the Atlantic. In England, riots erupted. While some German newspapers celebrated – “An Extraordinary Victory”, trumpeted the Frankfurter Zeitung on 8 May – British and American headline writers were unified in their disgust.
“British and American Babies Murdered by the Kaiser,” lamented the Daily Mail. A more restrained New York Times declared: “Few of Liner’s 1,273 Victims Found; 120 Americans Dead; Sinking of the Lusitania is Defended by Germany; President Sees Need of Firm and Deliberate Action.”
Exactly how Woodrow Wilson would respond was of urgent interest, as relayed in this dispatch to the Daily Mail. “Like a prairie fire indignation and the bitterest resentment is sweeping today over the American continent. The only question is: Will this universal feeling of horror and mingled grief for the innocent victims of the greatest crime in history overwhelm the Government and force it into a declaration of war?”
But Wilson maintained his position that the US should stay neutral. “The example of America must be a special example,” he said in Philadelphia three days later. “The example of America must be the example not merely of peace because it will not fight, but of peace because peace is the healing and elevating influence of the world and strife is not. There is such a thing as a man being too proud to fight. There is such a thing as a nation being so right that it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.”
But the sinking of the Lusitania had already lit a fuse. It had brought Europe’s raging war home to many ordinary Americans and helped them conclude that Germany was the enemy of peace.
By the spring of 1917, more US shipping assets had been struck by German munitions, and on 2 April Wilson finally went to Congress asking for permission to join the war against the Kaiser; permission that was swiftly granted.
Tomorrow: The poet’s battle cry
The '100 Moments' already published can be seen at: independent.co.uk/greatwar
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