On April 30th 1915, the Lusitania was at New York, being loaded with meat, medical supplies, copper, cheese, oil and machinery, but she was also secretly being loaded with munitions for Britain for the war. That same day, Kapitänleutnant Walter Schwieger was ordered to take his U-boat-20 German submarine to the northern tip of Great Britain, then back down south on the Atlantic side and then east to the Irish Channel to destroy ships going to and from Liverpool, England.
Then he was to go around Ireland and head back to Germany. Schwieger was known to frequently attack ships without warning them, and fired at any neutral ships he suspected may be British. In an earlier voyage, he narrowly missed hitting a hospital ship with a torpedo. His reputation made it more likely for him to destroy a British passenger liner, such as the Lusitania.
Beside the CUNARD advertisement was a notice:
NOTICE!
Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her allies and Great Britain and her allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain, or any of her allies, are liable to destruction in those waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.
IMPERIAL GERMAN EMBASSY WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 22, 1915.
This notice was thought by most of the passengers as an idle threat.
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