“The Torpedoed ‘Lusitania’; Hundreds of Noncombatant Passengers, Women and Children, Assassinated By German Pirates.” Le Petit Journal, May 23, 1915.
It’s interesting to note how many of what we would consider the “big stories” of the day were relegated to the back cover of Le Petit Journal. The Titanic sinking, the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, and here, with the attack on the Lusitania. The reader is left to draw his or her own conclusions about whether this was done for propaganda purposes, or whether the journalists at the time simply thought them less significant events. In either case, it reminds me of something Warren Ellis wrote recently: “The future is what happens when you’re not looking.”
For what it’s worth, the front cover of this issue is a commemoration of the Garibaldi family on the 55th anniversary of an inconclusive battle fought in Sicily.
