The Lusitania has been sent to the bottom. That is the announcement which must arouse measureless horror among many thousands.
A giant ship of the British merchant fleet, a vessel of over 31,000 tons, one of the most famous of the fast steamers of the British-American passenger service, a ship full of people, who had little or nothing to do with the war, has been attacked and sunk by a German torpedo. This is the announcement which in a few words indicates a mighty catastrophe to a ship with 2,000 people aboard.
We always feel that it is tragic and all too hard when war inflicts wounds on those who do not carry its weapons.
We lament similarly the fate of the unfortunate villages and towns where war rages and the innocent victims of bombs who, far behind the trenches, and often without our being able to estimate the meaning of this murder, are snatched from the ranks of the unarmed.
Much more terrible is the fate of those who on the high sea, many hundreds in number, suddenly see death before their eyes.
A German war vessel has sunk the ship. It has done its duty.
For the German Navy the sinking of the Lusitania means an extraordinary success. Its destruction demolished the last fable with which the people of England consoled themselves; on which hostile shipping relied when it dared to defy the German warnings.
We do not need to seek grounds to justify the destruction of a British ship. She belonged to the enemy and brought us harm. She has fallen to our shots.
The enemy and the whole world were warned that he who ventured to trust himself within her staked his life.
The London Daily Mail of May 16 quotes from Der Tag the following article by Herr von Rath, who is described as a favorite spokesman in the Wilhelmstrasse: