Remember the Lusitania

Owning a fragment of history — a Gettysburg bullet, a Coolidge campaign button — is fun, so in 1968 Gregg Bemisbecame an owner of the Lusitania. This 787-feet-long passenger liner has been beneath 300 feet of water off Ireland’s south coast since a single German torpedo sank it 100 years ago Thursday. It contains the 4 million U.S.-made rifle bullets and other munitions that the ship had been carrying from neutral America to wartime Britain. 

It is commonly but wrongly said that the sinking altered history’s trajectory. Yet some people, including Britain’s first lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill, hoped an attack on a ship would pull the United States into the war. They may have facilitated the Lusitania’s calamity by not taking available measures to prevent it. Of the 1,198 who perished, 128 were Americans. 

George F. Will writes a twice-weekly column on politics and domestic and foreign affairs. He began his column with The Post in 1974, and he received the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1977. He is also a contributor to FOX News’ daytime and primetime programming. View Archive