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Originally Posted by John F
And for what it is worth, The Devil ... previously won.
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For those who like Larson I nominate
Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson
Goodreads
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On 7 May 1915 the Cunard liner Lusitania, the fastest ship of its day, steaming from New York to Liverpool, was torpedoed by a German submarine 12 miles off the coast of southern Ireland, not far from Cobh. It sank in 18 minutes: 1,198 passengers and crew, including three German stowaways and 123 Americans, perished. Only six of 22 lifeboats were launched. Many passengers drowned because they donned their life-jackets incorrectly and could not keep their heads bobbing above water. There were 764 survivors. This unprecedented attack on civilians caused a storm of indignation, particularly in the US, which expected its citizens to be immune from international violence.
Until 1914 the established naval rules provided that warships could stop and search merchant vessels, but must safeguard their crews. Passenger ships were exempt from attack. The sinking of civilian ships without rescuing their voyagers, said Winston Churchill, then first lord of the admiralty, leaving them “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 practised except by pirates”.
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