The Lusitania was a warship on the list of English auxiliary cruisers and carried armament of twelve strongly mounted guns. She was more strongly mounted with guns than any German armored cruiser. As an auxiliary cruiser she must have been prepared for attack.
Count von Reventlow, the naval expert, says, in the Tages Zeitung:
The American Government probably will make the case the basis for diplomatic action, but it could have prevented the loss of American lives by appropriate instructions. It is the American Government's fault, therefore, if it did not take Germany's war zone declarations seriously enough.
The writer declares, further, that Germany had full and trustworthy information that the Lusitania carried a cargo of war material, as she had on previous trips.
The Lokal Anzeiger also assumes that the steamship was carrying munitions of war, and maintains that this and "the fact that she was a fully armed cruiser completely justifies her destruction under the laws of warfare."
The Kreuz Zeitung, after referring to the warning issued by Ambassador von Bernstorff, adds:
If citizens of neutral States were lost with the sunken ship they must bear the full blame.
Some papers further testify the sinking of the steamer because on a previous occasion she had resorted to the expedient of flying the American flag. Germania, the clerical organ, deprecates probable attempts by Germany's antagonists to make moral capital against her out of the sinking of the Lusitania and the loss of life. The paper says:
We can look forward to such efforts with a clear conscience, for we have proceeded correctly. We can only answer to those who place their sympathies above justice, that war is war.
An editorial article in the Frankfurter Zeitung was quoted in an Amsterdam dispatch to The London Times of May 10, as follows: