The sinking of the Lusitania
on May 7, 1915 by a German U-boat is an important chapter in The
Summer Before the Storm. Although she was a passenger liner with almost
2000 men, women, and children aboard, she was also carrying empty shell casings
and over 4 million rifle cartridges, unbeknownst to the public. The Germans
claimed that she was a legitimate military target, and had given people fair
warning.
The German embassy had placed a notice in American
newspapers stating “vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her
allies, are liable to destruction in those waters [adjacent to the British
Isles] and that travellers sailing in the war zone on the ships of Great
Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.”
Tragically, 1198 people died when the torpedoed ship sank off
the coast of Ireland in only 18 minutes. People worldwide were shocked and outraged, and
even a few German newspapers condemned this attack on civilians.
A few months later, a Munich sculptor, Karl Goetz, privately
created a commemorative medal of the sinking as a satirical statement, blaming the
Cunard line and the British government for allowing the Lusitania to sail into perilous waters.
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| British replica of the Goetz medal |
The medal attracted so much attention that the British head
of Propaganda decided to use it to keep stoking anti-German feeling. Replicas
were made by Selfridges, and profits from the sales of 250,000 medals were
given to the Red Cross.
I’m thrilled to have just received one of those replica medals,
thanks to the generosity of John Reynolds, a fan of my Muskoka Novels. It’s
exciting to hold something so old and, to me, significant.
Here is the document that came with it, which explains what’s
on both sides of the medal. The reverse side is pictured below.
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| Reverse side showing Death at the Cunard booking Office |
If you're interested in seeing the original medal in more detail, visit this website.
You can also sail aboard the doomed ship with some of my characters in The Summer Before the Storm.
