Lusitania’s passengers had not been informed of the development, and saloon passengers Howard Fisher and Dorothy Conner speculated that the submarine threats had caused Captain Turner to lose his nerve. Lusitania was originally scheduled to leave New York at 10 a.m., but the Admiralty’s requisition of the passenger ship Cameronia led to the transfer of the latter ship’s 41 passengers and crew to Lusitania, delaying the Cunarder’s departure from New York by 2 hours. Second cabin passengers Theodore and Belle Naish had heard of these telegrams, but Theodore told Belle that if the Germans truly were serious about destroying Lusitania, such telegrams would have been delivered to every single American passenger aboard. These telegrams were dismissed as cranks. He explained to the press that Lusitania was too fast for any submarine to catch her, and the talk of torpedoes had been “the greatest joke” that he had heard in many days.Īdditionally, a number of prominent passengers, such as saloon passenger Alfred Vanderbilt, received cryptic telegrams the morning of the sailing, warning them not to sail. The warning generated some excitement and some passengers did cancel, but the Cunard Company’s representative in New York City, Charles Sumner, and Lusitania’s captain, William Turner, dismissed the warning.

In a number of newspapers, this warning was printed next to an advertisement for Lusitania, leading to speculation that the Germans were intent on destroying Lusitania on this particular voyage. The German Embassy issued the above warning, but it did not appear in newspapers until 1 May, the date of Lusitania’s sailing.

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 the ships of Great Britain or her allies do so at their own risk.

The last crossing of the lusitania