Reply #23: true...and most informed people were aware of the lusitania case....

[pretzel4gore]

if you read colin simpson's 'lusitania' he explains the sequence of events better then i've attempted to...certainly schoolkids weren't taught that the US entered the war because of mexico...the fact remains that the king of england knew that churchill, who was sea lord or whatever, had intentionally put lusitania into situation where it was amost certainly doomed......the US entered the war in 1917 and it was the lusitania case (about 100 americans died on her) that provoked rage in the american people, rage that was result of careful promotion by the newspapers of the day...btw the main player on the american side, pro britain, was robert lansing, uncle of john foster and allen dulles. Simpson writes, on page 184 'However, lansing had his political ear closer to the ground then the others, and knew that armed intervention by the US would never be carried through congress. He counselled an immediate break in diplomatic relations with Germany, but suggested that the US be confined to the role of supplier (etc) until the opportune moment, which he saw as shortly after the presidential election of 1916. Until then, he reasoned, America must keep her quarrels with Germany defused until a suitably emotive moment.'
And it was the emotion of the lusitania sinking that was evoked in 1917 to get the american people to support the US entry into the war....