The freighter Vigilancia sinks off the coast of Cornwall

It is a truth universally acknowledged that the attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor triggered the United States’ entry into the Second World War. It is a truth almost as universally acknowledged that the event that caused the US to make its equally belated appearance in the First World War was the sinking of the RMS Lusitania. The Cunard liner was torpedoed by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland, causing the death of nearly 1,200 passengers and crew. If evidence of the influence of this atrocity were required, one need only point to the famous American recruitment poster of the time, which bore the legend ‘REMEMBER THE LUSITANIA,’ and ended with the stern injunction: ‘It is your duty to take up the sword of justice to avenge this devil’s work. ENLIST TO-DAY.’

However, while America declared war against Japan the day after the pummelling of Pearl Harbor, a cursory glance at the date on which the Lusitania was sunk – 7 May 1915 – and the date the US declared war on Germany – 6 April 1917 – gives pause for thought. The sinking of the Lusitania certainly caused uproar and revulsion in the United States, particularly when it emerged that 128 Americans had lost their lives, but it clearly did not propel the nation into the Great War.

Rather it was a much smaller and now all-but-forgotten tragedy 150 miles off the coast of Cornwall that pushed the US into siding with Britain and her Allies. On the morning of 16 March 1917, a US-registered freighter called the Vigilancia, carrying goods from New York to Le Havre, was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine. Fifteen mariners lost their lives. Unlike the outrage perpetrated in 1915 on the Lusitania (and several other American vessels) by Germany, the sinking of the Vigilancia was deemed an act of war and President Woodrow Wilson acted accordingly.

Oberleutnant Otto Wünsche, commander of the German submarine U-70, was patrolling the Atlantic that Friday morning in search of enemy shipping. Roughly six weeks beforehand, the orders he received regarding the rules of engagement had changed. In the aftermath of the sinking of the Lusitania and another liner called the Arabic, the imperial German government had come to an accommodation with the United States that restricted the activities of German submarines with regard to American shipping. However, from 1 February 1917, Germany announced a radical change from that policy. It ordered its submarines to attack and destroy, without warning, every vessel in the ‘war zone’ that it had declared around both Britain and France, and in the Mediterranean.

In response, President Wilson broke off relations with Germany two days later but stated that he would take no stronger measures unless American shipping was attacked. That same day, the submarine U-53 sank the American-owned merchant ship Housatonic (by a grim twist of fate, the same name as the first ever ship to have been sunk by a submarine – in 1864 during the American Civil War). The U-boat commander involved, Leutnant Hans Rose, was famous for his chivalry, and had not only allowed the crew to disembark before he torpedoed their ship but had towed their lifeboats towards land and drawn the attention of a British naval patrol boat to their plight before heading off. No lives were lost. Given these circumstances, it was difficult to categorise the attack as an act of war, particularly as the Housatonic was carrying grain to Germany’s enemy, Britain.

Two other American-owned vessels, the Lyman M. Law and the Algonquin, were subsequently attacked by German submarines, but again their crews had been allowed to board lifeboats before their ships were sunk and there was no loss of life. An intercepted telegram from the German foreign minister to the German ambassador in the US – the so-called Zimmermann Note – was not interpreted as an act of war either, even though it revealed German plans to help Mexico regain Texas, Arizona and New Mexico from the United States (all of which had been lost in the Mexican American War of 1846–48).

It took the actions of Oberleutnant Wünsche to push the United States over the edge and into war. It was cold that morning in the Atlantic and the Vigilancia was making heavy weather of it in rough seas when she came to the attention of U-boat U-70. The first that Captain Frank A. Middleton and the crew of the 4,000-tonne merchantman knew of the submarine’s presence was when a lookout reported an unmistakable straight slash cutting through the water – the trace of a torpedo. It missed the ship, passing aft of her. However, 60 seconds later a second torpedo struck the Vigilancia amidships, holing her below the waterline.

Four lifeboats were lowered, into which the entire crew of 45 threw themselves. Unfortunately, two boats capsized almost immediately. The members of the other two saved most of those from the nearer of the stricken lifeboats – including the captain. From the further boat, only Assistant Engineer Walter Scott managed the exhausting mile-long swim through heaving seas to safety. In all, 15 men drowned. Nine came from Spain, South America and Greece, while the remaining six were Americans, the first ever to die since the US-German accord following the sinkings of the Lusitania and Arabic.

The 30 survivors rowed and sailed 150 miles east over the next two days. For some of the first night they were followed by a submarine. This was probably U-70 lying in wait to attack whatever ship came to the rescue. As it was, both lifeboats eventually made it to Cornwall unaided on Sunday, 18 March. All on board were alive but, understandably, were suffering badly from the effects of their ordeal. The news of the sinking reached the United States the following day.

Two other American-registered ships, the freighter City of Memphis and the tanker Illinois, were sunk on 17 and 18 March, respectively. However, in their cases there was no loss of life, so although these sinkings added to an emerging picture of German aggression against America in the Atlantic, neither would have proved a casus belli – an act justifying a declaration of war.

The Vigilancia, with its six American casualties, was a different matter altogether. Wilson hastily called a cabinet meeting for 20 March, and although the deaths of those on the merchant ship were not mentioned specifically, it was telling that those members who had been straining to keep the US out of the war now conceded with heavy hearts that such a course was not only inevitable but necessary for the nation’s self-defence. The following day the president convened Congress for 2 April, the earliest practicable date.

Prior to the vote, news of three further losses of American ships had reached Congress. One was to a mine, another was thought to have been caused by a mine (only much later was it correctly attributed to a U-boat), and the third, a freighter called the Missourian, had not resulted in any deaths.

In his address to Congress, Wilson couched his appeal for a declaration of war on Germany in broad idealistic terms, citing the defence of moral principles and the right of neutral nations to resist autocratic states. However, early on in his speech he also alluded to the events that had led him to the conclusion that a declaration of war was justified. These included the lives lost on the Vigilancia – at the time, the only known American casualties:

American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how we will meet it.

There followed four days of debates before a vote was taken on 6 June 1917. The resolution to declare war was carried, though eight senators and fifty congressmen voted against it.

America’s entry into the Great War tipped the scales in favour of the Allies. The latter emerged victorious – if such a word can properly be used in relation to so ghastly and needless a conflict – the following year. However, President Wilson had brought his nation into the conflagration only with the greatest reluctance, fearing that the war would change the face of his nation regardless of the outcome. On the eve of the declaration, he told Frank I. Cobb, editor of the New York World and close confidant, ‘Once lead this people into war and they’ll forget there ever was such a thing as tolerance. To fight you must be brutal and ruthless, and the spirit of ruthless brutality will enter into the very fiber of our national life.’

He had a point. Although far from being a peace-loving nation in the 141 years of its existence up to 1917, the United States has taken military action against more than fifty countries since heading into World War I. Furthermore, from 1950 onwards, barely a year has gone by in which the superpower hasn’t been bombing someone somewhere. Perhaps the new-found American enthusiasm for building walls instead is actually a step forward.