Millions died on both sides in the interim.
Many recall the sinking of the Lusitania as the reason the United States entered the war, but that is not entirely true: an outraged but stubbornly neutral America did not declare war on Germany for another two years. The unprovoked sinking of a passenger liner full of civilians only upped the ante of total war. This was a clear violation of international law and norms, but although the Great War had only been in progress for some ten months, Imperial Germany had already demonstrated that it would not be bound by such constraints: German violation of Belgian neutrality accompanied by widespread civilian atrocities was followed by an unprecedented aerial bombing of cities using both zeppelins and airplanes, and then the deployment of poison gas. One hundred years ago - on without warning a German submarine deliberately targeted and torpedoed the massive British passenger liner Lusitania en route from New York to Liverpool, which went down in minutes with a loss of nearly 1200 lives, including 121 Americans.
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