SM U-20 was a German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

 Type U 19 U-boat

U-boat

U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...

 built for service in the Kaiserliche Marine

Kaiserliche Marine

The Imperial German Navy was the German Navy created at the time of the formation of the German Empire. It existed between 1871 and 1919, growing out of the small Prussian Navy and Norddeutsche Bundesmarine, which primarily had the mission of coastal defense. Kaiser Wilhelm II greatly expanded...

. She was launched on 18 December 1912, and commissioned on 5 August 1913. During World War I, she took part in operations around the British Isles

British Isles

The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...

. The U-20 became infamous following her sinking of the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania

RMS Lusitania

RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner designed by Leonard Peskett and built by John Brown and Company of Clydebank, Scotland. The ship entered passenger service with the Cunard Line on 26 August 1907 and continued on the line's heavily-traveled passenger service between Liverpool, England and New...

 on 7 May 1915, an act that dramatically reshaped the course of World War I.

Career

On 7 May 1915, U-20 was patrolling off the southern coast of Ireland

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Walther Schwieger

Walther Schwieger

Lieutenant Walther Schwieger was a German U-boat commander during the First World War, noted for his role in the sinking of the Lusitania....

. Three months earlier, on 4 February, the Germans had established a U-boat blockade

Blockade

A blockade is an effort to cut off food, supplies, war material or communications from a particular area by force, either in part or totally. A blockade should not be confused with an embargo or sanctions, which are legal barriers to trade, and is distinct from a siege in that a blockade is usually...

 around the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 and had declared any vessel in it a legitimate target.

At about 1:40 pm Schwieger saw a vessel approaching through his periscope. From a distance of about 700 m Schwieger noted she had four funnels and two masts making her a liner of some sort. He recognised her as the Lusitania, a vessel in the British Fleet Reserve, and fired a single torpedo. It hit on the starboard side, almost directly below the bridge. Following the torpedo's explosion, the liner was shattered by a second explosion, possibly caused by coal dust, munitions in the hold, or a boiler explosion, so large Schwieger himself was surprised. Lusitania sank rapidly in 18 minutes with the loss of nearly 1,200 lives.

Fifteen minutes after he had fired his torpedo, Schwieger noted in his war diary

Diary

A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...

:

"It looks as if the ship will stay afloat only for a very short time. [I gave order to] dive to 25 metres and leave the area seawards. I couldn't have fired another torpedo into this mass of humans desperately trying to save themselves."

There was at the time and remains now a great controversy about the sinking, over whether Lusitania was smuggling contraband war material to England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 and over the number of torpedoes Schwieger fired.

Before he got back to the docks at Wilhelmshaven

Wilhelmshaven

Wilhelmshaven is a coastal town in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the western side of the Jade Bight, a bay of the North Sea.-History:...

 for refuelling and resupply, the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 had formally protested to Berlin against the brutality of his action.

Kaiser

Kaiser

Kaiser is the German title meaning "Emperor", with Kaiserin being the female equivalent, "Empress". Like the Russian Czar it is directly derived from the Latin Emperors' title of Caesar, which in turn is derived from the personal name of a branch of the gens Julia, to which Gaius Julius Caesar,...

 Wilhelm II

William II, German Emperor

Wilhelm II was the last German Emperor and King of Prussia, ruling the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia from 15 June 1888 to 9 November 1918. He was a grandson of the British Queen Victoria and related to many monarchs and princes of Europe...

 wrote in the margins of the American note, "Utterly impertinent", "outrageous", and "this is the most insolent thing in tone and bearing that I have had to read since the Japanese note last August." Nevertheless, to keep America out of the war, in June the Kaiser was compelled to rescind unrestricted submarine warfare

Unrestricted submarine warfare

Unrestricted submarine warfare is a type of naval warfare in which submarines sink merchantmen without warning, as opposed to attacks per prize rules...

 and require all passenger liners be left unmolested.
On 4 September 1915 Schwieger was back at sea with U-20, eighty-five miles off the Fastnet Rock

Fastnet Rock

Fastnet Rock is a small island in the Atlantic Ocean and the most southerly point of Ireland. It lies southwest of Cape Clear Island and from County Cork on the Irish mainland...

 in the south Irish Sea

Irish Sea

The Irish Sea separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is connected to the Celtic Sea in the south by St George's Channel, and to the Atlantic Ocean in the north by the North Channel. Anglesey is the largest island within the Irish Sea, followed by the Isle of Man...

. This rock held one of the key navigational markers in the western ocean, the Fastnet Lighthouse, and any ships passing in and out of the Irish Sea, would be within visual contact of it.

RMS Hesperian was now beginning a new run outward bound from Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 to Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

 and Montreal

Montreal

Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...

, with a general cargo, also doubling as a hospital ship

Hospital ship

A hospital ship is a ship designated for primary function as a floating medical treatment facility or hospital; most are operated by the military forces of various countries, as they are intended to be used in or near war zones....

, and carrying about 800 passengers. She was attacked off the Fastnet, a landmark islet in the north Atlantic, off the south-west coast of Ireland. The "History of the Great War: The Merchant Navy, Vol. II", by Hurd, reads:

"Only a few days before, Count Bernsdorff, the German Ambassador, had assured the United States government that passenger liners will not be sunk without warning and without ensuring the safety of the non combatants aboard providing that the liners do not try to escape or offer resistance."

This time, Schwieger was received with official disgust upon his return to Wilhelmshaven. Ordered to report to Berlin to explain himself, he was required to apologise for having sunk another passenger liner in defiance of a direct order not to do so again. He complained about his treatment in Berlin thereafter.

After his death in 1917, Schwieger was forgiven in Berlin. He received Germany's highest decoration, the Pour le Mérite

Pour le Mérite

The Pour le Mérite, known informally as the Blue Max , was the Kingdom of Prussia's highest military order for German soldiers until the end of World War I....

, having sunk by that time 190,000 tons of ships.

Fate

On 4 November 1916 U-20 grounded on the Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 coast around position 56°33′N 08°08′E at Vrist, a little north
of Thorsminde. Her crew destroyed her in an explosion the following day.

Gun

After the explosion, the Danish navy removed the deck gun and made it unserviceable by cutting holes
in vital parts. The gun was kept in the naval stores at Holmen in Copenhagen for almost 80 years. It is now on display at the Strandingsmuseum St. George Thorsminde.

Discovery

Novelist Clive Cussler

Clive Cussler

Clive Eric Cussler is an American adventure novelist and marine archaeologist. His thriller novels, many featuring the character Dirk Pitt, have reached The New York Times fiction best-seller list more than seventeen times...

 claims his National Underwater and Marine Agency

National Underwater and Marine Agency

The National Underwater and Marine Agency , originally an organization within the fiction of author Clive Cussler, is a private non-profit organization in the United States...

 (NUMA) located the remains of U-20 in 1984.

Original documents from Room 40

External links

• Royal Danish Naval Museum
• Photos of cruises of German submarine U-54 in 1916-1918. Great photo quality, comments in German.
• A 44 min. film from 1917 about a cruise of the German submarine U-35. A German propaganda film without dead or wounded; many details about submarine warfare in World War I.
• Uboat.net: More detailed information about U-20.
• Room 40: original documents, photos and maps about World War I German submarine warfare and British Room 40
  Room 40
  In the history of Cryptanalysis, Room 40 was the section in the Admiralty most identified with the British cryptoanalysis effort during the First World War.Room 40 was formed in October 1914, shortly after the start of the war...
  
   Intelligence from The National Archives, Kew, Richmond, UK.