350 : The Atlantic 



innocent people including American citizens, was bound to protest, 

 but his other reaction was to deliver a speech in which he said that 

 it was possible for a nation to be too proud to fight. The American 

 people seem neither to have understood nor to have shared President 

 Wilson's views. The sinking o£ the Lusitania started a chain reaction 

 of hostility to Germany. Fanned by other sinkings and other trucu- 

 lent threats this served to prepare the American people for the accept- 

 ance of war. 



History may not repeat itself but it certainly provides some star- 

 tling parallels. World War II was also heralded by the ruthless and 

 spectacular sinking of a ship. It was in September, 1939, that Hitler's 

 outrages on the European continent reached such a point that war 

 was declared between England and Hitler's Germany. 



A day or so before this declaration the liner Athenia of the 

 Donaldson Line had departed from Scotland for the United States, 

 and at the time of declaration was on the high seas, carrying a ca- 

 pacity passenger list in all classes. Owing to the hostilities and the 

 generally disturbed situation in Europe, many sailings from the Brit- 

 ish Isles had been canceled and passengers transferred to other ves- 

 sels as in the case of the Athenia. Within a few hours of the declara- 

 tion of war, for no known reason, a violent explosion occurred amid- 

 ships in the engine room section of the Athenia as a result of which 

 many of the crew were injured or killed, the engines disabled and 

 the ship plunged into darkness. 



It was soon apparent that the sinking of the vessel was inevitable 

 and passengers and crew were ordered to take to the boats. This op- 

 eration was carried out with skill and with reasonable success despite 

 the sudden character of the disaster and the difficult situation of the 

 ship and the fact that the abandonment was carried out at nighttime. 

 Fortunately several vessels were within call of the Athenia and were 

 able to participate in rescue operations; these included a small 

 freighter, a large Swedish private yacht and a tanker, the City of 

 Flint. Survivors were landed in Ireland, in Halifax and other ports. 

 The sinking of the Athenia resulted in the loss of several hundred 

 lives, including a large number of American citizens. 



There was no inherent reason for the sudden explosion on the 

 Athenia and to most observers it seemed at once reasonable to con- 

 clude that the most likely explanation of her loss was that she was a 

 victim of a renewal of ruthless German submarine warfare. How- 

 ever, the Hitler propagandists got to work and immediately flooded 

 the presses of Europe with stories that were repeated in the United 



