Creature From Jekyll Island by G. Edward

the United States. As further provocation, the British navy was ordered to treat captured U-boat crew members not as prisoners of war but as felons. 'Survivors,'

wrote Churchill, 'should be taken prisoner or shot—whichever is the most convenient.'2 Other orders, which now are an embarrassing part of official navy archives, were even more ruthless: 'In all actions, white flags should be fired upon with promptitude.'

The trap was carefully laid. The German navy was goaded into a position of shoot-first and ask questions later and, under those conditions, it was inevitable that American lives would be lost.

A FLOATING MUNITIONS DEPOT

After many years of investigation, it is now possible to identify the cargo that was loaded aboard the Lusitania on her last voyage. It included 600 tons of pyroxyline (commonly called gun cotton),4

I Churchill, pp. 274-75.

2. Taken from the Diaries of Admiral Sir Hubert Richmond, Feb. 27,1915, National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, as quoted by Simpson, p. 37.

3. P.R.O., ADM/116/1359, Dec. 23,1914, quoted by Simpson, p. 37.

4. Gun cotton explodes with three-times the force of gunpowder in a confined space and can be ignited at a much lower flash point. See Eissler, Manuel, Modern High Explosives (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1914), pp. 110,112,372.

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THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND

six-million rounds of ammunition, 1,248 cases of shrapnel shells (which may not have included explosive charges), plus an unknown quantity of munitions that completely filled the holds on the lowest deck and the trunkways and passageways of F deck. In addition, there were many tons of 'cheese,' 'lard,' 'furs' and other items which were shown later to be falsely labelled. What they were is not now known, but it is certain they were at least contraband if not outright weapons of war. They were all consigned through the /.P.

Morgan Company. But none of this was suspected by the public, least of all those hapless Americans who unknowingly booked a passage to death for themselves and their families as human decoys in a global game of high finance and low politics.

The German embassy in Washington was well aware of the

nature of the cargo being loaded aboard the Lusitania and filed a formal complaint to the United States government, because almost all of it was in direct violation of international neutrality treaties.

The response was a flat denial of any knowledge of such cargo.

Seeing that the Wilson Administration was tacitly approving the shipment, the German embassy made one final effort to avert disaster. It placed an ad in fifty East Coast newspapers, including those in New York City, warning Americans not to take passage on the Lusitania. The ad was prepaid and requested to be placed on the paper's travel page a full week before the sailing date. It read as follows:

NOTICE!

TRAVELERS intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage

are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany

and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial

German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great

Britain, or of any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travelers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.

IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY

Washington, D.C., April 22,1915.

SINK THE LUSITANIA!

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Although the ad was in the hands of newspapers in time for the r e q u e s t e d deadline, the State Department intervened and, raising the specter of possible libel suits, frightened the publishers into not printing it without prior clearance from State Department attorneys.

Of the fifty newspapers, only the Des Moines Register carried the ad on the requested date. What happened next is described by Simpson:

G e o r g e Viereck [ w h o w a s t h e e d i t o r o f a G e r m a n - o w n e d newspaper at that time and w h o had placed the ads on behalf of the e m b a s s y ] s p e n t A p r i l 2 6 a s k i n g t h e S t a t e D e p a r t m e n t w h y h i s advertisement h a d not b e e n published. Eventually h e m a n a g e d t o obtain an interview with [Secretary of State, William Jennings] Bryan and pointed out to him that on all but one of her wartime voyages the Lusitania h a d c a r r i e d m u n i t i o n s . H e p r o d u c e d c o p i e s of her supplementary manifests, which were open to public inspection at the collector's office. M o r e important, he informed Bryan, no fewer than six million r o u n d s of a m m u n i t i o n w e r e d u e to be s h i p p e d on the Lusitania the following Friday and could be seen at that moment being loaded on pier 54. Bryan picked up the telephone and cleared the publication of the advertisement. He promised Viereck that he would endeavor to persuade the President publicly to warn Americans not to travel. No such warning was issued by the President, but there can be no doubt that President Wilson was told of the character of the cargo destined for the Lusitania. He did nothing, but was to concede on the day he was told of her sinking that his foreknowledge h a d given him m a n y sleepless hours.1