 only ocean-going ships, not cross-Channel traffic, was guarded.
Meanwhile the British navy deployed Q-ships, gunships disguised as merchant ships which lured U-boats to the surface then opened their gun hatches at the last moment. The first trial convoy ran from Gibraltar on 10/5/1917. The convoy system worked; of 26,604 vessels convoyed in 1917, only 147 were sunk. Meanwhile the Germans lost 65 of their 139 U-boats. Meanwhile Allied shipping blockaded German trade, creating shortages of tea and coffee, but more seriously, fertiliser shortages too. In the final German land offensive of 1918, advancing German troops discovered their privations were not being endured by the enemy, and German morale fell.
29/1/1917. Congress passed the Immigration Act (or, Asiatic Barred Zone Act), requiring all immigrants to know at least 30 words of English and banning all Asian migrants except Japanese. This followed on from the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, banning further immigration from China. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Act_of_1917 for further details.
10/1/1917, William ‘Buffalo Bill’ Cody died, aged 71. He was a pony express rider before the Civil War, in which he fought; after, he supplied meat to the workers of the Kansas Pacific Railroad, hence his name. As chief of scouts for the US military he fought in several battles against the Indians, which made him famous.
1916, The US introduced its first tax on inherited wealth, an ‘estate tax’.
14/12/1916, A referendum in Denmark agreed by 64.3% for to 35.7% against to agree to the sale of the Danish West Indies to the US, for the sum of US$ 25 million. These islands became the US Virgin Islands; they were of strategic importance to the US now that the Panama Canal had opened. The islands were formally handed over on 1/4/1917, just before the US declared war on Germany.
1/12/1916, The lights of the Statue of Liberty were turned on by President Wilson.
15/6/1916, In the US, the Democratic Convention nominated President Wilson as presidential candidate.
10/6/1916, In the US, the Republican Convention nominated Charles E Hughes as presidential candidate.
15/3/1916. The US mounted a punitive raid into Mexico in revenge for the raids of Pancho Villa into New Mexico on 9/3/1916.
28/9/1915. Ethel Greenglass Rosenberg was born (see 19/6/1953).
7/5/1915. The Lusitania, captained by William Thomas Turner, was torpedoed. 1,400 people drowned 8 miles off the Old Head of Kinsale, near Cork. 128 Americans were among the 1,208 casualties, including friends of President Woodrow Wilson and the millionaire yachtsman Alfred Vanderbilt, as the ship made its way back to Liverpool on a voyage from New York. America condemned the torpedoing of the ship by a German submarine as an act of piracy and this brought the USA into the War.
The 30,000 tonne Lusitania had sailed from New York on 1/5/1915. She carried 1,257 passengers, including 128 Americans; 702 crew; and an estimated 3 stowaways. Her cargo list, later a source of controversy, included small arms cartridges, uncharged shrapnel shells, cheese, furs, and, oddly, 205 barrels of oysters. The Germans later claimed the ‘oysters’ were actually heavy munitions whose explosion had doomed the ship. However there was no second explosion after the torpedo hit; there were no heavy munitions and rifle rounds burned harmlessly, like firecrackers, and did not explode.
Cunard had shut down the Lusitania’s fourth boiler room to save on coal but even at the reduced maximum speed of 21 knots it was reckoned she could outrun any German U-boat. Passengers ignored warnings from the German Embassy published in the New York Press not to cross the Atlantic under a belligerent flag, and the lifeboat drills on board were palpably inadequate. The Lusitania had plenty of lifeboats but most were unlaunchable because the ship listed heavily as water poured through lower deck portholes, opened for air despite orders to close them. She sank within 18 minutes of being hit.
The sinking of the Lusitania deepened American hostility towards Germany but President Wood