Communication between New York and the German capital, ingenious, intricate and superbly arranged, was almost as easy as telephoning from the Battery to Harlem. Berlin was kept informed of every move in New York and, in fact, selected the ill-fated course for the Lusitania’s last voyage in English waters. Berlin picked out the place where the Lusitania was to sink.
Berlin chose the deep-sea graves for more than one hundred Americans. Berlin assigned two submarines to a point ten miles south by west off Old Head of Kinsale, near the entrance of St. George’s Channel. Berlin chose the commander of the U-boats for the most damnable sea-crime in history.
Just here there is a rumour among U-boat men in Europe that the man for the crime was sent from Kiel with sealed instructions not to be opened till at the spot chosen. With him went “a shadow” armed with a death warrant if the U-boat commander “baulked” at the last moment.
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.