The Lusitania

by Daniel Allen Butler

Unravels the mystery of the tragic event that drew the U.S. into World War I and explains why the sinking of the Lusitania by a German U-20 set the tone for the twentieth century's interpretation of "total war."

Genres: World War I

384 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 2000

About the author

Daniel Allen Butler is a maritime and military historian, the author (through September 2011) of nine books. Some of his previous works include Unsinkable: the Full Story of RMS Titanic (1998); Distant Victory: The Battle of Jutland and the Allied Triumph in the First World War (2006); The Age of Cunard (2003); The Other Side of the Night: The Carpathia, theCalifornian, and the Night the Titanic was Lost (2009); The Burden of Guilt: How Germany Shattered the Last Days of Peace, Summer 1914 (2010); and Shadow of the Sultan’s Realm: the Destruction of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (2011).



Educated at Hope College, Grand Valley State University, and the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Butler served in the United States Army before becoming a full-time author. He is an internationally recognized authority on maritime subjects and a popular guest speaker, having given presentations at the National Archives in Washington, DC, the Mariners’ Museum, and in the United Kingdom. He has also been frequently included in the on-board enrichment series of Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth 2 andQueen Mary 2, as well as the ships of the Royal Caribbean and Norwegian cruise lines.



Butler is currently at work on three new projects: The Field Marshal, a biography of Erwin Rommel; The Last Field of Glory: Waterloo, 1815, a history of the Hundred Days; and But for Freedom Alone, the story of the Declaration of Arbroath.



A self-proclaimed “semi-professional beach bum,” Butler divides what little time he spends away from his writing between wandering long stretches of warm, sandy beaches, his love of woodworking, his passion for British sports cars, and his fascination with building model ships. After living and working in Los Angeles, California, for several years, Butler has recently relocated—permanently, he hopes!—to Atlantic Beach, Florida, where the beaches are better.

Reviews

[Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This wasn't bad. Heavy on the technical aspects very light on the human side, which made it dry to read at times. Definitely as good as Seven Days to Disaster or Wilful Murder or even Dead Wake which was entertaining despite the ridiculous side story of the courtship of President Wilson and his future wife Edith which didn't need to be there but that's another book. It's been a while, probably 9 years since I read a Lusitania book and 9 years was the 100th anniversary or the sinking so that's my guess. I did get caught up on what I'd forgotten. From this book I walked away feeling as awful for Captain Turner who is the Bruce Ismay of this story and while the captain is ultimately responsible he was working under the guidance of the Admiralty who were quite happy to throw him under the bus. If you want to hate Churchill his actions in WWI alone are enough don't get me started on how he treated us Colonials during WWII. The second thing I remembered was the actions of Captain Schweiger from U-20. In my memory he was a man acting on orders but coming away from this book he is pure evil and had he lived to see WWII he would no doubt have been up there with Goering along side Hitler. It's one thing to fire on a passenger liner believing it to be a possible troop ship but after watching it sink and seeing hundreds of men women and children fighting for their lives this evil asshole fires a torpedo on the ships coming to rescue those poor people causing them to scatter and run away and probably costing more lives. He was described as causing mischief and being ruthless but I'd call him evil plain and simple. You got your prize one of the biggest ships in the world now f- off back to Germany. Almost wish he'd been captured by the Brits and brought to justice. The bastard even sunk a ship carrying the body of a victim of the Lusitania. Hell is almost too good for him. As I said he would've been a top man in Hitler's government had he lived that long. So overall this was an okay book. More detailed oriented than people which as I said made it tough to hold my attention but I still enjoyed a refresher on this long ago disaster.

[Dana · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading Seven Days In May, I wanted to learn more about the Lusitania and picked this up. This was the ultimate book to learn absolutely everything about the passenger ocean liner that was sunk by a German U boat in 1915. It provided so much information about everyone associated with the ship, including builders, owners, sailors, and passengers. This was told in an engaging way that made this a compelling read.

I knew conspiracy theories exist about the sinking, and this author addressed them all. Some people believe the ship was permitted to sink so America would join the war, others believe the ship was intentionally sunk because it carried munitions or worse. Just like Titanic, this final crossing was the perfect storm of American bravado, misinformation, intentionally withholding information, and dereliction of duty. I don’t think it was appropriate for a passenger vessel to carry any item for military use, and believe the theory that the torpedo caused on explosion and the munitions a it’s caused the second.

I thought the author did a great job of describing many of the passengers and telling their tales of survival in a vivid way. There was just enough background to personalize these people while merging the experiences of several together. This was packed with details, and was obviously wry well researched. The fact that made the biggest impression on me was that the ship sunk in 18 minutes. Additionally, knowing that number of people who went down with the ship was nearly the same amount of those on Titanic really made me question whether the actual impact of more life boats or better trained crew on Titanic could have made a difference.

This was really interesting.

[Cynthia Nichols · Rating 3 out of 5]

Informative and ultimately heartbreaking of course. Interesting take on the international politics of the time. More of a guy's book, I think, as I had to skim numerous passages on the tactics and mechanics of submarine warfare. Worth it though for anyone remotely interested.