For evaluations of pace and narrative integrity—whether the book worked or not—I relied on my trusted cadre of advance readers, my great friends Carrie Dolan and Penny Simon, my friend and agent David Black, and my secret weapon, my wife, Christine Gleason, whose margin notations—smiley faces, tear-streamed eyes, down arrows, and long rows of zzzzzs—as always provided excellent markers as to where I went wrong and what I did right. My editor at Crown Publishing, Amanda Cook, wrote me an elevenpage letter that provided a brilliant road map to tweaking the narrative. She proved a master at the art of offering praise, while at the same time shoving tiny knives under each of my fingernails, propelling me into a month of narrative renovation that was probably the most intense writing experience of my life. Thanks as well to copy editor Elisabeth Magnus for saving me from having one character engage in the decidedly dangerous practice of dressing with “flare,” and from having passengers go “clamoring” aboard. I must of course thank the three Superheroes—my term—of Crown, Maya Mavjee, Molly Stern, and David Drake, who I confess are far more adept at managing martinis than I. Thanks also to Chris Brand and Darren Haggar for a truly excellent cover. And finally cheers to the real heroes, Emma Berry and Sarah Smith.
In the course of my research, I sought whenever possible to rely on archival materials, but I did find certain secondary works to be of particular value: Arthur S. Link’s monumental multivolume biography of Woodrow Wilson, titled, well, Wilson—the most valuable volume being, for me, The Struggle for Neutrality, 1914–1915; A. Scott Berg’s more recent Wilson; John Keegan’s wrenching The First World War; Martin Gilbert’s The First World War; Gerhard Ritter’s The Schlieffen Plan; Lowell Thomas’s 1928 book about World War I U-boats and their crews, Raiders of the Deep; Reinhard Scheer’s Germany’s High Sea Fleet in the World War; Churchill’s The World Crisis, 1911–1918; Paul Kennedy’s The War Plans of the Great Powers, 1880–1914; and R. H. Gibson and Maurice Prendergast’s primer, The German Submarine War, 1914–1918.
I especially enjoyed the many works of intimate history—memoirs, autobiographies, diaries—that I came across along the way, though these of course must be treated with special care, owing to fading memories and covert agendas. Their greatest value lies in the little details they offer about life as once lived. These works include Starling of the White House, by one of Wilson’s Secret Service men, Edmund W. Starling (“as told to” Thomas Sugrue), who took me aboard Wilson’s honeymoon train; Woodrow Wilson: An Intimate Memoir, by Wilson’s physician, Cary T. Grayson; My Memoir, by Edith Bolling Wilson; Commodore, by James Bisset; Voyage of the Deutschland, by Paul Koenig; The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner, by Georg-Gunther Freiherr von Forstner; The Lusitania’s Last Voyage, by Charles E. Lauriat Jr.; This Was My World, by Margaret Mackworth (Viscountess Rhondda); and When the Ships Came In, by Jack Lawrence. Another such intimate work, valuable for grounding me in British high society before the war, was Lantern Slides: The Diaries and Letters of Violet Bonham Carter, 1904–1914, edited by Mark Bonham Carter and Mark Pottle, which I found utterly charming. I confess to having fallen a little in love with Violet, the daughter of British prime minister Herbert Henry Asquith.
THE FOLLOWING LIST of citations is by no means exhaustive: to cite every fact would require a companion volume and would be tedious in the extreme. I cite all quoted material and anything else that for one reason or another requires noting or amplification or that might cause a Lusitania buff to burn a lifeboat on my lawn. Throughout I have included small stories that I could not fit into the main narrative but that struck me as worth telling all the same for the oblique insights they offer but also for the best reason of all: just because.
NOTES
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN NOTES
Foreign Relations
U.S. Department of State, Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States. 1915, Supplement, The World War, University of Wisconsin Digital Collections, http://digital.?library.?wisc.?edu/?1711.?dl/?FRUS.?FRUS1915Supp.
“Investigation”
“Investigation into the Loss of the Steamship ‘Lusitania,’ ” Proceedings Before the Right Hon. Lord Mersey, Wreck Commissioner of the United Kingdom, June 15–July 1, 1915, National Archives UK.
Lauriat, Claim
Charles E. Lauriat Jr., Claim, Lauriat vs. Germany, Docket 40, Mixed Claims Commission: United States and Germany, Aug. 10, 1922. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, MD.
Merseyside
Maritime Archives, Merseyside Maritime Museum.
Schwieger, War Log
Walther Schwieger, War Log. Bailey/Ryan Collection, Hoover Institution Archives, Stanford University, Stanford, CA.
U.S. National Archives–College Park
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration at College Park, MD.
U.S. National Archives–New York
U.S. National Archives and Records Administration at New York City.
A WORD FROM THE CAPTAIN
1 “vessels flying the flag”: See New York Times, May 1, 1915. An article about the warning appears on p. 3, the ad itself on p. 19.
2 “thinking, dreaming, sleeping”: Liverpool Weekly Mercury, May 15, 1915.
3 He assured the audience: Preston, Lusitania, 172.
4 “The truth is”: Bailey and Ryan, Lusitania Disaster, 82.
5 on two previous occasions: Ibid., 65; Beesly, Room 40, 93; Ramsay, Lusitania, 50, 51.
6 “You could see the shape”: Testimony, Thomas M. Taylor, Petition of the Cunard Steamship Company, April 15, 1918, U.S. National Archives–New York, 913.
PART I: “BLOODY MONKEYS”
LUSITANIA: THE OLD SAILORMAN
1 Despite the war in Europe: “General Analysis of Passengers and Crew,” R.M.S. Lusitania: Record of Passengers & Crew, SAS/29/6/18, Merseyside.
2 This was … the greatest number: New York Times, May 2, 1915.
3 During an early trial voyage: Cunard Daily Bulletin, July 19, 1907, Merseyside.
4 “a vote of censure”: Ibid.
5 “for I calculate that there is room”: Ibid.
6 “Please deliver me”: Ibid.