![]() ![]() To mark the anniversary of the sinking Stephen Payne joins the podcast. ![]() Some of those lost were Americans and the sinking hardened opinion in the United States against Germany and marked the beginning of the process which led to the USA entering the First World War on the side of the allies. On 7th May 1915, the ocean liner RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Ireland with more than half the passengers and crew being killed. Among the dead were 128 Americans, causing widespread outrage in the US. On 7 th May it was spotted off the coast of Ireland by U-20 and torpedoed. Of 1,962 passengers, 1,198 lost their lives. This meant U-Boats were hunting and sinking merchant shipping without warning. The RMS Lusitania left New York on 1 st May, 1915, bound for Liverpool. In early 1915, Germany introduced a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare in the Atlantic. These are 5 reasons why the United States joined World War One. Several key factors played a part in this change of course. In April, Wilson sought the approval of Congress to go to war. This stance soon came under pressure, as the impact of events across the Atlantic were felt in the US. ![]() President Woodrow Wilson, reflecting the views of much of the nation, announced that his country would be “impartial in thought as well as in action”. However, just under 3 years earlier, in August, 1914 the United States declared its neutrality in the war then engulfing Europe. The United States joined World War One in April 1917. ![]()
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