The German Spy in America / The Secret Plotting of German Spies in the United States and the Inside Story of the Sinking of the Lusitania

by John Price Jones

BERLIN GIVES WARNING

The German officials in Berlin looking ahead, sought to prearrange a palliative for their crime. Their plan, which in itself shows clearly how carefully the Germans plotted the destruction of the Lusitania, was to warn Americans not to sail on the vessel.

While the German Embassy in Washington was kept clear of the plot and Ambassador von Bernstorff had argued and fought with all his strength against the designs of the Berlin authorities, he, nevertheless, received orders to publish an advertisement warning neutrals not to sail on the Allies’ merchantmen. Acting under instructions, this advertisement was inserted in newspapers in a column adjoining the Cunard’s advertisement of the sailing of the Lusitania:

NOTICE!

Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her Allies and Great Britain and her Allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain or any of her Allies are liable to destruction in these waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her Allies, do so at their own risk.

Imperial German Embassy.

Washington, D.C., April 22nd, 1915.

Germans in New York, who had knowledge that German submarines were lying in wait off the Irish coast to “get” the Lusitania, sent intimations to friends before the sailing of the ship.

The New York Sun was told of the plot and warned Captain Turner by wireless after the ship sailed. The German secret service in New York also sent warnings to Americans booked on the Lusitania. One of the persons to receive such a message signed “morte” was Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt. Many other passengers got the same warning that the ship was to be torpedoed; but they all laughed at it. They knew she had outrun submarines on a previous voyage and tricked them on another voyage. Besides, before the horrors of this war, optimistic Americans firmly believed the world was a civilized place. It was only after the destruction of the Lusitania that many neutral Americans could credit the atrocity stories of Belgium.