Quote:
Originally Posted by ShadoWarrior
On what grounds?
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It's been over 25 years, but basically, it boiled down to the Germans sinking a ship flying a flag of an enemy country sailing in a declared war zone and carrying a suspected war cargo.
I also pointed out that earlier in the war, against merchant shipping U-boats would often surface, fire a bow shot to get the merchant ship to stop, allow the crew to get into lifeboats, then torpedo the merchant ship. The British then began arming merchants with concealed deck guns to fire on the submarines as soon as they surfaced. The Germans then started sinking merchants without warning, which of course led to incredulous British outrage. No one knows if the Lusitania actually had any hidden deck guns, but the U-boat captain had to assume so.