Excerpt from The Tragedy of the Lusitania: Embracing Authentic Stories by the Survivors and Eye-Witnesses of the Disaster, Including Atrocities on Land and Sea, in the Air, Etc To All human beings of normal mentality it must have seemed that the destruction of the Lusitania marked the apex of horror. There is, indeed nothing in modern history - nothing, at least, since the Black Hole of Calcutta, and some of the indescribable atrocities of Kurdish fanatics - to supply the mind with a vantage ground from which to measure the causeless and profitless savagery of this black deed of murder. It is to be conceded that during war stern measures are justified against an enemy's forces; that this ship, carrying contraband, was subject to capture, and, in certain contingencies, to destruction. Yet the facts remain untouched in all their diabolical barbarity - that an unarmed vessel laden with nearly 2,000 noncombatants was attacked without an instant's warning; that not even a minute's grace was allowed for the removal of the passengers or crew; that the murderous thrust was given with full knowledge that it meant the slaughter of hundreds of women and children, and that this butchery was the deliberately planned act of a government which but recently was accepted as an exemplar of national sanity and humane civilization. The world was soon to learn, however, that the premeditated act did not sound the depths of soulless ferocity of which the dehumanized mind of man is capable. There has been manifested something more revolting than the sickening murder of 1,150 helpless men and women and children, and that is the frightful chorus of jubilation which burst from German throats to greet the news of massacre. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.