NOTES

Foreign Relations

U.S. Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States. 1915, Supplement, The World War, University of Wisconsin Digital Collections, http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/FRUS.FRUS1915Supp.

“Investigation”

“Investigation into the Loss of the Steamship ‘Lusitania,’ ” Proceedings Before the Right Hon. Lord Mersey, Wreck Commissioner of the United Kingdom, June 15–July 1, 1915, National Archives UK.

Lauriat, Claim

Charles E. Lauriat Jr., Claim, Lauriat vs. Germany, Docket 40, Mixed Claims Commission: United States and Germany, Aug. 10, 1922. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, MD.

Merseyside

Maritime Archives, Merseyside Maritime Museum.

Schwieger, War Log

Walther Schwieger, War Log. Bailey/Ryan Collection, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.

U.S. National Archives–College Park

U.S. National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, MD.

U.S. National Archives–New York

U.S. National Archives and Records Administration at New York City.

A WORD FROM THE CAPTAIN

1 “vessels flying the flag”: See New York Times, May 1, 1915. An article about the warning appears on p. 3, the ad itself on p. 19.

2 “thinking, dreaming, sleeping”: Liverpool Weekly Mercury, May 15, 1915.

3 He assured the audience: Preston, Lusitania, 172.

4 “The truth is”: Bailey and Ryan, Lusitania Disaster, 82.

5 on two previous occasions: Ibid., 65; Beesly, Room 40, 93; Ramsay, Lusitania, 50, 51.

6 “You could see the shape”: Testimony, Thomas M. Taylor, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 913.

LUSITANIA: THE OLD SAILORMAN

1 Despite the war in Europe: “General Analysis of Passengers and Crew,” R.M.S. Lusitania: Record of Passengers & Crew, SAS/29/6/18, Merseyside.

2 This was … the greatest number: New York Times, May 2, 1915.

3 During an early trial voyage: Cunard Daily Bulletin, July 19, 1907, Merseyside.

4 “a vote of censure”: Ibid.

5 “for I calculate that there is room”: Ibid.

6 “Please deliver me”: Ibid.

7 “The inhabitants were warlike”: “Lusitania,” D42/S9/5/1, Cunard Archives.

8 “Rule, Britannia!”: The title of this song is often written and said incorrectly, as if it were a declaration. The title, however, is meant to be an exhortation, as in “Go Britain!”

9 “You do not get any idea”: Letter, C. R. Minnitt to Mrs. E. M. Poole, July 9, 1907, DX/2284, Merseyside.

10 The ship’s lightbulbs: Minutes, Cunard Board of Directors, July 10, 1912, D42/B4/38, Cunard Archives; Fox, Transatlantic, 404.

11 He found it “very gratifying”: Letter, W. Dranfield to W. T. Turner, Jan. 20, 1911, D42/C1/2/44, Cunard Archives; Letter, W. T. Turner to Alfred A. Booth, Feb. 6, 1911, D42/C1/2/44, Cunard Archives.

12 Its 300 stokers: Bisset, Commodore, 32.

13 Cunard barred crew members: The company called the permissible matches “Lucifer matches,” though in fact that name harked back to a decidedly unsafe early precursor that lit with a pop and sent embers flying.

14 “counteract, as far as possible”: “Cunard Liner Lusitania,” 941.

15 The guns were never installed: Strangely, this remained a point of controversy for decades, reinforced by reports by at least one diver who reported seeing the barrel of a naval gun protruding from the wreckage. But no passenger ever spoke of seeing a gun aboard, and a film of the ship’s departure shows clearly that no guns were mounted. Also, a search by Customs in New York found no evidence of armament.

16 “devil-dodger”: Hoehling and Hoehling, Last Voyage, 42.

17 “Had it been stormy”: Hobart Mercury, March 8, 1864.

18 “I was the quickest man”: Hoehliing and Hoehling, Last Voyage, 42.

19 “never, at any time”: Letter, George Ball to Adolf Hoehling, July 22, 1955, Hoehling Papers.

20 “On the ships”: Letter, Mabel Every to Adolf Hoehling, May 4, 1955, Hoehling Papers.

21 “a load of bloody monkeys”: Preston, Lusitania, 108; also see “William Thomas Turner,” Lusitania Online, http://www.lusitania.net/turner.htm.

22 On one voyage: “Captain’s Report, Oct. 15, 1904,” Minutes, Cunard Executive Committee, Oct. 20, 1904, D42/B4/22, Merseyside.

23 “Madam, do you think”: Letter, George Ball to Adolf Hoehling, July 22, 1955, Hoehling Papers.

24 more “clubbable”: Preston, Lusitania, 108.

25 “He was a good, and conscientious skipper”: Letter, R. Barnes (dictated to K. Simpson) to Mary Hoehling, July 14, 1955, Hoehling Papers.

26 “Captain’s compliments”: Albert Bestic to Adolf Hoehling, June 10, 1955, Hoehling Papers.

27 “one of the bravest”: Letter, Thomas Mahoney to Adolf Hoehling, May 14, 1955, Hoehling Papers.

28 “The wave,” Turner said: New York Times, Jan. 16, 1910.

29 The Cunard manual: The manual was an exhibit in the New York limit-of-liability proceedings. Cunard Steamship Company, “Rules to Be Observed in the Company’s Service,” Liverpool, March 1913, Admiralty Case Files: Limited Liability Claims for the Lusitania, Box 1, U.S. National Archives–New York.

30 The dangers of fog: Larson, Thunderstruck, 376.

31 “to keep the ship sweet”: Cunard Steamship Company, “Rules,” 54.

32 “The utmost courtesy”: Ibid., 43.

33 “much to the amusement”: New York Times, May 23 and 24, 1908.

34 “should not be made a market place”: Minutes, Sept. 1910 [day illegible], D42/B4/32, Cunard Archives.
   There were other sorts of complaints. On a couple of voyages in September 1914 third-class passengers “of a very superior type” complained about the fact that Cunard did not supply them with sheets, unlike other less exalted steamship lines, according to a report by the chief third-class steward. He wrote, “They did not quite understand why sheets should not be supplied on vessels like the LUSITANIA and MAURETANIA where higher rates were charged.” The company studied the matter and found that it could supply two thousand sheets and one thousand quilts at a cost of £358 per voyage. Memoranda, General Manager to Superintendent of Furnishing Department, Sept. 30, 1914, and Oct. 2, 1914, D42/PR13/3/24-28, Cunard Archives.

35 “When you have it on”: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 21.

36 “to be severely reprimanded”: Captain’s Record: William Thomas Turner, D42/GM/V6/1, Cunard Archives.

37 “tired and really ill”: Preston, Lusitania, 110; Ramsay, Lusitania, 49.

WASHINGTON: THE LONELY PLACE

1 The train carrying the body: Schachtman, Edith and Woodrow, 41; G. Smith, When the Cheering Stopped, 11; New York Times, Aug. 12, 1914.

2 just a year and a half: In 1913, Inauguration Day came in March.

3 “For several days”: Schachtman, Edith and Woodrow, 72.

4 “felt like a machine”: Ibid., 48. Harlakenden House was owned by an American author named Winston Churchill, whose books were, at the time, very popular—enough so that he and the other Winston exchanged correspondence and the latter resolved that in all his writings he would insert a middle initial, S, for Spencer. His full and formal name was Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill.

5 The South in particular suffered: Berg, Wilson, 341–42.

6 The lead story: New York Times, June 27, 1914.

7 In Europe, kings and high officials: Keegan, First World War, 53–54, 55, 57, 58; Thomson, Twelve Days, 89.

8 In England, the lay public: Thomson, Twelve Days, 186. When Shackleton read a report in the press that Britain was soon to mobilize, he rather chivalrously volunteered to cancel his expedition and offered his ship and services to the war effort. Churchill telegraphed back: “Proceed.”

9 “These pistols”: Ibid., 64, 65, 67, 97.

10 Far from a clamor for war: Keegan, First World War, 10, 12, 15.

11 the Ford Motor Company: New York Times, June 27, 1914.

12 But old tensions and enmities persisted: Devlin, Too Proud to Fight, 220; Keegan, First World War, 17, 18, 19, 38, 42–43.

13 “Europe had too many frontiers”: Thomson, Twelve Days, 23.

14 As early as 1912: Tuchman, Zimmermann Telegram, 11.

15 In Germany, meanwhile, generals tinkered: Keegan, First World War, 29, 30, 32–33.

16 “It’s incredible—incredible”: Berg, Wilson, 334.

17 “We must be impartial”: Ibid., 337, 774.
   Britain resented American neutrality. On December 20, 1914, First Sea Lord Jacky Fisher wrote, “The time will come when the United States will be d—d sorry they were neutral.… We shall win all right. I am only VERY sorry” (Marder, Fear God, 3:99). In the same letter Fisher made reference to a widely published poem, popular in Britain, by William Watson, entitled “To America Concerning England.” Watson asks:

… The tiger from his den

Springs at thy mother’s throat, and canst thou now

Watch with a stranger’s gaze?

18 “The United States is remote”: Brooks, “United States,” 237–38.

19 Louvain: Keegan, First World War, 82–83; Link, Wilson: Struggle, 51; New York Times, Oct. 4, 1914.

20 “felt deeply the destruction”: Link, Wilson: Struggle, 51.

21 The German toll: Keegan, First World War, 135–36.

22 By year’s end: Ibid., 176.

23 For Wilson, already suffering depression: Berg, Wilson, 337.

24 “I feel the burden”: Link, Wilson: Struggle, 50.

25 “The whole thing”: Ibid., 52.

26 There was at least one moment: Berg, Wilson, 339–40; Devlin, Too Proud to Fight, 227; Schachtman, Edith and Woodrow, 52.

27 “We are at peace”: Berg, Wilson, 352.

28 On entering waters: Doerries, Imperial Challenge, 94. Wilson wrote to House, later: “Such use of flags plays directly in the hands of Germany in her extraordinary plan to destroy commerce” (290).
   And indeed, news of the Lusitania flag episode incensed the German press and public, as reported by America’s ambassador to Germany, James Watson Gerard. “The hate campaign here against America has assumed grave proportions,” he cabled to Secretary Bryan, on Feb. 10, 1915. “People much excited by published report that Lusitania by order of British Admiralty hoisted American flag in Irish Channel and so entered Liverpool.” Telegram, Gerard to Bryan, Feb. 10, 1915, Foreign Relations.

29 At the beginning of the war: Germany’s first U-boat sortie seemed to affirm the German navy’s initial skepticism about the value of submarines. On Aug. 6, 1914, after receiving reports that English battleships had entered the North Sea, Germany dispatched ten U-boats to hunt for them. The boats set out from their base on Germany’s North Sea coast, with authority to sail as far as the northern tip of Scotland, a distance no German submarine had hitherto traveled. One boat experienced problems with its diesel engines and had to return to base. Two others were lost. One was surprised by a British cruiser, the HMS Birmingham, which rammed and sank it, killing all aboard. The fate of the other missing boat was never discovered. The remaining submarines returned to base having sunk nothing. “Not encouraging,” one officer wrote. Thomas, Raiders, 16; see also Halpern, Naval History, 29; Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 34–35.

30 “this strange form of warfare”: Churchill, World Crisis, 723.

31 Only a few prescient souls: See Doyle, “Danger!” throughout.

32 Doyle’s forecast: New York Times, Nov. 16, 1917.

33 “The essence of war”: Memorandum, Jan. 1914, Jellicoe Papers.

34 “abhorrent”: Churchill, World Crisis, 409. In British eyes the sinking of a civilian ship was an atrocity. “To sink her incontinently was odious,” Churchill wrote; “to sink her without providing for the safety of the crew, to leave that crew to perish in open boats or drown amid the waves was in the eyes of all seafaring peoples a grisly act, which hitherto had never been practiced deliberately except by pirates” (672).

35 “if some ghastly novelty”: Ibid., 144, 145.

36 German strategists, on the other hand: Breemer, Defeating the U-Boat, 12; Frothingham, Naval History, 57; Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 25, 88. The German term for “approximate parity” in naval strength was Kräfteausgleich. Breemer, Defeating the U-Boat, 12.

37 “So we waited”: Churchill, World Crisis, 146; Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 11. This stalemate did not sit well with either side. Both navies hoped to distinguish themselves in the war and chafed at the lack of definitive, glory-yielding action. German sailors had to bear mockery by German soldiers, who taunted, “Dear Fatherland rest calmly, the fleet sleeps safely in port.” On the British side, there was the Admiralty’s long heritage of naval success that had to be protected. As one senior officer put it, “Nelson would turn in his grave.”
   Jellicoe was sensitive to how so defensive a strategy would sit with his fellow navy men, current and former. In an Oct. 30, 1914, letter to the Admiralty he confessed to fearing that they would find the strategy “repugnant.”
   He wrote, “I feel that such tactics, if not understood, may bring odium upon me.” Nonetheless, he wrote, he intended to stick to the strategy, “without regard to uninstructed opinion or criticism.”
   Koerver, German Submarine Warfare, xxviii, xv; see Jellicoe’s letter in Frothingham, Naval History, 317.

38 “In those early days”: Hook Papers.

39 He was soon to learn otherwise: Breemer, Defeating the U-Boat, 17; Churchill, World Crisis, 197–98; Marder, From the Dreadnought, 57. Breemer states that more than 2,500 sailors died in the incident.

40 “the live-bait squadron”: When Churchill first heard the nickname “live-bait squadron” during a visit to the fleet, he investigated and grew concerned enough that on Friday, September 18, 1914, he sent a note to his then second in command, Prince Louis of Battenberg (soon to be forced from the job because of his German heritage), urging him to remove the ships. The prince agreed and issued orders to his chief of staff to send the cruisers elsewhere. “With this I was content,” Churchill wrote, “and I dismissed the matter from my mind, being sure that the orders given would be complied with at the earliest moment.”
   But four days later the ships were still in place, and in a state even more exposed than usual. Ordinarily a group of destroyers kept watch over them, but over the next several days the weather became so rough that it forced the destroyers to return to their home port. By Tuesday, September 22, the sea had calmed, and the destroyers began making their way back to the patrol zone. Weddigen got there first. Churchill, World Crisis, 197–98.

41 “my first sight of men struggling”: The ship heeled over far enough that part of its bottom was exposed, as was its “bilge keel.” Hook saw “hundreds of men’s heads bobbing” in the water, “while a continuous stream of very scantily-clad men appeared from the upper deck and started tobogganing down the ship’s side, stopping suddenly when they came to the bilge keel, climbing over it, and continuing their slide until they reached the water with a splash. I remember wondering whether they hurt themselves when they started traveling over the barnacles below the water line.” Hook Papers.

42 This posed a particularly acute threat: The two-thirds figure comes from Black, Great War, 50.

43 “doom the entire population”: Telegram, Count Johann-Heinrich von Bernstorff to William Jennings Bryan, Feb. 7, 1915, and see enclosure “Memorandum of the German Government,” Foreign Relations.

44 “Does it really make any difference”: Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 218.
   Admiral Scheer had a rather cool view of the human costs of war and the role of U-boats in advancing Germany’s goals. “The more vigorously the war is prosecuted the sooner will it come to an end, and countless human beings and treasure will be saved if the duration of the war is curtailed,” he wrote. “Consequently a U-boat cannot spare the crews of steamers, but must send them to the bottom with their ship.” He added, “The gravity of the situation demands that we should free ourselves from all scruples which certainly no longer have justification.”
   This logic, he argued, also required that the submarine be used to its fullest advantage. “You do not demand of an aeroplane that it should attack the enemy on its wheels,” Scheer wrote. Failure to make maximum use of the submarine’s ability to attack by surprise, he wrote, “would be nonsensical and unmilitary.”
   And besides, Scheer argued, in delineating a war zone and warning ships to stay out, Germany had made its intentions clear. Therefore, if a submarine sank merchant ships, “including their crews and any passengers,” it was the fault of the victims, “who despised our warnings and, open-eyed, ran the risk of being torpedoed” (220, 221, 222–23, 228).

45 “to a strict accountability”: Telegram, William Jennings Bryan to German Foreign Office, via James W. Gerard, Feb. 10, 1915, Foreign Relations.

46 Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg: Bethmann was something of a humanist—he was an expert pianist and classicist, able to read Plato in Greek. Thomson, Twelve Days, 119.

47 “Unhappily, it depends”: Devlin, Too Proud to Fight, 322; Gibson and Prendergast, German Submarine War, 105.

48 “If in spite of the exercise”: Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 231. “Who is that beautiful lady?”: Cooper, Woodrow Wilson, 282; Grayson, Woodrow Wilson, 50; Levin, Edith and Woodrow, 52.

49 “I had no experience”: Wilson, My Memoir, 22; Cooper, Woodrow Wilson, 282.

50 “taken for a tramp”: Wilson, My Memoir, 56; Cooper, Woodrow Wilson, 281.

51 “There is not a soul here”: Wilson, My Memoir, 56; Link, Wilson: Confusions, 1–2.

52 “This was the accidental meeting”: Wilson, My Memoir, 56; Cooper, Woodrow Wilson, 281; Levin, Edith and Woodrow, 53.
   Ever since the death of Ellen Wilson, there had been little laughter in the White House. During this first encounter between Galt and the president, Helen Bones heard Wilson laugh twice. “I can’t say that I foresaw in the first minute what was going to happen,” she recalled. “It may have taken ten minutes.” G. Smith, When the Cheering Stopped, 14.

53 “He is perfectly charming”: Schachtman, Edith and Woodrow, 74; Link, Wilson: Confusions, 1–2.

54 “and all sorts of interesting conversation”: Link, Wilson: Confusions, 1–2.

55 “impressive widow”: Levin, Edith and Woodrow, 51.

56 He had little time to dwell: Mersey, Report, throughout. One newspaper called it an act of “shocking bloodthirstiness.” At least one witness aboard the ship reported that the U-boat’s crew had laughed and jeered at survivors struggling in the water. A report telegraphed from the U.S. Embassy in London quoted another witness as stating that if the submarine had allowed just ten or fifteen more minutes before firing, “all might have been saved.” A subsequent investigation by Britain’s wreck commission was headed by Lord Mersey, who three years earlier had presided over an inquiry into the sinking of the Titanic. Mersey decried the amount of time Forstner had given the passengers, calling it “so grossly insufficient … that I am driven to the conclusion that the Captain of the submarine desired and designed not merely to sink the ship but, in doing so, also to sacrifice the lives of the passengers and crew.” As to the evidence of laughing and jeering, Mersey said, “I prefer to keep silence on this matter in the hope that the witness was mistaken.” Mersey, Report, 5; see also Link, Wilson: Struggle, 359; Walker, Four Thousand Lives Lost, 80, 81; telegram, U.S. Consul General, London, to William Jennings Bryan, April 7, 1915, Foreign Relations.

57 “I do not like this case”: Cooper, Woodrow Wilson, 277.

58 “Perhaps it is not necessary”: Link, Wilson: Struggle, 365.

LUSITANIA: SUCKING TUBES AND THACKERAY

1 “Thousands of sweltering, uncomfortable men”: New York Times, April 28, 1915.

2 “The public,” he complained: Ibid.

3 “All men are young”: New York Times, April 29, 1915.

4 a record trade surplus: New York Times, Dec. 9, 1915.

5 There were extravagant displays: New York Times, May 1, 1915.

6 On Thursday, April 29: New York Times, April 30, 1915.

7 “A surprise,” he said: New York Times, May 1, 1915.

8 “after a thorough search”: Ibid.

9 “Space is left”: Ibid.

10 The Lusitania’s roster: “Summary of Passengers’ Nationality,” R.M.S. Lusitania: Record of Passengers & Crew, SAS/29/6/18, Merseyside. Passengers’ addresses, including hotels and other temporary addresses in New York, may be found in Public Record Office Papers, PRO 22/71, National Archives UK.

11 The American complement: Here I use Cunard’s official tally. But other sources offer varying totals, one as high as 218. “Summary of Passengers’ Nationality,” R.M.S. Lusitania: Record of Passengers & Crew, SAS/29/6/18, Merseyside; “List of American Passengers Believed to Have Sailed on the Lusitania,” U.S. National Archives–College Park.

12 They brought their best clothes: The items that follow, alas, were what Cunard cataloged from some of the dead whose bodies were recovered but not identified. “Unidentified Remains,” R.M.S. Lusitania: Record of Passengers & Crew, SAS/29/6/18, Merseyside.

13 Ian Holbourn, the famed writer: Holbourn was known widely as “the Laird of Foula,” for his ownership of an island in the Shetlands. The island, Foula, was a haven for all manner of birdlife, bearing storybook names coined by Foula’s past inhabitants: the cra’, of course—the crow, but also the rochie, the maa and maallie, and the tammie norie, wulkie, bonxie, ebb-pickie, snipoch, and the Allen Richardson, or Scootie Allen, or just plain Allen, this last the Arctic skua. For these and other charming details, certain to set alight the imaginations of birders everywhere, please see Holbourn’s own The Isle of Foula, throughout.

14 “the golden age”: Bolze, “From Private Passion,” 415.

15 “born boat sailor”: Boston Daily Globe, May 11, 1915.

16 Something of a celebrity: Szefel, “Beauty,” 565–66.

17 “as much a debating society”: Bullard et al., “Where History and Theory,” 93.

18 “guide, counselor and friend”: Sargent, Lauriat’s, 10.

19 “homeness”: Publishers’ Weekly, Feb. 21, 1920, 551.

20 The store was long and narrow: For these and myriad other details about “Lauriat’s,” see text and photographs, Sargent, Lauriat’s, 39–46.

21 “great gems”: Ibid., 46.

22 “through the breaking up”: Ibid.

23 One acquisition, of a Bible: New York Times, Sept. 28, 1895. For background on “Breeches” Bibles, see Daily Mirror, Dec. 3, 2013.

24 “for the risk … is practically nil”: In a lengthy filing with the Mixed Claims Commission, convened after the war to levy compensation from Germany to various claimants, Lauriat provides a great many details about his journey and the things he carried with him. He filed his claim on April 6, 1923. All details mined from the proceeding will be cited as Lauriat, Claim. His remark about the safety of transporting things by ocean liner can be found in his filings at “Affidavit, March 12, 1925, or Charles Lauriat Jr.”

25 “convoyed through the war zone”: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 6.

26 “but this year”: Ibid., 69.

27 He packed: “Exhibit in Support of Answer to Question 1,” Lauriat, Claim.

28 “In 1915, to come out”: Mackworth, This Was My World, 239.

29 “In the evenings”: Ibid., 240.

30 “I have always been grateful”: Ibid.

31 “Certainly not”: “Deposition of William Thomas Turner,” April 30, 1915, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York.

U-20: THE HAPPIEST U-BOAT

1 That same day, Friday: Details of Schwieger’s voyage, here and in following chapters, come from his War Log, a translation of which appears in the Bailey/Ryan Collection at the Hoover Institution Archives. The log proved invaluable in helping me reconstruct, in detail, U-20’s journey to the Irish Sea and back. Hereafter, where necessary, I’ll cite it simply as Schwieger, War Log.

2 “A particularly fine-looking fellow”: Thomas, Raiders, 91.

3 At routine cruising speeds: Gibson and Prendergast, German Submarine War, 356–57.

4 Schwieger noted in his log: Koerver states that the “normal” wireless range for submarines was “several hundred miles.” Schwieger’s log indicates that for U-20, at least, the range was far shorter. Koerver, German Submarine Warfare, xix. Jan Breemer states that early in 1915 “reliable” communications between submarines and shore stations at distances of “up to 140 nautical miles were possible.” Breemer, Defeating the U-Boat, 15.

5 “I want to stress”: Edgar von Spiegel interview, Lusitania, Catalog No. 4232, Imperial War Museum, London.

6 “a splendid, dapple-gray horse”: Spiegel, Adventures, 20.

7 “It was a very hard task”: Edgar von Spiegel interview, Lusitania, Catalog No. 4232, Imperial War Museum, London.

8 Such authority could be thrilling: As German captain Paul Koenig put it, “The master of no ship is so lonely, so forced to depend entirely upon himself as the master of a submarine” (Voyage, 76).

9 When on patrol: According to Hans Koerver, by May 1915 Germany had only an average of fifteen U-boats available for long-range service each day. At any one time, typically only two patrolled the British Isles. Koerver, German Submarine Warfare, xxi, xxiii.

10 “on the fastest possible route”: Bailey, “Sinking,” 54.

11 The submarine as a weapon: Compton-Hall, Submarine Boats, 14, 21, 36, 38–39, 99, 102, 109; Fontenoy, Submarines, 8, 10.

12 Schwieger’s boat was 210 feet long: Rössler, U-Boat, 14; von Trapp, To the Last Salute, 32–33; Neureuther and Bergen, U-Boat Stories, 173.

13 “More dials and gauges”: Thomas, Raiders, 82.

14 Even his superiors seemed surprised: Ledger: U-20, Feb. 6, 1915, Ministry of Defence Papers, DEFE/69/270, National Archives UK.

15 “She was a jolly boat”: Thomas, Raiders, 81, 91.

16 “He was a wonderful man”: Edgar von Spiegel interview, Lusitania, Catalog No. 4232, Imperial War Museum, London.

17 “Apparently the enemy was at home”: Thomas, Raiders, 83.

18 It was the one time: Spiegel, Adventures, 12.

19 “And now,” Schwieger said: For details about this Christmas scene, see Thomas, Raiders, 83–85.

20 at least one dog aboard: Hoehling and Hoehling, Last Voyage, 4; Thomas, Raiders, 90–91. Supposedly one commander once transported a juvenile camel.

21 That Schwieger was able to conjure: Forstner, Journal, 56–57; Neureuther and Bergen, U-Boat Stories, 189; Thomas, Raiders, 86.

22 “And now,” said Zentner: Thomas, Raiders, 86.

23 “U-boat sweat”: Spiegel, Adventures, 15.

24 “You can have no conception”: Koenig, Voyage, 116.

25 “The first breath of fresh air”: Niemöller, From U-Boat to Pulpit, 1.

26 It was early in the war: Zentner tells this story in Thomas’s Raiders, 87–89.
   The literature on U-boats is full of stories that can only make you wonder why on earth any young man would ever join Germany’s submarine service. Case in point: One boat, U-18, attempted an attack on Britain’s main fleet based in Scapa Flow, off northern Scotland, but was spotted and rammed by a patrol vessel, a trawler. The collision damaged the boat’s periscope and the horizontal rudders—the hydroplanes—that controlled its ascent and descent. The captain ordered an emergency dive, but the boat plunged to the bottom, then shot back up to the surface, out of control. There it was rammed a second time, now by a destroyer. The U-boat sank but struggled back to the surface, where it drifted, disabled. The captain signaled surrender. The destroyer managed to rescue all but one member of the crew.
   On another U-boat, during a practice dive, the commander dashed from the conning tower at the last minute and slammed the hatch behind him. It didn’t close. As the boat went below the surface, water surged in and quickly began flooding the interior. The boat sank 90 feet. The water rose so quickly that for some crew it was soon at neck level. It was then that one crewman, himself nearly submerged, thought to engage the boat’s compressed-air apparatus, which blew water from its diving tanks. The boat shot to the surface. The crew engaged its internal pumps, and the water quickly disappeared. “But suddenly,” recalled Leading Seaman Karl Stoltz, “the whole interior was filled with a greenish choking vapor—chlorine gas from the water that had flooded the electric battery.” The captain ordered all the men out on deck, except for an engine-room mechanic and the helmsman. Fresh air flowing through the hatch thinned the gas.
   The cause was a simple error by the captain. The hatch, once closed, was supposed to be sealed in place using a wheel that operated a series of clamps, but before the dive the captain had mistakenly turned the wheel the wrong way, setting the clamps in their sealed position, thus blocking the hatch from closing. Stoltz estimated that the crew had been just seconds away from being drowned.
   Even the stealth of U-boats, their main asset, could work against them. On January 21, a U-boat of the same class as Schwieger’s U-20 was on patrol off the coast of Holland when its crew spotted another submarine. Presuming at first that this was another German boat, they tried twice to hail it but got no answer. The U-boat’s captain, Bruno Hoppe, now decided the other submarine must be British and launched an attack. He sank it with one torpedo, then moved close to attempt to rescue survivors. There was only one, who now informed him the boat he had just destroyed was in fact the German navy’s own U-7, under the command of Hoppe’s closest friend. “The two men had been inseparable for years,” according to U-boat captain Baron von Spiegel, who knew them both.
   For these and other stories, see Gibson and Prendergast, German Submarine War, 17–18, 20; Neureuther and Bergen, U-Boat Stories, 154–57; Thomas, Raiders, 171–72.

27 Depth charges did not yet exist: Depth charges were first deployed in January 1916 but initially were not very effective. They would not become a significant threat to U-boat commanders for another year. Sonar—the source of the iconic “ping” in submarine movies—would not be introduced until after World War I. Breemer, Defeating the U-Boat, 34; Marder, From the Dreadnought, 350.

28 This was a strenuous maneuver: Forstner, Journal, 14–15.

29 oil-laced water: Neureuther and Bergen, U-Boat Stories, 25.

30 Throughout Friday: Schwieger, War Log.

LUSITANIA: MENAGERIE

1 That Friday, Charles Lauriat: Lauriat, Claim.

2 At Pier 54, on Friday morning: Letter, Albert E. Laslett to Principal Officer, Liverpool District, June 8, 1915, Ministry of Transport Papers, MT 9/1326, National Archives UK. That this drill did take place is documented by various references in the Admiralty Papers at the National Archives UK. For example, see “ ‘Lusitania’—American Proceedings,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 1/8451/56, National Archives UK.

3 Taken together: Answers of Petitioner to Interrogatories Propounded by Hunt, Hill & Betts, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York.

4 For the Friday drill: Testimony, Andrew Chalmers, April 18, 1918, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 20.

5 It was Turner’s belief: Deposition, William Thomas Turner, April 30, 1915, Petition of the Oceanic Steam Navigation Co. Limited, for Limitation of Its Liability as Owner of the S.S. Titanic, U.S. National Archives–NY.

6 What made raising a crew even harder: “Cunard Liner,” 939.

7 He noted “the awkward way”: Walker, Four Thousand Lives Lost, 169.

8 Baker idled away: Baker Papers.

9 “The old-fashioned able seaman”: New York Times, Nov. 21, 1915.

10 “They are competent enough”: Testimony, William Thomas Turner, June 15, 1915, “Investigation,” 7.

11 He also had two tattoos: These details were listed in Morton’s “Ordinary Apprentice’s Indenture,” a four-year contract that obligated Morton to obey the commands of his captain and the captain’s associates “and keep his and their secrets.” It stipulated further that the apprentice could not “frequent Taverns or Alehouses … nor play at unlawful games.” Above all, each apprentice agreed not to “absent himself … without leave.” In return, apprentices received an annual salary of £5 in the first year, which increased to slightly more than £10 in the last year. They were also guaranteed room and board and “Medicine and Medical and Surgical Assistance.” Each got ten shillings to do his wash. “Ordinary Apprentice’s Indenture,” Morton Papers, DX/2313, Merseyside; “Continuous Certificate of Discharge,” Morton Papers, DX/2313, Merseyside.

12 “We were still looking upon war”: Morton, Long Wake, 97.

13 “What a sight”: Ibid., 98.

14 “What are you boys looking at?”: Ibid., 99.

15 Malone was said to be a dead ringer: Bailey and Ryan, Lusitania Disaster, 108.

16 For German spies and saboteurs:
   Some British officials even had concerns about the loyalty of the men employed by Cunard in its New York office, which was run by Charles P. Sumner, manager of all the company’s operations in America. Cunard’s own Captain Dow was said to distrust Sumner “on the score of intimacy with Germans,” according to a telegram from Britain’s consul general in New York, Sir Courtenay Bennett. Sir Courtenay too was convinced the office was under the sway of Germany. He saw proof of this in the number of employees with German-sounding last names, such as Fecke, Falck, Buiswitz, Reichhold, Brauer, Breitenbach, and Muller. Sir Courtenay’s countryman Sir Arthur Herbert, a former diplomat, believed likewise. Their repeated inquiries made these already tense times all the more trying for Sumner, a skilled manager who kept Cunard’s ships sailing on schedule and had the full confidence, verging on friendship, of Cunard’s chairman, Alfred A. Booth.
   Sir Arthur was so convinced that something sinister was afoot within Cunard’s New York operations that he hired a private detective to investigate without telling Sumner. The detective lacked subtlety and behaved in a manner that caused Cunard’s employees to suspect that he might be a spy. As Sumner recalled, “This man excited my suspicions so much that I put our Dock Detective on to the work of watching Sir Arthur Herbert’s detective.” Sumner sent a report to Sir Arthur about the private eye’s odd behavior, thinking he would be interested. “Instead of being pleased at what I had done,” Sumner wrote, “he [Sir Arthur] flew into a terrible passion and said that he had never been so insulted in his life.” Sir Arthur went so far as to accuse Sumner of spying on him and seemed so distressed that Sumner began to wonder if the ex-diplomat might in fact be harboring secrets of his own. Sumner wrote, “It really excited some suspicions in my mind that something might be disclosed by watching his movements.”
   “Confidentially,” Sumner wrote, “I think I may safely express the opinion that Sir Arthur Herbert is a little ‘peculiar.’ ”
   On that point at least, even Sumner’s other antagonist, Sir Courtenay Bennett, seemed to agree. On one occasion Sir Arthur paid a call on Sir Courtenay. An altercation arose, Sumner wrote, during which Sir Courtenay told his visitor to “ ‘go home and teach his mother how to suck eggs.’ ”
   Sumner wrote, “While I cannot help thinking this was a somewhat undignified procedure … it affords the only funny incident that I have experienced in all my dealings with the two men.”
   Telegram, C. Bennett to Alfred Booth, Nov. 30, 1914, D42/C1/1/66, Part 2 of 4, Cunard Archives; “Salaries of New York Office Staff,” D42/C1/1/66, Part 3 of 4, Cunard Archives; letter, Charles P. Sumner to D. Mearns, Dec. 29, 1914, D42/C1/2/44, Cunard Archives; letter,
   Charles P. Sumner to Alfred A. Booth, Aug. 4, 1915, D42/C1/1/66, Part 3 of 4, Cunard Archives; telegram, Richard Webb to Cecil Spring-Rice, May 11, 1915, “Lusitania Various Papers,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/1058, National Archives UK.

17 “The crew of the Lusitania”: Telegram, April 27, 1915, Box 2, Bailey/Ryan Collection.

18 “You’re not going to get back”: Francis Burrows, interview, Lusitania, BBC Written Archives Centre.

19 “began doing something we shouldn’t”: Robert James Clark, interview, Lusitania, BBC Written Archives Centre.

20 In fact, exactly one year earlier: Memorandum, May 7, 1914, D42/PR13/3/14-17, Cunard Archives.

21 He made his way to Broadway: Preston, Lusitania, 110; Ramsay, Lusitania, 51; New York Times, March 30, 1915.

22 He went to Lüchow’s: Preston, Lusitania, 110.

23 That evening, back at his sister’s apartment: Lauriat, Claim.

24 Elsewhere in the city: See the website Lusitania Resource, www.RMSLusitania.info, which presents an easily searchable database about the ship and its passengers.

ROOM 40: “THE MYSTERY”

1 In London, two blocks from the Thames: My description of Room 40 and its operations is derived from documents held by the Churchill Archives, Churchill College, Cambridge, and the National Archives of the United Kingdom, at Kew, in its Admiralty Papers. For further reading, see Beesly, Room 40; Gannon, Inside Room 40; Adm. William James, Code Breakers; and Ramsay, “Blinker” Hall.

2 By far the most important: I cannot tell you how delighted I was when during one of my visits to the National Archives of the United Kingdom I was able to examine the actual codebook. It came to me like a gift, wrapped in paper with a cloth tie, in a large box. Touching it, and opening it, and turning its pages—gently—gave me one of those moments where the past comes briefly, physically alive. This very book had been on a German destroyer, sunk by the Russians in the early days of World War I. Signalbuch der Kaiserlichen Marine, Berlin, 1913, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/4156, National Archives UK; see also Beesly, Room 40, 4–5, 22–23; Halpern, Naval History, 36; Adm. William James, Code Breakers, 29; Grant, U-Boat Intelligence, 10.

3 The Russians in fact recovered three copies: For varying accounts of the recovery of the codebook, see Churchill, World Crisis, 255; Halpern, Naval History, 36–37; and Tuchman, Zimmermann Telegram, 14–15.

4 “chiefly remarkable for his spats”: History of Room 40, CLKE 3, Clarke Papers.

5 “It was the best of jobs”: Ibid.

6 said to be obsessed: Halpern, Naval History, 37; Beesly, Room 40, 310–11.

7 “I shall never meet another man like him”: Adm. William James, Code Breakers, xvii.
   Even before the war, while then in command of a cruiser, the HMS Cornwall, Hall distinguished himself with an intelligence coup. The year was 1909, and his ship was to be among other British vessels paying a ceremonial visit to Kiel, Germany, home of the German fleet. The Admiralty asked Hall for help in gathering precise information about the configuration of ship-construction slips in the harbor, which were kept from view by a cordon of patrol vessels.
   An idea came to Hall. The Duke of Westminster was present for the regatta and had brought along his speedboat, the Ursula, to show off. German sailors loved the boat and cheered every time they saw it. Hall asked the duke if he could borrow it for a couple of hours. The next day, two of Hall’s men went aboard the Ursula disguised as civilian engine-room hands. The boat then put on a display of speed, racing out to sea and tearing back through the harbor. The yacht roared through the line of patrol boats, drawing cheers from their crews. But then, something unfortunate happened. The Ursula’s engines broke down, right in front of the Germany navy’s shipbuilding facilities. As the boat’s crew made a show of trying to start the engines, Hall’s men took photograph after photograph of the shipyard. One of the patrol vessels ended up towing the boat back to its moorage. “The Germans were delighted to get such a close view of her,” Hall wrote, “but they were hardly less delighted than I was, for one of the ‘engineers’ had secured the most perfect photographs of the slips and obtained all the information we wanted.” “The Nature of Intelligence Work,” Hall 3/1, Hall Papers.

8 The Machiavelli side: Adm. William James, Code Breakers, 202.

9 the empire’s first defeat: Gilbert, First World War, 102.

10 British warships nearby: Gibson and Prendergast, German Submarine War, 19; Gilbert, First World War, 124.

11 And then came April 22: Clark, Donkeys, 74; Gilbert, First World War, 144–45; Keegan, First World War, 198–99.

12 “I saw some hundred poor fellows”: Clark, Donkeys, 74.

13 The Admiralty also harbored: Frothingham, Naval History, 66, 75.

14 “no major movement”: History of Room 40, CLKE 3, Clarke Papers.

15 “the risk of compromising the codes”: Memorandum, Henry Francis Oliver, CLKE 1, Clarke Papers.

16 “Had we been called upon”: History of Room 40, “Narrative of Capt. Hope,” CLKE 3, Clarke Papers.

17 “shook the nerve”: History of Room 40, CLKE 3, Clarke Papers.

18 “soul-destroying … object of hatred”: Ibid.

19 “Watch this carefully”: Beesly, Room 40, 92.

20 “Any messages which were not according to routine”: History of Room 40, CLKE 3, Clarke Papers.

21 “The final note”: Memorandum, Herbert Hope to Director of Operations Division, April 18, 1915, “Captain Hope’s Memos to Operations Division,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/4689, National Archives UK.

22 “Whenever any of their vessels”: History of Room 40, CLKE 3, Clarke Papers.

23 a sense of the flesh-and-blood men: Reports derived from interrogations of captured U-boat officers and crew yield a sense of U-boat life far richer than that provided by any other published memoir or book. Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/4126, National Archives UK. Specifically, see interrogations involving crew from U-48, U-103, UC-65, U-64, and UB-109; see also Grant, U-Boat Intelligence, 21.

24 They used their wireless systems incessantly: Beesly, Room 40, 30.

25 “extreme garrulity”: History of Room 40, CLKE 3, Clarke Papers; Beesly, Room 40, 30.

26 “I fooled ’em that time”: New York Times, May 8, 1915.

27 Room 40 had long followed: “Capt. Hope’s Diary,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/4169, National Archives UK.

28 Addressed to all German warships: Record of Telegrams, March 3, 1915, Norddeich Naval Intelligence Center, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/4177, National Archives UK.

29 “Four submarines sailed”: Intercepted telegrams, April 28 and 29, 1915, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/3956, National Archives UK. Anyone examining these files will note, to his or her pleasure, that these are the actual handwritten decodes.

30 “that of mystifying and misleading the enemy”: “A Little Information for the Enemy,” Hall 3/4, Hall Papers.
   Hall loved the surprise of intelligence work and loved knowing the real stories behind events reported in the news, which often were censored. For example, Room 40 learned the real fate of a German submarine, U-28, that had attacked a ship carrying trucks on its main deck. One shell fired by the U-boat’s gun crew blew up a load of high explosives stored in the ship, and suddenly “the air was full of motor-lorries describing unusual parabolas,” Hall wrote. Officially, the U-boat was lost because of explosion. But Hall and Room 40 knew the truth: one of the flying trucks had landed on the submarine’s foredeck, penetrating its hull and sinking it instantly. “In point of actual fact,” wrote Hall, “U-28 was sunk by a motor-lorry!”
   As strange as such stories were, Hall wrote, “I am sometimes inclined to think that perhaps the strangest thing of all was the intelligence Division itself. For it was like nothing else that had ever existed.” “The Nature of Intelligence Work,” Hall 3/1, Hall Papers.

LUSITANIA: A CAVALCADE OF PASSENGERS

1 All these things were captured on film: The film, SS Lusitania on Her Final Departure from New York City, During World War I, can be viewed at CriticalPast.com (www.criticalpast.com/video/65675040085_SS-Lusitania_passengers-arrive-at-the-dock_passengers-aboard-SS-Lusitania_author-Elbert-Hubert). An agent for the Justice Department’s Bureau of Investigation (not yet the Federal Bureau of Investigation) watched this film twice in succession during a private showing at a theater in Philadelphia. The agent, Frank Garbarino, was struck by the detail it captured and believed it would provide all the information necessary to confirm that the film was not a fake. “It will be easy to identify many of the persons who were aboard the steamer by those who knew them intimately,” he wrote. “Furthermore we were able to distinguish the numbers of the license on three taxicabs which drove up to the pier with passengers and the features of the passengers as they emerged from the taxicabs are very clear. The license numbers of the taxicabs were 21011, 21017, 25225. It will be easy to ascertain what taxicab company has these licenses and they will probably have a record of the persons they took to the Cunard pier that morning.” Letter, Bruce Bielaski to Attorney General, June 27, 1915, Bailey/Ryan Collection.

2 Here came Charles Frohman: For details about Frohman and his life, see Marcosson and Frohman, Charles Frohman, throughout; also New York Times, May 16, 1915; Lawrence, When the Ships Come In, 126.

3 Another arrival was George Kessler: For an overview of Kessler’s flamboyant life as the “Champagne King,” see “Compliments of George Kessler,” American Menu, April 14, 2012 (courtesy of Mike Poirier); for the Gondola Party, see Tony Rennell, “How Wealthy Guests Turned the Savoy into the World’s Most Decadent Hotel,” Daily Mail, Dec. 17, 2007, www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-502756/How-wealthy-guests-turned-Savoy-worlds-decadent-hotel-shuts-100m-refit.html, and “The Savoy: London’s Most Famous Hotel,” Savoy Theatre, www.savoytheatre.org/the-savoy-londons-most-famous-hotel/ For reference to “freak dinners,” see Lexington Herald, May 16, 1915.
   According to one account, Kessler had brought with him cash and securities valued at $2 million. Preston, Lusitania, 137.

4 “misconducting himself”: New York Times, May 26, 1908, and June 11, 1909.

5 “Just Missed It” club: “Titanic’s ‘Just Missed It Club’ an Elite Group,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, April 16, 2012, www.post-gazette.com/life/lifestyle/2012/04/15/Titanic-s-Just-Missed-It-Club-an-elite-group/stories/201204150209.

6 “Ships do have personalities”: Jack Lawrence’s memoir, When the Ships Came In, to which I was directed by Lusitania ace Mike Poirier, is really very charming and conveys a sense of New York’s vibrant maritime days in compelling fashion, to the point where a reader has to long for those days when dozens of ships nuzzled Manhattan’s Hudson River shoreline. Lawrence, When the Ships Came In; 116, see also 15, 16, and 117.

7 “to give satisfaction”: Cunard Steamship Company, “Rules to Be Observed in the Company’s Service,” Liverpool, March 1913, Admiralty Case Files: Limited Liability Claims for the Lusitania, Box 1, U.S. National Archives–New York, 73.

8 “I’m about to become”: Lawrence, When the Ships Came In, 119–21.

9 “Alfred Vanderbilt may have been a riot”: Ibid., 124.

10 “The Lusitania is doomed”: Ibid., 125.

11 Lawrence came across Elbert Hubbard: Ibid., 123.

12 “When I showed it to him”: Ibid.

13 “When you are getting ready to sail”: Ibid., 122.

14 “A feeling grew upon me”: See “Not on Board,” under “People,” at Lusitania Resource, www.rmslusitania.info/people/not-on-board/.

15 A few others canceled: Ibid., and New Zealand Herald, June 26, 1915.

16 “From the very first”: Letter, A. B. Cross, published June 12, 1915, in Malay Mail, Doc. 1730, Imperial War Museum.

17 “there is a general system”: New York Times, May 1, 1915.

18 “Perfectly safe; safer than the trolley cars”: Testimony, Ogden Hammond, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 166. For details about trolley accidents, see New York Times, Jan. 3, 1915; May 3, 1916; July 9, 1916.

19 “Of course we heard rumors”: May Walker, interview transcript, BBC Radio Merseyside, 1984, Imperial War Museum (with permission, BBC Radio Merseyside).

20 “looked personally after their comfort”: Letter, Charles P. Sumner to Alfred A. Booth, May 26, 1915, D42/C1/1/66, Part 2 of 4, Cunard Archives.

21 Theodate Pope: I came across several worthy accounts of Pope’s life and work. See Cunningham, My Godmother; Katz, Dearest; Paine, Avon Old Farms School; and S. Smith, Theodate Pope Riddle.

22 “You never act as other girls do”: Katz, Dearest, 25.

23 “the momentary effect”: Quoted in Cunningham, My Godmother, 53–54, and Katz, Dearest, 54.

24 “I have no memory at all”: Quoted in S. Smith, Theodate Pope Riddle, ch. 1, p. 3 (each chapter paginated separately).

25 “the greatest blot”: Ibid., ch. 2, p. 4.

26 “As it is my plan”: Ibid., ch. 4, p. 2; see full letter at Appendix B.

27 “I have wrung my soul dry”: Ibid., ch. 5, p. 1.

28 One incident in particular underscored: Katz, Dearest, 1.

29 “I am having such persistent insomnia”: S. Smith, Theodate Pope Riddle, ch. 6, p. 7.

30 “There is nothing like the diversion”: Katz, Dearest, 75.

31 “I was surprised”: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 65–66.

32 Chandler joked: Lauriat, Claim.

33 “A thousand thanks”: Letter, Harris to “Gram and Gramp,” May 1, 1915, Harris Papers.

34 “was of that brand”: Lawrence, When the Ships Came In, 129.

35 “When a British skipper knows”: Ibid., 130.

ROOM 40: BLINKER’S RUSE

1 “An untried agent”: Record of Telegrams, April 24, 1915, Antwerp to Bruges, Antwerp Naval Intelligence Center, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/4177, National Archives UK.

2 “So that’s what war looks like!”: von Trapp, To the Last Salute, 24.

3 At some point that day: Bailey and Ryan, Lusitania Disaster, 73, 83.

WASHINGTON: LOST

1 “I hope it will give”: Letter, Wilson to Galt, April 28, 1915, Wilson Papers.

2 “fill my goblet”: Letter, Galt to Wilson, April 28, 1915, Wilson Papers.

3 It had been particularly welcome: Levin, Edith and Woodrow, 58.

4 “Such a pledge of friendship”: Letter, Galt to Wilson, April 28, 1915, Wilson Papers.

5 “It’s a great privilege”: Letter, Wilson to Galt, April 30, 1915, Wilson Papers.

6 “a heaven—haven—sanctuary”: Levin, Edith and Woodrow, 55.

7 “From the first”: Wilson, My Memoir, 58.

8 “perhaps the weal or woe of a country”: Levin, Edith and Woodrow, 57.

9 “In order to fit yourself”: Ibid.; for a variation, see Wilson, My Memoir, 55.

10 “life giving”: Letter, Galt to Wilson, April 28, 1915, Wilson Papers.

11 She had never met a man: Schachtman, Edith and Woodrow, 78.

12 “no mean man in love-making”: Levin, Edith and Woodrow, 74.

13 “He’s a goner”: Starling, Starling, 44.

14 On Saturday, May 1: Gilbert, First World War, 154.

15 “In Flanders fields”: Quoted in ibid., 156.

16 By the end of the month: Ibid., 164.

17 “We are still in our old positions”: Ibid., 126.

18 Elsewhere, wholly a new front: Ibid., 121, 135–36; Keegan, First World War, 238, 239.

19 a systematic slaughter: Gilbert, First World War, 142–43.

20 “It is difficult, if not impossible”: Lansing, Private Memoranda, April 15, 1915, Lansing Papers.

21 “A neutral in time of international war”: Ibid., April 29, 1915.

22 “German naval policy”: Link, Wilson: Struggle, 366.

23 “It was not thought in official quarters”: New York Times, May 2, 1915.

24 The ship remained afloat: Ledger, Messages Received, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/4101, National Archives UK.

25 “lids”: Washington Herald, May 1 and 2, 1915.

26 “cool and clean”: New York Times, May 7, 1915.

LUSITANIA: UNDER WAY

1 “Dark brown hair”: Poster, “Lusitania Disaster. Information Wanted,” Prichard Papers.

2 “a most interesting face”: Letter, Theodate Pope to Mrs. Prichard, Feb. 4, 1916, Prichard Papers.

3 “rather dull”: Letter, Thomas Sumner to Mrs. Prichard, Oct. 28, 1915, Prichard Papers.

4 “He was a great favorite”: Letter, Henry Needham to Mrs. Prichard, May 20, 1915, Prichard Papers.

5 “counting the time”: Letter, Arthur Gadsden to Mrs. Prichard, July 4, 1915, Prichard Papers.

6 “Do you think all these people”: Hoehling and Hoehling, Last Voyage, 21; see also New York Times, May 6, 1915.

7 “Captain Turner … neglected his duty”: Letter, Oliver Bernard to Mrs. Prichard, Aug. 15, 1915, Prichard Papers.

8 While moving downriver: I culled these details of New York Harbor from a variety of sources, held at the New York Public Library main branch. These include Map of New York and Harbor, A. R. Ohman Map Co., 1910; Sea Chart, New York Bay and Harbor, 1910; Map of Depths, New York Bay and Harbor, U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey, May 1914; Map, Manhattan, G. W. Bromley & Co., 1916, Plate 38; Map, New York City, 1910, Section 2, Plate 10, 1911. Interestingly, the last map makes a reference to “Sir Peter Warren Farm,” just above Fourteenth Street in Manhattan, once a vast tract of open land acquired in the eighteenth century by Warren, a British sea captain. May I offer a pointless observation: there is no farm in that location today.

9 Governors Island: In the interests of filling the reader’s mind with yet more useless knowledge, I’d like to note, here, that the 1960s comedy duo the Smothers Brothers—Tom and Dick—were born on Governors Island.

10 This being wartime: Preston, Lusitania, 136. There is scant information about these mysterious gentlemen. I was unable to find any source that identified them by name. It is also unclear exactly where they were held aboard ship, as the Lusitania had no formal “brig,” but all reports agree they were confined behind locked doors.

11 Alta Piper: See “Not on Board,” under “People,” at Lusitania Resource, www.rmslusitania.info/people/not-on-board/.

U-20: TOWARD FAIR ISLE

1 The boat’s ventilators: Spiegel, Adventures, 3.

2 “here and there rain and fog”: Schwieger, War Log. All references in this chapter to course, weather, wave heights, and so forth come from this log.

3 Men served as ballast: Neureuther and Bergen, U-Boat Stories, 126, 186, 195.

4 One boat, U-3: Rössler, U-Boat, 25.

5 “The scratches on the steel walls”: Neureuther and Bergen, U-Boat Stories, 145.

LUSITANIA: RENDEZVOUS

1 Its walls were covered: See details in “Saloon (First Class) Accommodations,” under “Lusitania Accommodations,” at Lusitania Resource, www.rmslusitania.info/lusitania/accommodations/saloon.

2 Theodate found a copy: Letter, Pope to Ada Brooks Pope, June 28, 1915, Riddle Papers. Pope’s letter provides one of the most detailed accounts of shipboard life and the sinking that I was able to locate.

3 The paper devoted: New York Sun, May 1, 1915.

4 “The President was entirely unaware”: Ibid.; see also Berg, Wilson, 347–49.

5 A German drive: New York Sun, May 1, 1915.

6 “Whatever else could they expect”: Katz, Dearest, 103.

7 “Under no circumstances”: Ibid.

8 “Passengers are informed”: Ibid., 109.

9 “to head off American travel”: New York Sun, May 1, 1915.

10 “That means of course”: Letter, Pope to Ada Brooks Pope, June 28, 1915, Riddle Papers.

11 “My!… The mail I got today”: Letter, Huston to “Ruth,” May 1, 1915. This compelling bit of Lusitania arcana was provided to me by Geoffrey Whitfield. The letter is published in Kalafus, Poirier et al., Lest We Forget.

12 “swirling mist-veils”: Bisset, Commodore, 45.

13 Turner was under orders: “Answers of the Petitioner to the Interrogatories Propounded by May Davies Hopkins,” Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 3, 9; Memorandum, “ ‘Lusitania’—American Proceedings,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 1/8451/56, National Archives UK; minute, Nov. 19, 1914, Cunard Archives.

ROOM 40: CADENCE

1 Intercepted Position Reports: Minute Sheet: U-20, Ministry of Defence Papers, DEFE/69/270, National Archives UK.

U-20: “THE BLIND MOMENT”

1 By 8:25 A.M., Sunday: Schwieger, War Log.

2 Simple enough in concept: For additional details about diving, see Forstner, Journal, 20–27; Koenig, Voyage, 51–58; Neureuther and Bergen, U-Boat Stories, 174.

3 as little as seventy-five seconds: Bailey and Ryan, Lusitania Disaster, 120.

4 Certain older boats: Koerver says that boats built before U-20, numbered U-5 to U-18, all powered by gasoline, took “several minutes” to dive (German Submarine Warfare, xxxvii). Breemer says, “By 1914 a diving time of five minutes or less had become standard for a boat when fully surfaced, about one minute from an awash condition” (Defeating the U-Boat, 14).

5 “suicide boats”: Koerver, German Submarine Warfare, xxxvii.

6 Commander Paul Koenig recalled: Koenig, Voyage, 51–58.

7 a reddish light: Spiegel, Adventures, 15.

8 “Well, we seem to have arrived”: Koenig, Voyage, 54.

9 To speed the process: Thomas, Raiders, 33.

10 with an angry growl: Koenig, Voyage, 27. He calls it a “furious” growl.

11 “the blind moment”: Ibid., 31; Forstner, Journal, 75.

12 “some of the most nerve-racking”: Neureuther and Bergen, U-Boat Stories, 118.

13 U-20 emerged: Schwieger, War Log.

LUSITANIA: A SUNDAY AT SEA

1 the “long course”: New York Times, Sept. 12, 1909.

2 Timing was crucial: “Answers of the Petitioner to the Interrogatories Propounded by May Davies Hopkins,” Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 4; Ramsay, Lusitania, 227.

3 Theodate Pope awoke: Letter, Pope to Ada Brooks Pope, June 28, 1915, Riddle Papers.

4 Second-class passenger William Uno Meriheina: Meriheina’s letter was reprinted in an unidentified news article “Saves 15 Lusitania Passengers, Then Writes to Wife from Raft,” held by the New-York Historical Society, New York, NY. It is excerpted as well in Kalafus et al., Lest We Forget.

5 “A braver man”: Kalafus et al., “William Meriheina: An Inventive Survivor,” Encyclopedia Titanica, March 29, 2014, www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/documents/william-meriheina-an-inventive-survivor.pdf.

6 “We have passed”: “Saves 15 Lusitania Passengers, Then Writes to Wife from Raft,” unidentified news article, New-York Historical Society, New York, NY.

7 into the crow’s nest: Testimony, Charles E. Lauriat Jr, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 87.

8 On Sunday, the ship’s first full day: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 3.

9 “At this rate”: Quoted in “Mr. Charles Emelius Lauriat, Jr.,” under “People,” “Saloon (First Class) Passenger List,” at Lusitania Resource, www.rmslusitania.info/people/saloon/charles-lauriat.

10 He looked them over: Lauriat, Claim. Lauriat’s claim before the Mixed Claims Commission numbers hundreds of pages and contains many details about his journey, down to the number of bags he brought with him and where he stored them. His claim also provides insights into his dealings with Thackeray’s daughter and granddaughter.

11 “absolutely necessary”: “Answers of Petitioner to Interrogatories Propounded by Hunt, Hill & Betts,” Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company. April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 58.

12 expressly prohibited from “gossiping”: Memorandum, to Captain and Staff Captain, Lusitania, Nov. 21, 1914, Cunard Archives, GM 22/1/1.

13 “Ships should give”: “Answers of the Petitioner to the Interrogatories Propounded by May Davies Hopkins,” Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 5; “Memorandum as to Master’s Actions,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 1/8451/56, National Archives UK.

14 “in a place where it can be destroyed”: “Instructions for Owners and Masters,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 1/8451/56, National Archives UK. A May 1915 Admiralty memorandum entitled “Notes on Mines and Torpedoes” instructs ship captains on how to treat a torpedo found floating in the sea. The first, and possibly wisest, bit of advice: “Do not hit it on the nose.” Bailey/Ryan Collection.

15 This was an effective maneuver: Telegram, Adm. John Jellicoe to Admiralty, March 23, 1915, Churchill Papers, CHAR 13/62/83. In his telegram, Jellicoe recounts the sinking of U-29 and praises the “seamanlike handling” of the Dreadnought, but nonetheless urges that the sinking be kept secret. In telegraphic prose, he writes: “It must be very disconcerting to the enemy when submarine disappeared and cause of loss not known.”

16 “It is not in any way dishonorable”: “Instructions for Owners and Masters,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 1/8451/56, National Archives UK.

17 “No ocean-going British merchant vessel”: Ibid.

18 “War experience has shown”: Confidential Memorandum, April 16, 1915. Admiralty Papers, ADM 1/8451/56, National Archives UK; “Answers of the Petitioner to the Interrogatories Propounded by May Davies Hopkins,” Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 5–6.

19 Cunard’s lawyers later would hedge: “Answers of Petitioner to Interrogatories Propounded by Hunt, Hill & Betts,” Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 4.

20 little impression: Lusitania seaman Leslie Morton, for example, wrote in a letter to the Associated Press that “zig-zagging for merchant ships had not at that time been introduced, also a ship traveling at sixteen knots or over was considered by practice and precedent to be safe from submarine attack.” Morton to Associated Press, May 15, 1962, Morton Papers, DX/2313, Merseyside.
   During Cunard’s limit-of-liability trial in New York, Thomas Taylor, a Cunard captain, testified that merchant captains did not begin zigzagging until five months after the sinking of the Lusitania. Asked whether he would have considered doing so before the disaster, he said, “No, we would not have done it. We never thought of it up to that time.” Testimony of Thomas M. Taylor, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 907, 911, 915.

21 “I took a look around”: Letter, Dwight Harris to Mother, May 10, 1915, Harris Papers.

ROOM 40; QUEENSTOWN; LONDON: PROTECTING ORION

1 “There will be less moon”: Telegram, Henry Francis Oliver to Jacky Fisher, May 2, 1915, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/112, National Archives UK.

2 “in view of the submarine menace”: Telegram, Henry Francis Oliver to Adm. John Jellicoe, May 2, 1915, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/112, National Archives UK.

3 Oliver would send explicit warnings: Beesly, Room 40, 100; Ramsay, Lusitania, 246.

4 declared it clear on April 15: Beesly, Room 40, 96–97.

5 Admiral Oliver issued orders: Ibid., 100.

6 That Sunday: Ibid.

7 the Admiralty also tracked: Telegram, St. Marys Scilly to Admiralty, May 2, 1915, 4:05 P.M., Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/112, National Archives UK; telegram, St. Marys Scilly to Admiralty, May 2, 1915, 6:07 P.M., Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/112, National Archives UK; Telegram, Admiral, Devonport to Admiralty, May 2, 1915, 10:22 P.M. Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/112, National Archives UK; ledger, “Subs,” May 2, 1915, 10:27 A.M., 4:05 P.M., and 6:07 P.M., Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/4101, National Archives UK.

8 “The reference to the Lusitania”: Frost, German Submarine Warfare, 186.

9 In fact, Wilson had by now: Link, Wilson: Struggle, 48, 120–22; Devlin, Too Proud to Fight, 318–19.

10 “The blowing up of a liner”: Cooper, Walter Hines Page, 306.

U-20: A PERILOUS LINE

1 At 12:30 p.m. Sunday: All details in this chapter come from Schwieger, War Log.

LUSITANIA: HALIBUT

1 to “see that everything was clean”: Testimony, John I. Lewis, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 598.

2 “I remember putting an eye splice in”: Morton, Long Wake, 101.

3 The Washington Times: Washington Times, May 3, 1915.

4 “a very dyspeptic sort of fellow”: Letter, Grace French to Prichard, Sept. 10, 1915, Prichard Papers.

5 On one voyage the menu: Menus, SAS/33D/2/13b, Merseyside.

6 The company laid in a supply: All from Cunard Archives, D42/B4/45: Minutes, Feb. 18, 1915; March 10, 1915; April 21, 1915; May 5, 1915.

7 Michael Byrne: Letter, Michael Byrne to William Jennings Bryan. June 8, 1915, Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll, 197, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

8 “war, and submarines”: Harold Smethurst, “Hand-Written Account,” DX/2085, Merseyside.

9 “over consciousness”: S. Smith, Theodate Pope Riddle, ch. 1, p. 3.

10 “Tears come”: Katz, Dearest, 20.

11 “Cheer up”: Ibid., 19.

12 Mitchell’s solution: Ibid., 22.

13 “At first, and in some cases”: Mitchell, Fat and Blood, 42.

14 “would do far better”: Mitchell, Wear and Tear, 47.

15 “I am always happy”: Katz, Dearest, 22.

16 “Live as domestic a life”: Knight, “All the Facts,” 277.

17 “Never touch pen”: Ibid.

18 “who so nearly drove me mad”: Ibid., 259. Although Gilman’s story dampened Mitchell’s popularity, it did not stop Woodrow Wilson, shortly after his 1912 election to the presidency, from undergoing an examination at Mitchell’s clinic. For over a decade Wilson had suffered small strokes and other events associated with an undiagnosed cerebral-vascular disorder, including one jarring moment in 1906 when, while president of Princeton, he temporarily lost vision in his left eye. Dr. Mitchell offered the prognosis that Wilson would not survive his first term. He recommended rest, exercise, and a healthy diet and advised the president to keep stress to a minimum. Link, “Dr. Grayson’s Predicament,” 488–89.

19 “I find that my material world”: S. Smith, Theodate Pope Riddle, ch. 5, p. 1.

20 “Pictures have been dead”: Ibid.

21 “My interest in architecture”: Ibid.

22 “tired of seeing”: Ibid.

23 “I truly believe”: Letter, Pope to Ada Brooks Pope, June 28, 1915, Riddle Papers.

24 “I can’t help hoping”: Mackworth, This Was My World, 242.

25 “We noticed this with much surprise”: Ibid., 241–42.

26 “one very smart navy blue serge”: Letter, Grace French to Mrs. Prichard, Nov. 12, 1915, Prichard Papers.

27 “very short”: Letter, Grace French to Mrs. Prichard, Nov. 20, 1915, Prichard Papers. Mike Poirier contends this woman was Irish.

28 “A party of us”: Letter, Olive North to Mrs. Prichard, Sept. 11, 1915, Prichard Papers.

29 “I never saw him again”: Ibid.

30 “There were so many on the ship”: letter, Gertrude Adams to Mrs. Prichard, undated, Prichard Papers.

31 In the evening: Ramsay, Lusitania, 50.

U-20: THE TROUBLE WITH TORPEDOES

1 “Very beautiful weather”: Schwieger, War Log.

2 Another indicator of velocity: At night, fast ships with all lights doused betrayed themselves by the glow of the white wake climbing their bows. The problem became acute when a ship passed through waters prone to the phosphorescence caused by certain marine organisms. Some U-boat men reported feeling a sense of awe upon seeing the bow wakes raised by speeding destroyers, even though destroyers were their most lethal opponents. One crewman called this “a lovely sight.” U-boat commander Georg von Trapp wrote that at such moments it seemed as though the destroyers were “wearing white mustaches.” Von Trapp, To the Last Salute, 75; Neureuther and Bergen, U-Boat Stories, 112, 199.

3 According to a German tally: Translation notes, Arno Spindler, Der Handelskrieg mit U-Booten, Box 2, Bailey/Ryan Collection; Preston, Lusitania, 165; Richard Wagner, “Lusitania’s Last Voyage,” Log, Spring 2005, www.beyondships.com/files/hLUSITANIAarticler.pdf, 3.

4 One U-boat experienced three torpedo failures: “U-58: Interrogation of Survivors,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/4126, National Archives UK, 5.

5 Another submarine: “Report of Interrogation of Survivors of ‘U.B. 109,’ ” Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/4126, National Archives UK, 7.

6 Schwieger’s target: Schwieger, War Log.

LUSITANIA: SUNSHINE AND HAPPINESS

1 “Tuesday—Resumption”: “Saves 15 Lusitania Passengers, Then Writes to Wife from Raft,” unidentified news article, New-York Historical Society, New York, NY.

2 “Tuesday: I didn’t write”: Letter, Huston to “Ruth,” May 1, 1915, Kalafus et al., Lest We Forget.

3 “I think a happier company”: “Narrative of Mrs. J. MacFarquhar,” Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 197, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

4 “As the days passed”: Lauriat, Last Voyage, 69.

5 “I’d never seen”: Conner account, quoted in Kalafus et al., Lest We Forget.

ROOM 40: THE ORION SAILS

1 Admiral Oliver ordered the ship to depart: Telegram, Admiralty to C.-in-C. Devonport, May 4, 1915, and telegram, Stockton to Admiralty, May 5, 1915, both in “Home Waters: General Operation Telegrams,” May 1–5, 1915, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/112, National Archives UK.

2 A succession of reports: Telegram, Admiralty to C.-in-C., May 4, 1915, telegram, Naval Center Devonport to Admiralty, May 4, 1915, telegram, Stockton to Admiralty, May 5, 1915, telegram, Orion (via Pembroke) to Admiralty, May 5, 1915, and telegram, C.-in-C. Home Fleet to Admiralty, May 5, 1915, all in “Home Waters: General Operations Telegrams,” May 1–5, 1915, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/112, National Archives UK.

3 On the morning of Sunday: Ledger, “Subs,” May 2, 1915, 10:30 A.M., and May 3, 2:30 A.M., Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/4101, National Archives UK; New York Times, May 3, 1915.

4 “large sheet of flame”: Ledger, “Subs,” May 4, 1915, 3:32 A.M., Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/4101, National Archives UK.

U-20: FRUSTRATION

1 At 7:40 P.M., Tuesday: Schwieger, War Log.

LONDON; BERLIN; WASHINGTON: COMFORT DENIED

1 “The situation is curious”: Marder, From the Dreadnought, 266.
   Even their schedules clashed. Fisher’s best hours were the early morning, between 4:00 A.M. and breakfast; he also went to bed early, by nine at night. Churchill began work at eight in the morning, while still in his bed, and continued until 1:00 A.M. As Rear Adm. Sir Douglas Brownrigg recalled: “He presented a most extraordinary spectacle, perched up in a huge bed, with the whole of the counterpane littered with dispatch boxes, red and all colors, and a stenographer sitting at the foot—Mr. Churchill himself with an enormous Corona Corona in his mouth, a glass of warm water on the table by his side and a writing-pad on his knee!” (267).

2 Churchill’s “energy and capacity”: “Lord Fisher and Mr. Churchill,” Hall 3/5, Hall Papers.
   Violet Asquith, daughter of Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, was a keen observer of her time and the men she encountered, including Churchill and Fisher.
   She quotes Churchill as saying, “I think a curse should rest on me because I am so happy. I know this war is smashing and shattering the lives of thousands every moment—and yet—I cannot help it—I enjoy every second I live” (quoted in Hough, Winston and Clementine, 286).
   She also has some choice observations to offer about Fisher. “I said both to my father and Winston that though I did not doubt Lord Fisher’s genius I thought him dangerous because I believed him to be mad” (quoted in Hough, Winston and Clementine, 284). On another occasion, she remarked, “What a strange man he is!” (quoted in Hough, Winston and Clementine, 306).
   One of her close friends, Archie Gordon, happened to take a voyage on the Lusitania in December 1908. He experienced something of a letdown. “I had hoped for novel sensations, experiences & acquaintances,” he wrote in a letter to her. “Instead, something closely resembling a hyper-dull hotel with the doors & windows shut.” The crossing was rough and uncomfortable at first, then improved. “The sea calmed, the sun came out, & people hitherto undreamt of came out like rabbits” (Carter and Pottle, Lantern Slides, 172).

3 “Gradually we in the Admiralty”: “Lord Fisher and Mr. Churchill,” Hall 3/5, Hall Papers.

4 “The state of affairs at Head Quarters”: Letter, Jellicoe to Sir Frederick Hamilton, April 26, 1915, Jellicoe Papers.

5 “But he was seventy-four years old”: Churchill, World Crisis, 230.

6 “I took him because I knew”: Hough, Winston and Clementine, 270.

7 “great nervous exhaustion”: Churchill, World Crisis, 443.

8 “He had evinced unconcealed distress”: Ibid.

9 “Just look after ‘the old boy’ ”: Soames, Clementine Churchill, 157–58; Hough, Winston and Clementine, 270.

10 “the constant bombardment”: Marder, Fear God, 209.

11 “it has repeatedly occurred”: Telegram, James Gerard to William Jennings Bryan, May 6, 1915, Foreign Relations.

12 “creamy lace”: Wilson, My Memoir, 61.

13 “Cousin Woodrow looks really ill”: Ibid., 61–62.

14 She nicknamed him “Tiger”: Ibid., 67.

15 “Just as I thought”: Ibid., 61–62.

16 “I don’t think he believed her”: Ibid., 62.

17 “playing with fire”: Ibid.

18 “an almost unqualified denial”: Telegram, William Jennings Bryan to Edward Grey, via Walter Hines Page, March 30, 1915, Foreign Relations; Link, Winston: Struggle, 347.

19 the prompt release of an automobile: William Jennings Bryan to U.S. Consul General, London, May 3, 1915, Foreign Relations.

20 “In the life and death struggle”: Link, Winston: Struggle, 119.

21 “Together England and Germany are likely”: Ibid., 348.

22 “No formal diplomatic action”: New York Times, May 5, 1915.

23 “a sharp note”: Seymour, Intimate Papers, 1:432.

LUSITANIA: THE MANIFEST

1 “I shall never forget”: Hart, Gallipoli, 244.

2 “I got back into the trench”: Ibid.

3 “They crept right up”: Ibid., 210.

4 By the time the Allied invading force: Keegan, First World War, 248.

5 “The scene … was tragically macabre”: Hart, Gallipoli, 37.

6 Here were muskrat skins: “Supplemental Manifest,” Bailey/Ryan Collection. For the insurance value of Hugh Lane’s paintings, see “Sir Hugh Percy Lane,” under “People,” “Saloon (First Class) Passenger List,” at Lusitania Resource, www.rmslusitania.info/people/saloon/hugh-lane/.

7 “The army in France”: Churchill, World Crisis, 421, 447.

8 The shrapnel shells were essentially inert: Wood et al., “Sinking,” 179–80.

U-20: AT LAST

1 Throughout the morning: Schwieger, War Log.

SIGHTING

1 “Small boat containing”: Telegram, Head of Kinsale to Admiralty, May 5, 1915, “Home Waters: General Operation Telegrams,” May 1–5, 1915, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/112, National Archives UK.

ROOM 40: SCHWIEGER REVEALED

1 gunfire in the fog: Telegram, Naval Center to Admiralty, May 5, 1915, Lusitania Various Papers. Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/1058, National Archives UK. This spooky telegram reads: “Old Head Kinsale reports five forty three sounds of gunfire south, foggy, Brow Head.”

2 The new message: Telegram, Head of Kinsale to Admiralty, May 5, 1915, “Home Waters: General Operation Telegrams,” May 1–5, 1915, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/112, National Archives UK.

3 The captain of a British ship: Telegram, Naval Center Queenstown to Admiralty, May 5, 1915, “Home Waters: General Operation Telegrams,” May 1–5, 1915, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/112, National Archives UK.

4 Now came a fourth message: Telegram, Naval Center Queenstown to Admiralty, May 5, 1915 (9:51 P.M.), “Home Waters: General Operations Telegrams,” May 1–5, 1915, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/112, National Archives UK.

5 A detailed record: Ledger, Ministry of Defence Papers, DEFE/69/270, National Archives UK.

6 They accompanied the dreadnought: Telegram, Orion (via Pembroke) to Admiralty, May 5, 1915, “Home Waters: General Operation Telegrams,” May 1–5, 1915, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/112, National Archives UK.

7 The Orion continued: Ibid.

8 “most important to attract neutral shipping”: Beesly, Room 40, 90; Ramsay, Lusitania, 202.

LUSITANIA: HELPFUL YOUNG LADIES

1 “wakened by shouts”: Letter, Pope to Ada Brooks Pope, June 28, 1915, Riddle Papers.

2 “we mustered the cooks”: Testimony, John I. Lewis, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 587.

3 “The men were not efficient”: Myers account, quoted in Kalafus et al., Lest We Forget.

4 “On Thursday morning”: “Narrative of Mrs. J. MacFarquhar,” Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 197, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

5 “We were not issued with paint brushes”: Morton, Long Wake, 101. Mike Poirier contends Morton may in fact have encountered two Crompton girls.

6 A boy named Robert Kay: Robert Kay Account, courtesy of Mike Poirier. Special thanks also to Robert Kay.

7 “It’s alright drilling”: New York Times, May 10, 1915.

U-20: SPECTACLE

1 Thursday morning, May 6: Schwieger, War Log.

2 St. George’s Channel: Anyone interested in getting a better sense of where all these places and bodies of water are in relation to one another need only type the names into a Google search box.

LUSITANIA: LIFE AFTER DEATH

1 Theodate too was a member: For more on the Society for Psychical Research and on spiritualism at the end of the nineteenth century and the start of the twentieth, please see my own Thunderstruck, 386–87.

2 “If you wish to upset the law”: Ibid., 11, 13, 401.

3 Theodate claimed her own turban levitated: S. Smith, Theodate Pope Riddle, Notes, 8.

4 In 1907, the year Theodate turned forty: Katz, Dearest, 69.

5 Though only in his twenties: Ibid., 103; S. Smith, Theodate Pope Riddle, ch. 8, p. 1.

6 “There were passages that illustrated”: Letter, Pope to Ada Brooks Pope, June 28, 1915, Riddle Papers.

7 “All around us”: Quoted in “The Story of the Sinking of the Lusitania,” by Deborah Nicholson Lines Davison. Courtesy of Ms. Davison.

8 As of noon Thursday: Memorandum, “ ‘Lusitania’—American Proceedings,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 1/8451/56, National Archives UK.

U-20: CHANGE OF PLAN

1 On Thursday afternoon: Schwieger, War Log.

LUSITANIA: MESSAGES

1 “Submarines active”: Telegram, Censor, Valencia to Admiralty, May 7, 1915, Lusitania Various Papers, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/1058, National Archives UK.

2 “Submarines off Fastnet”: Ibid.

3 After dinner, Preston Prichard: Letter, Guy R. Cockburn to Mrs. Prichard, Sept. 6, 1915, Prichard Papers.

4 On past voyages: “Programme in Aid of Seamen’s Charities,” R.M.S. Lusitania, Sept. 21, 1912, DX/728, Merseyside; “Programme of Entertainment,” April 21 and 22, 1915, D42/PR3/8/25, Cunard Archive.

5 “I was keenly interested”: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 5.

6 Under certain conditions: Ramsay, Lusitania, 164.

7 “that no suggestion would be made”: “Statement of Mr. A. J. Mitchell,” May 14, 1915, Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 197, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

8 “She was only too happy”: Josephine Brandell Account, quoted in Kalafus et al., Lest We Forget.

9 “Hope you have a safe crossing”: Record of Wireless Signals, May 6, 1915, “Lusitania Various Papers,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/1058, National Archives UK.

LONDON; WASHINGTON; BERLIN: TENSION

1 “in sight for five minutes:” Telegram, Naval Center Queenstown to Admiralty, May 6, 1915, “Home Waters: General Operation Telegrams,” May 6–10, 1915, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/113, National Archives UK.

2 “heart failure, accelerated by shock”: New York Times, May 6, 1915; Washington Times, May 5, 1915.

3 “running amok”: Washington Times, May 5, 1915.

4 “There are some things”: Wilson to Galt, May 5, 1915, Wilson Papers.

5 “I can hardly see”: Wilson to Galt, May 6, 1915, Wilson Papers.

6 “There was the fear”: Wilson, My Memoir, 66–67.

7 “Oh, so many things swarmed”: Ibid., 67.

8 “all the problems which confronted him”: Ibid.

9 “unwelcome publicity”: Ibid.

10 “This fact is eminently bound not only to alter our good relations”: Link, Wilson: Struggle, 398.

11 That evening: Washington Times, May 6, 1915.

12 At midnight that Thursday: Intercepted telegram, “Norddeich to all Ships,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/3959. Here’s the actual text:

MAY 6, 1915

NORDDEICH TO ALL SHIPS

NO. 48

S.S. LUSITANIA LEAVES LIVERPOOL FOR NEW YORK ON MAY 15TH. S.S. TUSCANIA LEAVES GLASGOW ON MAY 7TH FOR NEW YORK VIA LIVERPOOL. S.S. CAMERONIA 11,000 TONS LEAVES ON MAY 15TH FOR NEW YORK.

U-20: FOG

1 Schwieger and his crew: Schwieger, War Log.

THE IRISH SEA: ENGINES ABOVE

1 Early Friday morning a number of passengers: “Statement of Mrs. Theodore Naish,” Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 187, U.S. National Archives–College Park; “Statement of Maude R. Thompson,” Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 187, U.S. National Archives–College Park; Ramsay, Lusitania, 77.

2 “We had been told”: “Statement of Mrs. Theodore Naish,” Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 187, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

3 “I do not like this”: Ibid.

4 “As the horn was blowing”: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 5, 69–70.

5 “just the loom of the land”: Testimony, Leo Thompson, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 673.

6 “Number and directions”: Telegram, Kilrane to Director Naval Intelligence, London, May 7, 1915, “Home Waters: General Operation Telegrams,” May 6–10, 1915, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/113, National Archives UK.

7 Booth quit breakfast: Testimony, Alfred Booth, “Investigation,” Lines 262–65, 276–77; “Answers of Petitioner to Interrogatories Propounded by Hunt, Hill & Betts,” Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 1, 3.

8 “Submarines active”: Telegram, May 7, 1915, 11:25 A.M., cited in “Answers of the Petitioner to the Interrogatories Propounded by May Davies Hopkins,” Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 8.

9 “It was a beautiful day”: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 70.

10 “just flat as a billiard table”: Francis Burrows, interview, Lusitania, BBC Written Archives Centre.

11 “The view was grand”: “Narrative of Mrs. J. MacFarquhar,” Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 197, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

12 “All of a sudden”: Schwieger, War Log.

13 A seven-year-old girl: As you perhaps have guessed, these and other details that follow also come from lists of belongings recovered from the unidentified dead of the Lusitania. “Unidentified Remains,” R.M.S. Lusitania: Record of Passengers & Crew, SAS/29/6/18, Merseyside; “Lusitania: Effects of Unidentified Bodies,” in Wesley Frost to William Jennings Bryan, June 4, 1915, decimal file 341.111L97/37, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

14 “I pinned the big diamond brooch”: Letter, Dwight Harris to Mother, May 10, 1915, Harris Papers.

15 “I replied that his word”: “Statement of Mrs. Theodore Naish,” Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 187, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

16 “Submarines 5 miles south”: “Memorandum as to Master’s Actions,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 1/8451/56, National Archives UK.

17 At his periscope: Schwieger, War Log.

18 “After I was through swearing”: Thomas, Raiders, 96.

19 “Unusually good visibility”: Schwieger, War Log.

LONDON; WASHINGTON: THE KING’S QUESTION

1 “We spoke of the probability”: Seymour, Intimate Papers, 1:432; also in Ramsay, Lusitania, 77–78.

2 “Suppose they should sink”: Seymour, Intimate Papers, 1:432; Cooper, Walter Hines Page, 306; Ramsay, Lusitania, 78.

3 severe shortage of artillery shells: Keegan, First World War, 199; Churchill, World Crisis, 437.

4 “incurring unjustifiable risks”: Churchill, World Crisis, 437.

5 “Without actually taking part”: Ibid.

6 “suffering from every form of horrible injury:” Ibid., 438.

7 “In this clear morning air”: Letter, Wilson to Galt, May 7, 1915, Wilson Papers.

THE IRISH SEA: FUNNELS ON THE HORIZON

1 U-20 moved: Schwieger, War Log.

2 “At first I thought”: Thomas, Raiders, 97.

3 “Ahead and to starboard”: Schwieger, War Log.

4 At about 1:30 P.M.: Bailey and Ryan, Lusitania Disaster, 143.

5 But as he watched: Robert Kay Account, courtesy of Mike Poirier.

6 “I suggested that the passengers”: Kessler, quoted in Kalafus et al., Lest We Forget.

7 Just as Pilot Lanz arrived: Schwieger, War Log.

8 That the ship “was not sent”: Ibid.

9 Charles Lauriat went to lunch: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 73.

10 “A young Englishman at our table”: Letter, Pope to Ada Brooks Pope, June 28, 1915, Riddle Papers.

11 “While at table”: Letter, Dwight Harris to Mother, May 10, 1915, Harris Papers.

12 “talking about Submarines”: Letter, Gadsden to Mrs. Prichard, July 4, 1915, Prichard Papers.

13 “volunteered to point her out”: Letter, Grace French to Mrs. Prichard, Sept. 10, 1915, Prichard Papers.

14 “I replied that Mr. Prichard”: Letter, Grace French to Mrs. Prichard, Sept. 19, 1915, Prichard Papers.

15 They joked as they hunted: Ibid.

16 Schwieger estimated: Schwieger, War Log.

LUSITANIA: BEAUTY

1 “At five minutes to four bells”: Morton, Long Wake, 103.

2 “All lookouts had been warned”: Letter, Thomas Mahoney to Adolf Hoehling, May 14, 1955, Hoehling Papers.

3 “trick at the wheel”: Hugh Johnston, interview, Lusitania, BBC Written Archives Centre.

4 “We carried on”: Ibid.

5 “seeing a dozen things”: Morton, Long Wake, 102–3.

6 A group of children: John Brennan, interview, Lusitania, BBC Written Archives Centre.

7 “At ten minutes past two”: Leslie Morton, testimony, June 16, 1915, 16, “Investigation.”

8 “10 points on the port bow”: Hugh Johnston, testimony, June 16, 1915, 19, “Investigation.”

9 “Here is a torpedo coming”: Ibid.

10 “a real walk”: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 7.

11 “a piece of vitriolic English”: Ibid., 7–8.

12 “which was a marvelous blue”: Letter, Pope to Ada Brooks Pope, June 28, 1915, Riddle Papers.

13 “a streak of froth”: Liverpool Weekly Mercury, May 15, 1915.

14 “That isn’t a torpedo, is it?”: Ibid.

15 “I did not think that anybody”: Ibid.

16 That first turmoil: Ballard, Exploring the Lusitania, 84–85; New York Times, May 10, 1915; Preston, Lusitania, 441–42; Testimony, Casey B. Morgan, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 714, 715; testimony, Lawrence Y. Spear, Petition, 766, 767. Anyone interested in more detail about torpedoes, and German U-boats generally, would do well to visit uboat.net, a well-monitored and authoritative website on German submarine warfare in both world wars. See especially “Selected Technical Data of Imperial German U-Boats and Their Torpedoes,” www.uboat.net/history/wwi/part7.htm. See also www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WTGER_PreWWII.htm.

17 “I saw the torpedo coming!”: Letter, Dwight Harris to Mother, May 10, 1915, Harris Papers.

18 “It was a beautiful sight”: James A. Brooks, quoted in unidentified, undated news clipping, Hoehling Papers.

19 In just two months, another Cunard captain: Bisset, Commodore, 65.

U-20: “TREFF!”

1 “Torpedo hits starboard”: Schwieger, War Log.

LUSITANIA: IMPACT

1 “I saw it disappear”: Quoted in telegram, Pitney to Tribune, New York, May 9, 1915, “Lusitania Various Papers,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/1058, National Archives UK.

2 “The side of the ship is nothing”: Testimony, Gregory C. Davison, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 837.

3 “was blown to atoms”: Deposition, Thomas Quinn, May 15, 1915, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/1058, National Archives UK; Preston, Lusitania, 453.

4 Just inside the hull: See Garzke et al., Titanic, and Wood, et al., “Sinking,” throughout.

5 “forced flooding”: Wood et al., “Sinking,” 177.

6 Captain Turner was standing: Deposition, William Thomas Turner, May 15, 1915, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/1058, National Archives UK; Preston, 453.

7 “Well, that wasn’t so bad”: Ballard, Exploring the Lusitania, 87.

8 “Water, bits of coal”: Letter, Dwight Harris to Mother, May 10, 1915, Harris Papers.

9 “The ship listed so much”: Letter, Grace French to Mrs. Prichard, Sept. 10, 1915, Prichard Papers.

10 “I timed everything”: Testimony, William McMillan Adams, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 24.

11 Charles Lauriat checked his stem-winding wristwatch: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 9.

12 “You could feel the two separate motions”: Ibid., 72.

13 “more like an explosion of a boiler”: Testimony, Charles E. Lauriat Jr., Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 92, 104.

14 “I think we might stay up”: Mackworth, This Was My World, 242.

15 “wasted a minute or so”: Ibid., 243.

16 “I always thought”: Ibid., 244.

17 “Mr. Hubbard stayed by the rail”: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 9.

18 “If you don’t care to come”: Ibid., 73.

19 Norah Bretherton: Statement of Norah Bretherton (n.d.), Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 197, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

20 On entering the bridge: Deposition, Hugh Johnston, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/1058, National Archives UK.

21 “All right, boy”: All dialogue here is as reported by Johnston in Ibid.

22 “every step was an effort”: Robert Kay Account, courtesy of Mike Poirier.

23 “In their hurry, they put them on”: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 11.

24 “Captain, what do you wish us to do”: Ibid., 11.

25 “The Captain says the boat will not sink”: Letter, Henry Needham to Mrs. Prichard, July 9, 1915, Prichard Papers.

26 “I don’t know what possessed me”: New York Times, June 2, 1915.

27 “I left my coffee and nuts”: Testimony, Frederic J. Gauntlett, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 115.

28 The two first-class elevators: There is debate as to exactly what happened in these two elevators. Preston quotes one of the ship’s bellboys as saying, “We could hear their screams coming up—they knew they were trapped.” She also quotes a passenger’s statement that the elevators were “filled with passengers screaming.” Certainly, the loss of electric power would have stopped the elevators and would have provided a truly terrifying moment for passengers within. But Lusitania expert Mike Poirier questions whether anyone was in fact trapped or killed in the elevators. He bases his skepticism on the absence of additional corroborating accounts in the scores of statements made by passengers after the disaster. The debate, however, cannot be settled in any definitive way. Preston, Lusitania, 210.

29 The scores of men: There is, however, no debate about what happened with this elevator, and in the luggage room.

30 “rush of water”: Ramsay, Lusitania, 214.

31 By one estimate, at least 70 portholes: Ibid., 215.

32 “A strange silence prevailed”: Irish Independent, May 7, 1955.

FIRST WORD

1 “ ‘LUSITANIA’ in distress”: “Copies of Telegrams Relative to Sinking of S.S. Lusitania,” Lusitania Various Papers, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/1058, National Archives UK.

2 “ ‘Lusitania’ S.E. 10 miles sinking”: Telegram, Galley Head to Admiralty, May 7, 1915, Churchill Papers, CHAR 13/64.

3 “ ‘Lusitania’ torpedoed”: Telegram, Naval Center Queenstown to Admiralty, May 7, 1915, Churchill Papers, CHAR 13/64; also, Ledger, “Subs,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/4101, National Archives UK.

LUSITANIA: DECISIONS

1 Ogden Hammond: Testimony, Ogden H. Hammond, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives-New York, 171–78; letter, Ogden H. Hammond to Joseph F. Tumulty, May 21, 1915, Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 197, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

2 The boat contained: Testimony, Leslie Morton, June 16, 1915, 17, “Investigation”; James H. Brooks, “Statement or Story on the Sinking of the Lusitania,” Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 197, U.S. National Archives–College Park; testimony, Isaac Lehmann, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 297.

3 “It is the captain’s orders”: This segment of dialogue was reported by Isaac Lehmann in Ibid., 297–98.

4 “I took a look at things”: Letter, Dwight Harris to Mother, May 10, 1915, Harris Papers.

5 “The deck suddenly looked very strange”: Letter, Pope to Ada Brooks Pope, June 28, 1915, Riddle Papers.

6 “We walked close together”: Ibid.

7 “Come Robinson”: Ibid.

8 another readout of the spirit gauge: Testimony, Hugh Robert Johnston, June 16, 1915, 19, “Investigation.”

9 “My God”: Hugh Johnston, interview, Lusitania, BBC Written Archives Centre.

10 “Save yourself”: Hugh Johnston, interview, Lusitania, BBC Written Archives Centre; testimony, Hugh Robert Johnston, June 16, 1915, 19, “Investigation.”

U-20: SCHWIEGER’S VIEW

1 “I took my position”: Thomas, Raiders, 97.

2 “It would have been impossible”: This sentence seems so unlike something Schwieger would write that it has prompted some Lusitania scholars to wonder whether he, or someone else, altered his log after the fact. But, as it is in the log, and I am in no position to know for certain whether he did in fact touch up the log to improve his future stature in the eyes of history, I quote it here. Schwieger, War Log.

LUSITANIA: THE LITTLE ARMY

1 The floor was canted: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 14, 78.

2 “The steamer was all the time rapidly settling”: Ibid., 17.

3 “Never could one realize”: Statement of Mr. A. J. Mitchell, May 14, 1915, Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 197, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

4 Lauriat stood on a seat: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 82–83.

5 “Please will you show me”: Newspaper account, “Knox Describes Lusitania’s End,” provided by Mike Poirier, quoted in Kalafus et al., Lest We Forget.

6 Norah Bretherton: Statement of Norah Bretherton (n.d.), Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 197, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

7 “I opened my eyes”: Letter, Pope to Ada Brooks Pope, June 28, 1915, Riddle Papers.

8 “The gulls were flying overhead”: Kalafus et al., Lest We Forget.

9 “It got blacker and blacker”: Grace French Account, Lennox Herald, May 1975, courtesy of Mike Poirier.

10 “I had no feeling of fear”: Letter, Dwight Harris to Mother, May 10, 1915, Harris Papers.

11 For the family of Joseph Frankum: Liverpool Weekly Mercury, May 15, 1915.

12 “I clung to my wife”: Ibid.

13 “gently and vaguely”: Mackworth, This Was My World, 244.

14 “Well, you’ve had your thrill”: Ibid.

15 “One gets very close in three minutes”: Dorothy Conner Account, courtesy of Mike Poirier.

16 “She’s all right”: “Statement of Mrs. Theodore Naish,” Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 187, U.S. National Archives–College Park, 2.

17 “I thought about how wondrously beautiful”: Ibid., 3.

18 The sinking crowned a troubled period: This detail provided by Mike Poirier.

19 After helping to launch: Testimony, Leslie Morton, June 16, 1915, “Investigation,” line 495. Morton writes that this boat was No. 13, but Lusitania expert Mike Poirier suggests that he may have erred, that the boat was actually No. 9.

20 “If you had to jump”: Morton, Long Wake, 105.

21 “to waste in either horror or sympathy”: Ibid., 106.

22 “in some mistaken belief”: Ibid., 107.

23 “The time for heroics”: Ibid.

24 “but seeing the turmoil”: Ibid.

25 Lauriat swam clear: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 18.

26 “An all-swallowing wave”: The Irish Independent, May 7, 1955.

27 As measles-poxed Robert Kay: Robert Kay Account, courtesy of Mike Poirier.

28 “I couldn’t imagine what was landing on me”: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 20–21, 85.

TELEGRAM

1 “S.O.S. from ‘Lusitania’ ”: Ledger, “Subs,” May 7, 1915, 2:26 P.M., Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/4101, National Archives UK; also in Churchill Papers, CHAR 13/64.

LUSITANIA: A QUEEN’S END

1 One woman, Margaret Gwyer: Morton, Long Wake, 108.

2 Two other passengers: Ramsay, Lusitania, 87; Morton, Long Wake, 108.

3 “a slow, almost stately, dive”: Morton, Long Wake, 108; For depth, see Ballard, Exploring the Lusitania, 10.

4 “plunged forward like a knife blade”: Letter, Dwight Harris to Mother, May 10, 1915, Harris Papers.

5 “As she went under”: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 85–87.

6 “never met anyone as ‘cool’ ”: Letter, Hugh Johnston to Adolf Hoehling, Sept. 25, 1955, Hoehling Papers.

7 “ ‘Lusitania’ sunk”: Telegram, Head of Kinsale to Admiralty, May 7, 1915, Churchill Papers, CHAR 13/64.

ALL POINTS: RUMOR

1 Frost walked to the windows: I decided to footnote this because it is precisely the kind of detail that is likely to cause a reader to pause a moment and ask him- or herself, Hmmm, how do you know he walked to his windows? Answer: because he tells us so. Frost, German Submarine Warfare, 187.

2 “I hear there is some sort of street rumor”: Ibid., 188.

3 After hanging up, Frost paced his office: Again, we know this because Frost tells us, “I must have spent ten or fifteen minutes pacing the floor of the office.” Ibid.

4 “Urgent: Recall Juno”: Telegram, Admiralty to S.N.O. Queenstown, May 7, 1915, Churchill Papers, CHAR 13/64.

5 “I then received a telegram”: Letter, Vice-Admiral C. H. Coke to Admiralty, May 9, 1915, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/1058, National Archives UK.

6 Each call brought fresh reports: Hendrick, Life and Letters, 2:1–2.

7 “We shall be at war”: Ibid., 2:2.

8 That morning, in New York: Jack Lawrence’s account, including dialogue, appears at Lawrence, When the Ships Came In, 134–39.

9 “I was pacing the streets”: Cooper, Woodrow Wilson, 286.

10 “Astern in the distance”: Schwieger, War Log.

LUSITANIA: ADRIFT

1 “I saw myself hundreds”: Letter, E. S. Heighway to Mrs. Prichard, June 25, 1915, Prichard Papers.

2 the killer was hypothermia: For a primer on hypothermia, see Weinberg, “Hypothermia.”

3 “The most frightful thing”: Letter, Dwight Harris to Mother, May 10, 1915, Harris Papers.

4 “The cries for help”: Ibid.

5 “When I came to the surface”: Mackworth, This Was My World, 246.

6 “a little dazed”: Ibid., 247.

7 “so that one could inhale it”: Ibid., 248.

8 “an oasis in a desert of bodies”: Morton, Long Wake, 108

9 “We were picking people out of the water”: Testimony, Frederic J. Gauntlett, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 123.

10 “Never have I heard”: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 25.

11 “I would, old chap”: How delightful, frankly, that people actually did once upon a time use the phrase “old chap.” Ibid., 40.

12 Seaman Morton swam to get her: Morton, Long Wake, 108–9.

13 “The clothes were almost blown off”: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 29.

14 “I heard a woman’s voice say”: Ibid.

15 “Come, Holy Ghost”: Henry Wood Simpson’s account in “Saved from the Lusitania,” Church Family, May 14, 1915, courtesy of Mike Poirier.

16 “I was fully expecting the submarine”: Mersey, Report, 1, account of George Bilbrough.

17 Here were the Brock: See a list of boats that participated in the rescue effort, enclosed within letter, Vice-Admiral C. H. Coke to Admiralty, May 9, 1915, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/1058, National Archives UK.

18 “No news could be had”: Frost, German Submarine Warfare, 191.

19 “We did everything we could:” Ramsay, Lusitania, 25–26.

20 As they approached the vessel: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 34.

21 “songs were being sung”: “Statement of Mr. A. J. Mitchell,” May 14, 1915, Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 197, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

22 “She’s conscious”: Letter, Pope to Ada Brooks Pope, June 28, 1915, Riddle Papers.

U-20: PARTING SHOT

1 “All we thought of”: Hayden Talbot, “The Truth About the Lusitania,” Answers, Nov. 8, 1919, in “Lusitania Various Papers,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/1058, National Archives UK.

2 “Of course he couldn’t hear anything”: This is the phrase that makes her account seem credible. It is a subtle point that only submariners understood—the silence, even though what they see through their periscopes is fire and death.

3 Just five minutes: Schwieger, War Log.

4 The steamer Schwieger had fired upon: Hoehling and Hoehling, Last Voyage, 85, 147–48.

5 “We proceeded with all possible speed”: Telegram, Lands End Wireless Station to Chief Censor, May 7, 1915, Churchill Papers, CHAR 13/64.

LUSITANIA: SEAGULLS

1 “The whole ship”: Ramsay, Lusitiana, 274.

2 “I thought he had gone”: New York Times, Nov. 21, 1915.

3 “I noticed it because”: Ibid.

4 “he used to carry a .22 rifle”: Letter, Norman H. Turner to Adolf Hoehling, Sept. 18, 1955, Hoehling Papers.

5 “That’s better”: The dialogue here is as reported by Mackworth, This Was My World, 248–49.

6 They applauded: Letter, Dwight Harris to Mother, May 10, 1915, Harris Papers.

7 Charles Lauriat carried one man: Lauriat, Lusitania’s Last Voyage, 41. Mike Poirier provided McMurray’s identity.

8 “I saved the baby’s pictures”: Boston Daily Globe, May 11, 1915.

9 She found her father waiting: Mackworth, This Was My World, 251.

10 “She was still dressed in the neat fawn tweed”: Ibid., 254.

11 “and took a huge dose of whiskey”: Letter, Dwight Harris to Mother, May 10, 1915, Harris Papers.

12 “I was left on a lounge”: Letter, Pope to Ada Brooks Pope, June 28, 1915, Riddle Papers.

13 She arranged to send: Katz, Dearest, 120.

14 “All night I kept expecting Mr. Friend”: Letter, Pope to Ada Brooks Pope, June 28, 1915, Riddle Papers.

15 “You should be worrying”: Hoehling and Hoehling, Last Voyage, 161.

16 “appeared stunned”: Telegram, Tuchy, London to New York World, New York, May 9, 1915, Churchill Papers, CHAR 13/64.

17 Tears filled his eyes: Ibid.

QUEENSTOWN: THE LOST

1 Of the Lusitania’s 1,959 passengers and crew: As on so many points involving the Lusitania, there is disagreement as to just how many passengers and crew were aboard, how many died, and how many of the passengers were American. Here I’m using Cunard’s official tally. See “General Analysis of Passengers and Crew” and “Summary of Passengers’ Nationality,” both in R.M.S. Lusitania: Record of Passengers & Crew, SAS/29/6/18, Merseyside.

2 For days dozens of cables: Letter, Charles P. Sumner to General Manager’s Office, Cunard, May 18, 1915, D42/PR13/32, Cunard Archive. This letter alone provides a jarring portrait of the dimension of the disaster. Running thirteen pages, single-spaced, it lists scores of cables sent between Cunard’s headquarters and its New York office.

3 “Am saved, looking for Cliff”: Details of Leslie Morton’s search for his brother, including dialogue, are from Morton, Long Wake, 112–13.

4 One man’s body: The fragment of lifeboat resides at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

5 “There was a curious effacement”: Frost, German Submarine Warfare, 226–28.

6 The unimportant bodies: Ibid., 226.

7 Body No. 1: “Identified Remains, South Coast List,” R.M.S. Lusitania: Record of Passengers & Crew, SAS/29/6/18, Merseyside.

8 “Several weeks after the disaster”: Frost, German Submarine Warfare, 228.

9 “Much of the body was eaten away”: Telegram, July 15, 1915, “Male body washed ashore,” D42/PR13/1/226–250, Cunard Archives.

10 Frost offered an additional pound: Telegram, Wesley Frost to William Jennings Bryan, May 13, 1915, decimal file 341.111L97/16, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

11 His name was Leon C. Thrasher: Telegram, U.S. Consul General, London, to William Jennings Bryan, April 7, 1915, Foreign Relations.
   Thrasher is sometimes identified in news accounts as Thresher. I’ve chosen to use “Thrasher” because it is the spelling used in official U.S. diplomatic correspondence included in the Foreign Relations series.

12 Such was the case: Letter, Sgt. J. Regan to U.S. Consul Wesley Frost, Aug. 20, 1915, decimal file 341.111L97/105, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

13 “Needless to say”: Details of the Shields autopsy may be found in letter, Wesley Frost to U.S. Secretary of State, July 27, 1915, and enclosure, “Autopsy on Remains of Victor E. Shields,” decimal file 341.111. L97/87, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

14 “My own personal loss”: Letter, Alfred A. Booth to Charles P. Sumner, May 8, 1915, D42/C1/1/66, Part 2 of 4, Cunard Archives.

15 “is sad beyond expression”: Letter, Charles P. Sumner to Alfred A. Booth, May 14, 1915, D42/C1/1/66, Part 2 of 4, Cunard Archives.

16 “a picture of peace”: Washington Times, May 10, 1915.

17 The family of Elizabeth A. Seccombe: “Identified Remains,” R.M.S. Lusitania: Record of Passengers & Crew, SAS/29/6/18, Merseyside; letter, Wesley Frost to U.S. Secretary of State, Sept. 17, 1915, decimal file 341.111L97/123-124, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

18 Of the 791 passengers: I computed these numbers on the basis of data provided in R.M.S. Lusitania: Record of Passengers & Crew, SAS/29/6/18, Merseyside.

19 “The place is alive”: Preston, Lusitania, 297.

20 “I can see his face”: Letter, Grace French to Mrs. Prichard, Sept. 10, 1915, Prichard Papers.

21 “I beg of you”: Letter, Theodate Pope to Mrs. Prichard, Feb. 4, 1916, Prichard Papers.

22 “I know you must be tempted”: Letter, Ruth M. Wordsworth to Prichard, July 9, 1915, Prichard Papers.

LONDON: BLAME

1 “We sh’d pursue the Captain”: Annotation to telegram, Richard Webb to Cecil Spring-Rice, May 11, 1915, “Lusitania Various Papers,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/1058, National Archives UK.

2 “a brave but unlucky man”: Horgan, Parnell to Pearse, 274.

3 “willful and wholesale murder”: Ibid., 273.

4 “That august body”: Ibid., 275.

5 “proceeded along the usual trade route”: “Memorandum as to Master’s Actions,” May 8, 1915, Admiralty Papers, ADM 1/8451/56, National Archives UK.

6 “appears to have displayed”: Telegram, Richard Webb to Cecil Spring-Rice, May 11, 1915, “Lusitania Various Papers,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/1058, National Archives UK.

7 “Bare facts only”: Letter, Wesley Frost to William Jennings Bryan, May 11, 1915, Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 197, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

8 “I was struck by the fact”: Memorandum, “Statement of Captain W. A. Castle,” May 14, 1915, Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 197, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

9 “Merchant traffic must look after itself”: Independent, May 24, 1915.

10 “Have sunk off the South Coast of Ireland”: Images of the actual handwritten decodes may be found in the papers of the Ministry of Defence, DEFE/69/270, National Archives UK.

11 “My highest appreciation”: Ibid.

12 “by means of one torpedo”: Ibid.

13 Turner testified that by his own standards: Testimony, William Thomas Turner, June 15, 1915, 4, “Investigation.”

14 Carson let pass the fact: Bailey and Ryan, Lusitania Disaster, 143; telegram, Wesley Frost to William Jennings Bryan, May 9, 1915, Foreign Relations. In his telegram, Frost quotes a passenger’s statement, which began, “At 12 noon ship began to zigzag … off Irish coast.”

15 “I mean to say, we have the very great advantage”: Testimony, William Thomas Turner, June 15, 1915, 15, “Investigation.”

16 “exercised his judgment for the best”: Annex to the Report, Ministry of Transport Papers, MT 9/1326, “Investigation,” 9.

17 “still left the Lusitania a considerably faster ship”: Ibid., 7.

18 “He was very bitter”: Letter, Norman H. Turner to Adolf Hoehling, Sept. 18, 1955, Hoehling Papers.

19 “a damned dirty business”: Memorandum, Head of Naval Historical Branch, Oct. 25, 1972, Ministry of Defence Papers, DEFE/69/270, National Archives UK.

20 “one is left only with an unforgivable cock-up”: Beesly, Room 40, 121.

21 “As an Englishman”: Article and associated interview, Patrick Beesly, Misc. 162, Item 2491, Imperial War Museum.

22 “With regard to the question of convoy”: Memorandum, “ ‘Lusitania’—American Proceedings,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 1/8451/56, National Archives UK.

23 “Even one destroyer encircling the liner”: Irish Independent, May 7, 1955.

24 “The neglect to provide naval escort”: Bisset, Commodore, 46.

25 “It might … but it is one of those things one never knows”: Liverpool Weekly Mercury, May 15, 1915.

26 Testing done several years earlier: Bailey and Ryan, Lusitania Disaster, 101; Wood et al., “Sinking,” 179–80.

27 A more plausible theory: Ballard, Exploring the Lusitania, 194–95. Ballard’s book, by the way, has many compelling photographs (152–91) of what remains of the Lusitania at the bottom of the sea, taken during his exploration of the wreck in 1993.

28 Subsequent investigation by forensic engineers: Garzke et al., Titanic, 260–61; Wood et al., “Sinking,” 181–83, 187. Also see Annex to the Report, Ministry of Transportation Papers, MT 9/1326, “Investigation.”

29 This was Turner’s theory: Preston, Lusitania, 453.

30 “to 50 pounds in a few seconds”: Deposition, George Little, May 15, 1915, “Depositions Removed from Trade Division Papers,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/1058, National Archives UK; Preston, Lusitania, 453.

31 Not only that, it struck precisely the right place: Garzke et al., Titanic, 256–60, 263–67; Wood et al., “Sinking,” 174–78, 186, 188.

WASHINGTON; BERLIN; LONDON: THE LAST BLUNDER

1 “If I pondered”: New York Times, Nov. 15, 1921.

2 In fact, apart from a noisy pro-war faction: Resolution, May 16, 1915; Rush Medical College, Resolution, May 16, 1915; College of Dentistry, University of Illinois, Resolution, May 11, 1915; and Tennessee State Assembly, Resolution all in Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 197, U.S. National Archives–College Park; Cooper, Vanity of Power, 33–34; Cummins, “Indiana’s Reaction,” 13, 15, 17.
   And may I just say how refreshing it was to read the state of Louisiana’s resolution, in light of the rancor in American politics that prevailed at the time I completed this book:
   “Such a crisis as now confronts our country calls for coolness, deliberation, firmness and precision of mind on the part of those entrusted with the power of administration.
   “Under the providence of God this country has such a leader in Woodrow Wilson … who with his advisers has so signally shown the temper and courage and great humanity that reflects the sentiment of his loyal countrymen.” Resolution, May 20, 1915, Louisiana Legislature, Lusitania Papers, Microcopy 580, Roll 197, U.S. National Archives–College Park.

3 “the day which marked the end”: Neue Preussische Zeitung, May 10, 1915, translation, Foreign and German Press Analysis, Box 2, Bailey/Ryan Collection.

4 “America does not know what conditions are”: Telegram, Heer[illegible], New York, to Evening News, London, May 8, 1915, Churchill Papers, CHAR 13/64.

5 “There is such a thing”: Berg, Wilson, 364; Link, Wilson: Struggle, 382. Newspaper editor Oswald Garrison Villard, in his autobiography Fighting Years, claimed it was he who had planted the phrase “too proud to fight” in the president’s mind. He did so inadvertently, he wrote. He had discussed the concept with Wilson’s personal secretary, Tumulty, never thinking that Tumulty would pass it along to Wilson. Villard, Fighting Years, 256–57.

6 “probably the most unfortunate phrase”: Berg, Wilson, 364.

7 “I do not know just what I said”: Wilson to Galt, May 11, 1915, Wilson Papers.

8 “I have just put the final touches”: Wilson to Galt, May 12, 1915, Wilson Papers.
   Wilson understood that diplomatic notes were likely to have little effect in the short term but believed them valuable all the same. “They alter no facts,” he wrote, in a letter to Galt, dated Aug. 8, 1915; “they change no plans or purposes; they accomplish nothing immediate; but theymay convey some thoughts that will, if only unconsciously, affect opinion, and set up a counter current. At least such is my hope; and it is also the only hope for these distracted English!”

9 “the sacred freedom of the seas”: Telegram, William Jennings Bryan to German Foreign Office, via U.S. Amb. James Gerard, May 13, 1915, Foreign Relations, 394; Berg, Wilson, 365–66.

10 “The Kaiser has awarded the Iron Cross”: Cummins, “Indiana’s Reaction,” 24.

11 Wilson himself described Bryan as a “traitor”: Wilson to Galt [undated], Wilson Papers. Wilson wrote: “For he is a traitor, though I can say so, as yet, only to you.”
   Bryan’s defection caused Wilson deep hurt. In a letter to Galt dated June 9, 1915, he wrote, “The impression upon my mind of Mr. Bryan’s retirement is a very painful one now. It is always painful to feel that any thinking man of disinterested motive, who has been your comrade and confidant, has turned away from you and set his hand against you; and it is hard to be fair and not think that the motive is something sinister.”
   To which Galt replied, “Hurrah! Old Bryan is out!”

12 “a figure in top hat, tailcoat”: Starling, Starling, 62.

13 “Were I the Captain of a U-boat”: Halpern, Naval History, 306.

14 “Dear Old Tirps”: Bailey and Ryan, Lusitania Disaster, 36.

15 “advantageous to the Allied cause”: Hall, Minute, Dec. 27, 1915, “Lusitania Various Papers,” Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/1058, National Archives UK.

16 Kapitänleutnant Schwieger did his part: New York Times, Sept. 9, 1915; “List of Tonnage Sunk by U-88,” Box 2, Bailey/Ryan Collection.

17 “Dear Kaiser: In spite of previous correspondence”: Cummins, “Indiana’s Reaction,” 30.

18 “Great excitement & activity”: “Capt. Hope’s Diary,” Nov. 5, 1916, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/4169, National Archives UK.

19 “will have to devote itself to one task”: Scheer, Germany’s High Sea Fleet, 194.

20 “every U-boat is of such importance”: Ibid.

21 “I guarantee upon my word”: Tuchman, Zimmermann Telegram, 141; Birnbaum, Peace Moves, 277. Tuchman notes that Holtzendorff’s memorandum, which ran to two hundred pages, included such fine-grained details as the number of calories in a typical English breakfast and the amount of wool in skirts worn by Englishwomen.
   Koerver reports another example of delusional thinking within the German navy. Adm. Edouard von Capelle said, on Feb. 1, 1917, “From a military point of view I rate the effect of America coming on the side of our enemies as nil.” Tuchman, Zimmermann Telegram, 139; Koerver,German Submarine Warfare, xxxiii.

22 “d’you want to bring America into the war?”: The dialogue in this chapter is as reported by Hall in ch. 25, “Draft D,” of his unpublished autobiography, Hall Papers.

23 “Make war together”: Ibid.; Boghardt, Zimmermann Telegram, 106–7; Link, Wilson: Campaigns, 343.

24 “This may be a very big thing”: Hall, “Draft D.,” ch. 25, Hall Papers.

25 “Only actual overt acts on their part”: Tuchman, Zimmermann Telegram, 151.

26 Hall realized the time for action had come: Boghardt, Zimmermann Telegram, 78, 101, 105. My account here is necessarily abbreviated, for one could write an entire volume just on the Zimmermann telegram—as indeed other authors have done. For further reading, turn first to Tuchman, mainly for the sheer panache with which she tells the story. For the most up-to-date scholarship, however, see Boghardt’s Zimmermann Telegram (2012) and Gannon’s Inside Room 40 (2010).

27 “By admitting the truth”: Beesly, Room 40, 223.

28 “All these papers had been ardently neutral”: Tuchman, Zimmermann Telegram, 185.

29 “The American people are at last ready”: Lansing, Private Memoranda, March 19, 1917, Lansing Papers.

30 “I must have spoken with vehemence”: Ibid., March 20, 1917.

31 “Germany is going to get Hell”: Link, Wilson: Campaigns, 421.

32 “stood in solemn splendor”: Sullivan, Our Time, 272–73.

33 “in effect nothing less than war”: The New York Times of April 3, 1917, published Wilson’s entire speech on the front page. See also Link, Wilson: Campaigns, 422–26.

34 “gravely, emphatically”: New York Times, April 3, 1917.

35 “What he did in April, 1917”: Churchill, World Crisis, 682–83. One early-twentieth-century British diarist, Lady Alice Thompson, did not think very highly of America’s restraint. On Feb. 27, 1917, after the sinking of a Cunard liner, the Laconia, she wrote, “The contemptible President of the U.S. may yet be ‘kicked’ into taking notice of this fresh German outrage. He is still masquerading at ‘considering the matter’—”
   After another sinking she wrote, on March 24, 1917: “I suspect Wilson will write another note!! & then this new act of Barbarity will sink into oblivion. They are a wonderful nation of Big talk & little action—I leave them at that.” Diaries of Lady Alice Thompson, vols. 2 and 3, Doc. 15282, Imperial War Museum.

36 In Queenstown, U.S. consul Frost: Frost, German Submarine Warfare, 5.

37 “Briefly stated, I consider”: Sims, Victory at Sea, 43.

38 “Welcome to the American colors”: Ibid., 51.

39 On May 8, the destroyers: Halpern, Naval History, 359.

EPILOGUE: PERSONAL EFFECTS

1 “She looked so smeared and dirty”: Lawrence, When the Ships Came In, 131–32.

2 “horse storm”: Ibid., 132.

3 “His old blue uniform”: Ibid., 133.

4 “I told him there were no regrets”: New York Times, Nov. 21, 1915.

5 On January 1, 1917: Ramsay, Lusitania, 161; Hoehling and Hoehling, Last Voyage, 172.

6 “this great little man”: Letter, George Ball to Adolf Hoehling, July 22, 1955, Hoehling Papers.

7 “Capt. Turner felt the loss”: Letter, Mabel Every to Adolf Hoehling, May [4], 1955, Hoehling Papers; Ramsay, Lusitania, 161; letter, George Ball to Adolf Hoehling, July 22, 1955, Hoehling Papers.

8 “I grieve for all the poor innocent people”: Letter, William Thomas Turner to Miss Brayton, June 10, 1915, D42/PR13/29, Cunard Archive.

9 “He was far too strong a character”: Letter, George Ball to Adolf Hoehling, July 22, 1955, Hoehling Papers.

10 “I am satisfied that every precaution was taken”: New York Times, Nov. 21, 1915.

11 “Merriment and humor”: Letter, Geroge Ball to Adolf Hoehling, July 22, 1955, Hoehling Papers.

12 “He died as he had lived”: Ibid.

13 Room 40 recorded the loss: Ledger, Tactical Formation of Submarines: Summary of Submarine Cruises, Entry: Sept. 5, 1917, Admiralty Papers, ADM 137/4128, National Archives UK; Grant, U-Boat Intelligence, 73, 185.

14 They reside today: The museum is the Strandingsmuseum St. George, Thorsminde, Denmark, just a brief stroll from the North Sea. U-20’s conning tower stands on a lawn out front, stripped of all hatches and apparatus. Schwieger’s deck gun, once so accurate and deadly, stands inside the museum, opposite a cabinet that displays other pieces of the submarine. For more on the museum, see its website at www.strandingsmuseet.dk/about-us

15 “How simple is intelligence!”: “Rough Notes,” Hall 2/1, Hall Papers.

16 “All the young are in the net”: Letter, Hall to Percy Madeira, Oct. 6, 1934, Hall 1/6, Hall Papers.

17 “If you’re the undertaker, my man”: Ramsay, “Blinker” Hall, 299.

18 “I insistently pictured the tunnel giving way”: Mackworth, This Was My World, 262.

19 “If anyone had asked me”: Ibid., 259.

20 “I do not quite understand”: Ibid., 260.

21 He established a foundation: “Compliments of George Kessler,” American Menu, April 14, 2012, 12.

22 A succession of new owners: For the more recent history of Lauriat’s, see the Boston Globe, Oct. 1, 1972, and May 19 and June 13, 1999.

23 a clear blue sky: Kansas City Star, June 15, 1919. Courtesy of Mike Poirier.

24 “I dropped into a chair”: Katz, Dearest, 121.

25 “If you were saved”: Cunningham, My Godmother, 51.

26 “in such a state of exhaustion”: Katz, Dearest, 122.

27 “You can have no idea”: Ibid., 125.

28 Her companion, Edwin Friend: Hoehling and Hoehling, Last Voyage, 171.