Thomas F. (hardtack) - , reviewed on 8/1/2025 + 2863 more book reviews

This is a fascinating story of the Lusitania, its last trip and its sinking. But what is more fascinating is the attempt by the British government to blame the ship's captain for the sinking and loss of life of over 700 passengers when the blame was completely the fault of the British Admiralty.

I was very impressed with the fleet of small boats which saved so many lives. This includes one sailing vessel which took many hours to arrive, as there was no wind. So the crewed rowed for 14 miles. So many deaths were caused by hypothermia as the vessels took fours hours to arrive. Yet, a British warship which could have arrived in one hour was called back so it would not be at risk from the German submarine.

This after the British Admiralty and Winston Churchill---the First Lord of the Admiralty---knew the German submarine was active in the area where the Lusitania was sailing, yet gave no warning to the ship or provide it escorts which were readily available. In fact, one British battle cruiser sailed right by the ship before it was torpedoed and kept on going.

All this leads to the very possible conspiracy theory the British wanted a loss of American lives to bring the U.S. into the war against Germany. The author does a very good job discussing the pros and cons of this theory.

Fortunately for the captain, an Irish coroner and a U.S. counsel stepped in to save the ship's captain's reputation.

I also enjoyed the author's research into many of the passengers. One which held my interest was American Charles Lauriet, a bookseller. The author describes his possession of various valuable drawings and books, including one of Charles Dicken's books with Dicken's handwritten notes.

Then there was all the interesting trivia. For example, I didn't know you couldn't wear a straw hat in New York City until May 1st, no matter how hot it was. And how about Dr. Silas Mitchell who treated women for nervous exhaustion, and his belief women would do far better if their brains were very lightly tasked. Hey, maybe he had something! Oops! No hate mail please. :-) [I really didn't mean that.]

Did you know German torpedoes cost $5,000, or $100,000 today, or that they had a 60% failure rate. Or that Peter Lorre's real name was Laszlo Lowenstein. He was always one of my favorite actors.

My only negative part of the book was that I learned more about U.S. President Wilson's love life than I cared to. Especially as I consider him to be nowhere near as great as many of our history books portray him. At the very least, he was a bigot. And I found it interesting that after his 1916 reelection he played golf every day. Hmmmmmmm......

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