Capt. William Thomas Turner
The Captain of Lusitania was equally scornful of passengers and the threat posed to them by German submarines. Turner preferred to eat his meals in his quarters rather share in the camaraderie of the dining room and his outright rejection of the possibility for German U-boats to bring down his ship is just one piece of a puzzle of hubris that doomed the vessel.
Arthur Conan Doyle
The creator of Sherlock Holmes makes a brief appearance through reference as one of the precious few Brits who actually has the prescience to realize that submarines were going to change naval warfare forever. Doyle even wrote a short story that featured a fictionalized country of no great power nearly bringing England to its knees with a fleet of less than ten submarines. Doyle and his fellow believers stand in contrast to the hubris of those thinking the British Empire was hardly going to be threatened by men stuffed into a capsule beneath the surface of the ocean.
Capt. Walther Schwieger
Standing in direct contrast to Capt. Turner is the German captain of Unterseeboot-20. Schwieger was the kind of guy who felt no compunction about sinking ships and allowing the crew aboard to die, but was strangely moved to rescue a puppy found floating in a box afterward.
Arthur Zimmerman
Germany’s foreign secretary comes into the story late and his part is small, but ultimately he is one of the most significant figures in history. It was the decoding a secret message sent to Zimmerman to the President of Mexico extending an offer to join with his country in an alliance that effectively transformed American sentiment about remaining neutral. With the threat of the war crossing the Atlantic to present a direct threat to American borders, Zimmerman had almost single-handedly turned the tide of the war against his own interests.
Winston Churchill
Before attaining legendary status as Prime Minister during World War II, Churchill served as the British equivalent of the Secretary of the Navy during World War I. The prestige of having risen to become First Lord of the Admiralty before the age of 40 is offset by Churchill’s placement as another example of the tragic hubris and the questions surrounding his complicity in allowing circumstances to inexorably lead toward the sinking of the Lusitania by Capt. Schwieger’s U-Boat.
