I was watching the PBS: American Experience documentary about WW1, and it was claimed that the British knew the ship Lusitania (containing hundreds of American and thousands of British passengers) was headed in the path of a German U-boat, but deliberately chose not to warn it or supply it with a destroyer escort in the hopes it would be fired upon, which would outrage the neutral Americans. This is exactly what happened; thousands of civilians - men, women, and children - died after the ship was struck by a German torpedo, sinking it within 18 minutes, and this did outrage Woodrow Wilson and other Americans, escalating tensions with the Germans that ultimately led to US entry into the war.
However, if the British did indeed allow the attack to occur, that would raise serious ethical concerns. Even more disturbing is the idea that the British deliberately put the ship (and others) in harm's way, as alleged by historian Patrick Beesly according to Wikipedia:
"Unless and until fresh information comes to light, I am reluctantly driven to the conclusion that there was a conspiracy deliberately to put the Lusitania at risk in the hope that even an abortive attack on her would bring the United States into the war. Such a conspiracy could not have been put into effect without Winston Churchill's express permission and approval."
Beesly apparently bases this claim in large part on the fact that Churchill wrote a week before the attack that it is "most important to attract neutral shipping to our shores, in the hope especially of embroiling the United States with Germany."
Now, it is true that the Lusitania was not a "neutral" ship, being a prestigious British liner. And it is perhaps arguable that Churchill did not intend for lives to be lost on the scale they were, only for Americans to witness the terrors of German submarine warfare. But it is also true that the Lusitania was smuggling armaments for the British, thereby arguably making it a legitimate military target and perhaps causing the unusually quick and devastating destruction of the ship.
It would seem then that if this theory is true, the British were negligent at best, war criminals at worst. That would drastically alter my perceptions of American involvement in the First World War, as well as my view of Winston Churchill. What I would like to know is if there is in fact any strong evidence that this conspiracy occurred, and if so to what degree: Did the British actually know the Lusitania was in immediate harm and did nothing, did they deliberately intend to put it in harm's way, or were they merely careless about protecting the ship?
No serious evidence has ever emerged that the sinking of Lusitania was ever anything more than a tragic coming together of circumstances.
Several factors contributed to the attack from the RN's poor ASW practices in the early war, poor distribution of intelligence, and even just bad luck on the part of Captain Turner in response to messages about U-Boat sightings.
The Royal Navy was simply not very good at combating subs in any capacity for the first 3 years of war. There were never enough escorts for all the needs, and those available were often hoarded by the Grand Fleet, leading to older less capable designs to the other Squadrons tasked with fighting the sub menace. And half the British effort was simply laying mines and nets across from Dover. The RN was forced even to provide escorts to their own larger ships, Jellicoe was always worried about protection for his battleline and famously 3 old cruisers of the Cressy class were lost in a single afternoon in September 1914.
And while Room 40 was already providing good intel to the British war effort, it was still tightly controlled, and an often inexact or non realtime source. And it was not often treated seriously or on good terms with the Admiralty. Famously passing along that the Commander of the High Seas Fleet was in port, because the officer asked the location of his in port call sign without realizing it. While the HSF was steaming on its way to meet the British at Jutland, nobody just liked him enough to correct or see if that's what he really meant, so the info that Scheer was in port was sent to Jellicoe.
While warnings were sent to merchant vessels in the Western Approaches and Irish Sea, which Captain Turner received and acted on. It just took him into the sites of U-20. Policy was to stay away well away from shore, but the latest sighting reports placed subs 20 miles from shore well into shipping lanes, so his decision to come closer to shore was based on that thought, it just turned out that U-20 wasn't where she was reported. Sighting reports especially from civilians or merchant marines could be terribly inaccurate, but the warnings of an immediate sub threat was passed on and acted on.
There is also the matter that Churchill was rather distracted in April and May of 1915 and it is hard to imagine his having time to organize or manage such a conspiracy. The first half had seen his baby, the plan to force the Dardanelles and knock the Ottomans out of the war stagnated. Repeated attempts to use warships only had failed and landings had continued to grow in scale. With the landings occurring in the last week of April they had quickly stagnated and turned to the bloody stalemate until evacuated nearly 10 months later. By the end of May Churchill was out at the Admiralty and Asquith's govt had been forced into a Coalition which would fall within a year, and a major point was Churchill's losing his post. This focus of his attention, along with his crumbling relationship with Jackie Fisher also greatly taxed his ability to focus on all the needs of the RN.
Finally if there was some deeply held scheme to get America into the war, it was poorly managed after the attack. As it would be 2 more years and several million dead across the Empire before the US actually joined the war.