Sinking of SS Arabic

In 1915, during World War I, the British passenger liner SS Arabic was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine. The attack heightened diplomatic tensions and public outrage that led to American entry into the war.

On 19 August 1915, a German submarine torpedoed without warning the British White Star passenger liner SS Arabic, with the deaths of two U.S. citizens. The attack occurred soon after an exchange of notes, following the similar torpedoing of the Lusitania, in which President Woodrow Wilson had insisted that the lives of non-combatants could not lawfully be put in jeopardy by the capture or destruction of unresisting merchantmen. The Arabic attack showed that Germany had not accepted the American position. After seeking to justify the attack on the ground that the Arabic was attempting to ram the submarine, the German government disavowed the act and offered indemnity.