The Sinking of the RMS Lusitania

Room 40, Naval Intelligence, and the Morality of War

The sinking of the Lusitania was the event that drew the United States into the First World War. Did the British Empire ignore knowledge of a German U-boat headed for the steam liner? Or did top British officials deliberately instruct the U-boat, using the Germans’ own encrypted communications, to target the passenger ship? Evidence suggests explosives aboard the Lusitania are what blew the hull open from the inside out.

I read a lot of books, and the one I just finished is titled Room 40: British Naval Intelligence 1914–1918 by Patrick Beesly. “Room 40″, also known as 40 Old Building, was the site where the British tried to crack German naval communication codes during the First World War. It was the predecessor of the now infamous Bletchley Park where Alan Turing would break the Enigma during WWII.