ShmoopTube

00:04

Ok Lusitania it's time for your close-up we know your

00:08

destruction was a big part of why America dove into World War one how [Lusitania appears]

00:12

exactly did it all go down well Germany wasn't super thrilled that

00:15

supposedly neutral America kept on trying to help out the British America [US and British flags shaking hands]

00:20

batted its eyes innocently claiming they were just selling Britain the regular

00:24

old innocent things they'd always sold Britain you know teddy bears and [Woman stood beside Tower Bridge]

00:28

cupcakes and the machine guns and stuff like that

00:31

well Germany however was not convinced and kept on blowing up American trade

00:35

ships headed for the British Isles this didn't go over too well with the

00:38

American people they were totally on board with President Woodrow Wilson's

00:42

plan for neutrality in World War one but the idea of Germans blowing up innocent

00:46

trading ships and got their goat and nobody messes with America's goat in

00:51

February 1915 Germany finally got sick and tired of America's shady trading and [Germany flag angry over British land]

00:56

declared unrestricted submarine warfare on all ships in the waters near Britain

00:59

this meant that no matter who you were if you sailed near Britain the Germans [German canon blows up ships]

01:03

were going to blow you up well this again seemed incredibly unfair

01:07

to Americans they were like hey Germany don't you know what neutral mean

01:11

meanwhile Germany was like yah phenol but perhaps you don't know well American

01:18

ships were warned not to sail near Britain or if they did to at least use a

01:21

very sophisticated defensive strategy of sailing around in zigzags to confuse the

01:26

German u-boats but in May 1915 the captain of the ship called the Lusitania [Lusitania ship appears]

01:33

decided to ignore this advice and sail straight to Britain any guesses as to

01:38

what happened yep the ship was hit by a torpedo and sunk within 20 minutes

01:42

killing 120 Americans and nearly a thousand others interestingly when the

01:47

Lusitania was hit there were two explosions the first was a torpedo [Torpedo explodes on lusitania ship]

01:51

hitting the boat and the second was yet the hundred seventy-three tons of war

01:57

munitions the boat had been carrying to Britain hmm looks like those innocent

02:01

teddy bears and cupcakes were wroth full of something a little less than flour [Teddy bear and cup cakes floating in the ocean]

02:05

regardless of the fact that they were discovered transporting munitions

02:09

Americans were outraged that Germany had killed innocent

02:12

Germany actually apologized even going so far as to end their policy of [Germany flag with an apology cake]

02:16

unrestricted submarine warfare of course they promptly broke that from

02:19

a six months later when they bombed an Italian boat killing two hundred seventy

02:22

people including 25 Americans yep guess they had their fingers crossed on that [Man with fingers crossed behind his back]

02:26

promise anyway in January 1917 Germany Rida glared unrestricted submarine

02:30

warfare and within days torpedoed another American ship called the

02:34

Housatonic just about two months later America officially declared war on [Judge bangs gavel]

02:38

Germany in total it took America almost two years after the sinking of the

02:42

Lusitania to officially enter world war one but it was the Lusitania that

02:47

finally turned American public opinion against Germany think of the Lusitania

02:50

as a social game changer rather than a political one in the political climate

02:55

at the time the attack wasn't quite terrible enough to declare war but for

02:59

the first time it put the majority of Americans in a fighting mood soon German [American people expressing want for war]

03:03

was a bad word in America and suddenly dog owners everywhere own freedom

03:08

Shepherds instead of you know the German ones

Full Transcript